WELCOME TO THE NEWSROOM - Full update monthly,

Important News as and when it occurs.

This Full Update 01/08/00.

UK Direct has a few vacancies for pilots - apply now !

ATR72 G-DGUK begins its descent into Stansted with flight UKD205 from Brussels.

Another Exciting Month !

Another month draws to a close and I'm frantically looking for all of the scribbled notes that I've made over the last weeks ! I just don't feel organised at all and my monthly task awaits me . So, (draws a deep breath..) here we go.

New HQ is handed over from the contractors.

Gary has been hard at work (what's new !) this month and has completed the HQ Scenery files for UK Direct . There's no point in me going into a lengthy description of what awaits you, just download it ASAP and go and explore.In the meantime here are a couple of screenshots to whet your appetite.

Exclusive ! A sneak preview through the trees with a dobermann hanging from the seat of my trousers

Gary arrives at work.

Hasn't left much room for Dave Finney to park though !

Breakfast in Brussels, Tea in Teeside, luggage in Bournemouth.

UK Sun continues its development program.

G-UKSE returns ! captured approaching Edinburgh airport (see scenery news).

Dave Finney has been working away steadily this month. The UK Sun web site has all of the latest news including :

Summer operations with Easyjet (virtual !) out of Luton on some nice short/medium haul routes. Download the new version of G-UKSE from the fleet pages. New routes for all of you long- haul heavy pilots including the Maldives and Calgary.

G-UKSD B767-300 County of Cheshire repainted in a hybrid colour scheme of UKD/UKS/TAE .

Flightfinder Improved : An improved flightfinder page is now included on the site. All departure/arrival details are now included and all flights have been linked to either the hub page or the new EZY page.

For all of the news in detail visit Dave at UK Sun.

Fleet News.

This aircraft is superb !

One of the perks of being on the management is that you get to try out all of the new toys before they are available for general use. This enables us to test and adjust or reject aircraft, scenery or utilities therefore ensuring that our pilots only get to work with the best - well that's the theory anyway !

I have had the pleasure of test flying our new improved BAe to get some photo's for the fleet pages/history/flightplans etc and can confirm that even if, like me, you fly props for a lot of the time you should love this aircraft ! It looks great too so make sure you read up on who has done what on this aircrft and appreciate their efforts.

Stop Press - Coming soon.... UKD DHC-6 Twin Otter.(Can't wait..ed.)

Scenery Pages Latest.

Pilot Mark 171 has taken on the job of organising our scenery pages. We all wish him well . He kindly dropped me a line saying :

"Just a quick note to say the new scenery deptartment is nearly up and running. www.bespincloudcity.freeserve.co.uk I wont say finished because I have still got loads to add and even then it will never be finished-as long as people still make scenery!   Hope you enjoy, Mark 171"

Nice one Mark ! and I saw this scenery if you're interested.....

....and talking of scenery.

If like me you're saving your pennies/lira/rand/etc for that PC that will run FS2000 with ease and are still with FS98 for the time being you may have noticed that new freeware FS98 scenery is gradually giving way to FS2000. Mark (de new boss) has had me sent North of the border to fly the new Scottish Regional routes until I can plead to join the new Jersey Hub. Whilst at Flightsim.com checking out the latest uploads I came across some Edinburgh area (Lothian) scenery by Iain Gallacher. I now have this installed and am enjoying the improvement on Bob Witticks excellent but ageing Scotland, which it is compatable with, as is Iains other regional scenery of S.W.Scotland . File names: lothian.zip by Iain Gallacher, 1,224,428 bytes and swsc3.zip 1,622,651 bytes both available from flightsim .com.and probably other sites. Note that the latter scenery has a patch file and an update file but it's a doddle to install and then overwrite the newer files over existing ones.

Edinburgh Castle, Waverley station and Princes Street, to mention but a few landmarks.

Blackpool scenery available.

Andy Baker has uploaded a FS98 version of Blackpool Airport to Flightsim.com and very nice it looks too ! See what Mark thought of it at the scenery site and give it a vote yourselves. Now there's a good reason to fly a regional flight out of Southend !

Who are these guys ?

Chief Test Pilots Mark" Who are you" Kiddin' and Dave Finney "Direct " putting a UK Direct aircraft through it's paces.

It is not often that we should feel humbled but during a routine internet surf Mark Kidd (for it is he) discovered some interesting material about a very prominant member of our organisation. Never able to resist a scoop I felt it was in the public interest to publish this :

NASA, travis test one whale of a plane
By John Scheibe/Staff Writer

What landed at Travis Air Force Base this week might be mistaken for a flying whale or one of those weird creatures in the science fiction film "Alien."

Officials with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have dubbed the outsized flying leviathan "The Super Guppy."

What makes the bulbous aircraft special is its cavernous interior. Much of its cabin rises a full 25.6 feet from floor to ceiling, enabling NASA to transport jumbo-sized cargo to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Once there, the cargo is loaded onto the space shuttle and then taken into space, where it could be assembled to build a space station.

"If it fits on the space shuttle then it will fit on this aircraft," said NASA pilot Dave Finney as he spoke to a group of reporters inside a Travis hangar on Thursday.

While the aircraft looks like it might float more easily than fly, Finney said it actually flies quite well.

"The only time we have any trouble flying it is when there is a lot of turbulence," said Finney, who is based at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Built in 1951, the four-engine turbo-prop C-97 aircraft originally looked like any other airplane, Finney said.

Thirty-one years later, in 1982, the aircraft underwent a metamorphosis, giving it its bloated, pregnant look.

The reason workers converted the aircraft, said Finney, was to allow for the transportation of outsized cargo.

Prior to the Guppy - the first of which was built in 1962 and was used to fly rocket parts to Florida as part of the Apollo space program - it was a big headache to transport outsized cargo.

Place such cargo on a train, for example, and planners had to deal with the physical limitations of railroad tunnels, narrow roads, low bridges or overhead power lines.

Not even the giant C-5, which is a work horse for the U.S. Air Force and is used to transport cargo across the globe, has such a cavernous fuselage as the Guppy, Finney said.

"The C-5 can only hold cargo that is about 95 percent the size of what can be loaded onto this aircraft," he said.

Finney said NASA decided to bring the aircraft to Travis to test a new cargo loader, one that will give NASA officials even more flexibility to land the Guppy at different airports.

The whole front hinged nose of the Guppy opens 110 degrees, like a door, allowing workers to load cargo onto the aircraft from the front.

A system of rails inside the cargo compartment allows workers to roll pallets up and down the cabin.

The Guppy also is used in other countries, including France, to transport aircraft parts for the European airline industry.

When empty, the Guppy weighs 101,000 pounds and can fly at altitudes of 25,000 feet at a cruising speed of 290 mph.

It also can carry a payload of 69,000 pounds, although when it is full, pilots do want to fly at 12,000 feet or below where the air mass is denser, giving the aircraft greater lift at slower speeds.

The lower altitude often means pilots must fly a circuitous route when travelling across country, avoiding places such as the Rocky Mountains.

So there we are, the cat is well and truely out of the bag !

Other News in brief.

A proposed Round the World cargo flight using the 747F has taken a step closer to being finished. The rules have been published on the Information page and the final details will be following soon. Watch the Cargo web pages for news of this and other flights.

Volunteers are required to bring back UK Directs latest bargain, an Ex TAESA B727 back to Exeter for a major overhaul and possibly conversion into a freighter if the coffee stains don't come out of the seats! Two crews are required and a stop over at a luxury hotel are included. If you've got a 1st Officer ticket or above for the 727 apply now to the General Manager. See the Information page for the link to this article.

The Jersey Hub has begun operations as from today (1/8) and has been allocated the BAe 146 for flights to and from London City Airport using accurate flightplans (courtesy of Ade Mansbridge) as well as flights to Southampton and Bournemouth using a Saab340 and ERJ145. The DHC6 flights will be introduced shortly, following successful aircraft trials and flight crew training. Use the link on the UK Direct routes home page.

Pilot Martin (120) has been racking up the hours with a vengence ! 52 hours to date, and he's a relatively new member. Sandy had better keep an eye out for this guy because if he maintains this rate he'll be divorced in no time at all and will then be able to fly even more hours !

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