It seems the UAE’s Antonov-12 ban is real. The shortage of inbound flights in the Viktorfeed continues; out of 57 overnight movements, in itself an unusual low, there were 10 inbounds after cleaning up the odd false positive. Here is a list: South-Airlines STH7002 Erbil Sharjah scheduled 1600Z Transaviaexport TXC1722 Kabul Sharjah scheduled 1500Z Safi…
Read More fly or dieI’ve long been sceptical of the UAV future. Basically, back in 2005, I reckoned that as the things get more complicated their advantages over manned aircraft disappear; the biggest advantage is that they are meant to be expendable, and things that are expendable get expended. Therefore the loss rate is much higher, both from enemy…
Read More UAV cost scissors watchIt seems to be “Blogging Stuff I Studied At University” Day. Here’s an interesting story via the Armchair Generalist concerning the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the case of a North Korean Ilyushin-62 that was apparently prevented from transiting Indian airspace out of suspicion that it was carrying “something” from there to Iran. I’ve always thought…
Read More trickledown logisticsAs I said here, much as I love ManyEyes, it would be drastically better if it accepted data in the same format (tab-separated columns of values) that it expects to be submitted as a form from a URL, so your visualisation could be based on a source of regularly updated information. If you can parse…
Read More technical noteSo Hazel Blears thinks blogs are terrible, rightwing, shallow, cynical, contributing only snark to the debate, no new ideas, no policy analysis, no organising. Her evidence for this consists of cites to Iain Dale and Paul Van Der Staines. Well, you can see how she got those ideas. I should, I suppose, Engage More Fully,…
Read More may the work speak for itselfSo, if World President Brown was to ask me what to do about the headless Viktor Bout empire, and the operators like it, what would I say? Here’s what I’d do: Let’s draw up a big list of dodgy airlines. Better, let’s use rules; ex-Soviet aircraft, or old 737s, based in the UAE, registration in…
Read More Operation Firedump – the great rampcheckJust to say that the Viktorfeed/Google Maps mashup is now working, and it’s here. Relatedly, the URL for the GeoRSS feed is changing; replace seagrass.goatchurch.org.uk/viktorfeed.xml with www.harrowell.org.uk/viktorfeed.xml.
Read More participatory panopticon python programming postWell, there’s something for you. Viktor Bout’s lawyer actually showed up for a hearing; this is after lawyer no.1 repeatedly failed to appear and pleaded sickness (“I…I have a heart condition. I have a heart condition. If you hit me, it’s murder…”) and lawyer no.2 found he was permanently busy. I had wondered if he…
Read More further stages of the extradition processOoh, more Iran-war nonsense, this time from none other than mouthpieceful Russia Today, via this thread. There seems to be a meme floating around that there was a war between Russia and Georgia because the Russians intervened to prevent the Americans using Georgian airbases to attack Iran (obviously, a war with Iran is the universal…
Read More Not Just Armies, But AntonovsIf you’ve been following the Viktorfeed, you may have noticed that something’s been emerging; Tahmid Air (ICAO: THM) had been flying occasionally between Sharjah and Almaty, but since early August it’s started to generate more and more movements (the maximum was achieved on the 10th August with 12 flights) to more and more interesting places.…
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