With a Bird's Eye

Flying beyond the Polar Circle

2009-07-23T19:33:00.004+02:00

Some photos from our recent flying trip to the Lofoten islands:

Boycott the Beijing Olympic Games!

2008-08-01T21:56:00.006+02:00

The famed Hamburg crosswind landing of LH044 on March 1st 2008

2008-05-23T17:05:00.003+02:00

As the above event was widely discussed in German and other media, in their usual completely inaccurate fashion, here a link to the official preliminary report by the BFU (the relevant investigative body in Germany, comparable to the American NTSB's aviation branch) - for those who are interested in the true facts and who are as sick as I am of the BILD Zeitung, SPIEGEL and other mass media pumping up an event like this. I will post a link to the final report when it is published.

(The report starts on page 8 of the PDF, it is in German)

Schauma

2008-05-23T17:01:00.002+02:00

Ever wondered about the foam that's forming on the beaches in spring/summer?

Seems to be mainly caused by an algae by the Latin name "Phaeocystis" (in German: "Schleimkugelalge", which translates nicely into "Slime Ball Algae" :-)).

Here's some more background. And here's an interesting article in SPIEGEL online regarding this spring's high concentration in the North Sea, supplemented with a fascinating satellite picture (in German).

Just an advertisement...

2007-10-15T20:54:00.000+02:00

...for a review about a Flight Sim Add-On for Brussels Aiport I recently wrote on simflight.de ;-)

Karaoke Capitalism and Funky Business...

2007-10-15T20:28:00.000+02:00

Don't know about you guys, but so far a certain Prof. Kjell Nordström had evaded me. Now I heard one of his talks ("How to enjoy capitalism") and he really captivated me. Both with his presentation style and the way he wove together seemling trivial tidbits of information to a captivating storyline...

Seems he co-authored at least two books:
Funky Business and Karaoke Capitalism...gotta run and grab these, I think.

Here's an interesting article which characterises him quite well, I think (in German).

M3 Challenge

2007-09-28T11:07:00.000+02:00

If you are a BMW junkie like myself, you are bound to like the M3 Challenge, a free racing game released by BMW as a promo for their current M3. It is in up-to-date quality, featuring the complete Nürburgring plus online multiplayer challenges.

HandyTicket rocks!

2007-09-28T09:09:00.000+02:00

Just have to share my excitement about the new HandyTicket for public transport currently being tried out by Hamburg's HVV. It allows you to purchase public transport tickets via your mobile which are later charged to your credit card or bank account.

Have been using it for several days now and it works like a charm. No more fiddling with small change or grumpy bus drivers who can't change on a 20 Euro note, thereafter flooring the pedal, sending you flying down the bus aisle all the while holding on to the contents of your wallet and your newly purchased ticket. I love it!

Just curious how the first encounter with a ticket control will look like. "Handy Ticket? Nice try!" is a likely scenario. We will see :-)

Open Source OLAP...

2007-09-27T15:03:00.000+02:00

...seems to be gaining momentum.

So far, I was only aware of Eclipse BIRT. Here are some more impressive projects:

Pentaho (with the Mondrian OLAP server and the ETL tool Kettle)

JPivot

Jaspersoft

Jedox

While these tools may not yet have an edge over their commercial pendants in regard to a TCO perspective, they certainly show that competition in the already highly competitve OLAP market is increasing.

Re-booting a loo

2007-08-20T22:05:00.000+02:00

A little quiz for you: picture yourself as pilot-in-command of an Airbus A340, sitting at the gate at the airport. One of your cabin personnel comes to you to report that the loos are not flushing. What do you do?

The answer: You "re-boot" the entire aircraft! This is exactly what happened to us today on a flight from Munich to Johannesburg. The captain came on the P/A to announce that he had to shut down and restart the entire aircraft for just that reason! Sure enough, the lights went dark (except the emergency lighting). Only that the toilets still wouldn't flush (to be precise, they just didn't "rinse", but the part that...uhm...takes care of getting out the load did actually work; so for the remainder of the flight, everyone was asked to add some water by using a cup...).

Now you know ;-)

The Ladybird

2007-08-06T10:34:00.000+02:00

Tried a nice South African red wine by Laibach the other day: "The Ladybird Organic". Funny name, though. Sounds like some biological experiment :-)

Some cool movies of late

2007-08-06T10:02:00.000+02:00

Going back and forth between Germany and South Africa on business trips in the last half-year, I of course took advantage of the excellent inflight entertainment system on SAA's A340-600 aircraft...

So I ran into a few movies I might not have seen otherwise that really stood out. Ok, my enthusiasm for some of them might have been helped a little by the lovely red wine they kept serving. Certainly seems to help to push both the positive sentiments (you could have seen me giggling) and the sad ones (you could have seen me weeping)...
Anyway, here's my last half-year's favorites, in the order I saw them:

The Holiday (cute one, sometimes quite hilarious, sometimes a bit touching, overall good entertainment)

Blood Diamond (a tough story, not for the faint of heart, makes one curious about what really happened; Leonardo diCaprio sporting a fun South African accent!)

Stranger Than Fiction (funny, clever, some innovative elements; Emma Thompson rather convincing)

Music and Lyrics (just plain fun if you liked early 80s pop...especially the music video at the beginning; stay for the credits, some fun stuff in there)

The Constant Gardener (altough based on a John le Carré novel, another one that makes one want to learn more about the cruelties committed on Africa; Fiennes' accent still a favorite)

Paris je t'aime (what I can I say...one of the best movies I have seen in a long time...probably the best about "love" as a theme I have ever seen; after each wonderful episode one thinks "nothing so clever and wonderful could still follow", yet the movie keeps delivering!)

From the Series "Great Austrian Words"

2006-03-24T10:10:00.000+01:00

Found a great new Austrian word, I am sure all speakers of the German language will appreciate: "Lokalaugenschein"

E.g. a quote from the Salzburger Nachrichten: "Wie ein Lokalaugenschein ergab, saßen nur wenige Passagiere fest."

:-)

It's high up there with my favorite Austrian phrase "das geht sich aus" (~= "it's gonna work out").

Zuverlässigkeitsüberprüfung - Of Dangerous Planes and Harmless White Lorries

2006-03-21T15:53:00.000+01:00

If you are non-German speaking, you will probably wonder what the title of this post means. It does sound a bit like "Fahrvergnügen", plus its got the fabled "über" word in it. Yet it does not carry any positive connotation that would put it into a category with these words.

It is used to describe the process of German authorities checking up on the background of personnel in what they consider "security sensitive areas" - most notably in aviation. In that process an incredible number of authorities (I believe eight or nine of them) check any tidbit of information they carry about you. The authorities in question include the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, German intelligence service) and the Militärische Abschirmdienst (MAD, German military intelligence service).

You think that's a bit scary? Ask me how I feel after having been "züpped", as being strip-searched like this is being called among German pilots these days.

This check is not only done for personnel in professional aviation - no, the majority of the checked upon are private pilots! Best of all: we have to pay for this non-sense by ourselves!

Looking at the motivation for all this, it is easily obvious that the politicians were looking at something they could do to lessen "Mr. Everyman's" scare about events like September 11...and bingo!, who would be an easier target than the minority of sport pilots. Factor into the equation that especially left-wing politicians are on a constant lookout for ways to make private flying less possible - all the while happily riding back and forth to their haciendas by plane - often even by business jet (compare Comrade Lafontaine, but that's another story).

An excellent report made by the TV magazine "Frontal 21" can be found here. The transcript is here.

Cool new Google Service

2006-03-21T11:28:00.000+01:00

Just found out about Google Finance...as usual they go one step beyond the competition.

Enter a stock name or ticker symbol and see the impact of ad-hoc messages on the stock price - kind of interesting...

Also check out the links to other resources at the bottom, with the current stock being fed in. Quite neat: Google Finance will remember the last stocks viewed...ok, just another cookie 8-)

Wow, so now I got a blog!

2006-03-21T11:13:00.000+01:00

Didn't think this was so easy to achieve...

So from now on I can actually post those weird thoughts of mine to the entire world. Oh dear :-)

The idea for this blog is to give it a focus on my very own flying adventures, as well as aviation and flight simulation in general. I will tag these posts accordingly.

Other stuff that crosses my mind may appear...tagged accordingly as well. So hopefully you can eventually use these tags as filters for the stuff that interests you.

One last word about the dates for my posts: I am planning to post some "historic" flying adventures of mine, going back until the very beginning of my "flying career". I will post those with the exact (or rough) dates when they took place...