Stuck. On their way home from photographing Formula Drift Palm Beach,
Joe Ayala &
Larry Chen found themselves stranded over night in Dallas Fort Worth as their flights home were canceled
posted by growabrain
on Jun 17, 2011 -
34 comments
Frederik and Gerrit Braun, energetic twin brothers with no shortage of dreams, have just finished construction of the world’s largest model airport. With 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches, 300 buildings and 40 planes, Knuffingen Airport is both a wonder to behold as well as a technological tour de force. The best part of Knuffingen is that it’s alive. Forty planes and 90 vehicles move about autonomously.
posted by Trurl
on May 12, 2011 -
26 comments
The largest model railway layout in the world, Hamburg's
Miniatur Wunderland has been featured here
before. Featuring areas modelled on real life attractions, it also is home to the fictional town of
Knuffingen where the 200,000 mini-inhabitants are very much looking forward to the opening of their new
airport.
[more inside]
posted by jontyjago
on Feb 12, 2011 -
15 comments
Security alerts have been declared at Airports in the US, UK and Middle East after the discovery of suspicious packages originating in
Yemen. The packages, modified toner cartridges, have been
described as "definitely not a complete bomb" but being "potentially sinister".
posted by Artw
on Oct 29, 2010 -
291 comments
Montréal Mirabel Airport was opened in 1975 at the cost of $2 billion adjusted. Ultimately its tarmac and runway areas alone were to take up 70 km
2 (27 mi
2) of space and would have made it the world's largest airport. The airport never got any busier than Boise Airport is today, and the passenger terminals are now abandoned shells (
slideshow). A key
factor in the failure was that for 22 years authorities banned all international flights from the much-closer, thriving Dorval Airport, heavily used by locals and business travellers. It didn't help that Montreal was already sliding into decline in the 1970s due to the growth of the Great Lakes and Toronto-based economies and uncertainties about Quebec's
political climate. Montreal is no stranger to alleged boondoggles:
Olympic Stadium, half-finished during the 1976 Summer Games, spiralled
$1 billion over budget.
posted by crapmatic
on Nov 27, 2009 -
46 comments
"I said, 'This is a dilemma, because if that was your 81-year-old grandmother sitting out there, you would be fit to be tied,' " Cook says. "And I said, 'I'm sure the news channels would love this story if I gave them a phone call.' "
Being a chaplain at the
Atlanta airport.
posted by wittgenstein
on Sep 9, 2009 -
64 comments
The Manhattan Airport Foundation. From the
About Us: It doesn’t take long to realize Central Park squanders 843 acres of the most valuable real estate in the world. From the
FAQ:
To date, nearly 100 investors have signed on to provide approximately $130M in equity with another $80M from the bond market making Manhattan Airport the most ambitious privately-funded airport development project in US history. Apparently this is for reals.
posted by allkindsoftime
on Jul 22, 2009 -
77 comments
Mark takes us on the A380 (warning: image heavy) from Dubai to New York with meticulous photographic detail. For $7300 you can fly the
A380 with access to amenities like
showers and a full-service
bar, and stroll down to see the plebs in
steerage. Arguably the last time a flying hotel was tried in earnest was the post-WWII Boeing 377
Stratocruiser, a staple of Pacific routes until jet-powered 707s appeared on the scene.
posted by crapmatic
on Nov 20, 2008 -
90 comments
Trolling the Head of the TSA: Bruce Schneier [
previously], consummate voice of sanity on all issues of security, co-authors an
article in The Atlantic [
previously] demonstrating how weak and ultimately pointless most of the new security practices put in place at airports since 9/11 are by, among other things, boarding airplanes with large amounts of liquid, using fake boarding passes he printed off his computer, and wearing an "I <3 Hezbollah" t-shirt. TSA head Kip Hawley then
responds on the TSA's blog. Schneier then
responds to the response on
his blog. Hawley then leaves
a comment to that post. Schneier
fires back again in his monthly newsletter. Quite an interesting and intelligent debate, despite both men humorously falling victim to the idioms of the medium and getting increasingly snarky with each passing post.
[via this month's crypto-gram, a good read all the way around.]
posted by ChasFile
on Nov 17, 2008 -
30 comments
The Things He Carried. "Airport security in America is a sham—'security theater' designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease."
posted by chunking express
on Oct 16, 2008 -
91 comments
Discussion of the beauty and consequences of urban decay pops up here from time to time. In 1992
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport began its
expansion program. The airport's website has a
timeline and lots of
photos. Since the planning began, there has been a fair amount of controversy of
one form or
another surrounding the expansion. Despite all the shininess of their press releases, things are progressing very slowly. The people who have been impacted most, however, are the people who lived in the communities on top of which the expansion is happening. They have all been displaced.
[more inside]
posted by jeffamaphone
on Nov 21, 2007 -
11 comments
I now know what to do in case I ever got stuck on an airplane that's not going anywhere- organize and stage a revolt, like the passengers of Continental flight 1669.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Aug 16, 2007 -
82 comments
Bunny versus Airbus A380. The bunny was on the runway as the A380 came in for a landing, but managed to avoid getting pancaked by bolting as the behemoth decelerated. We salute you, Runway Bunny.
posted by brownpau
on Jun 19, 2006 -
146 comments
The quite amazing true story of the man on which Spieldberg's new
Terminal is based. A tale of Iran, torture, McDonalds' breakfasts, dry-cleaning, and a man who really doesn't seem that well. And who doesn't meet and fall in love with Catherine Zeta Jones.
posted by humuhumu
on Sep 6, 2004 -
13 comments
I *heart* Bea Arthur:
Bea Arthur sparked a security scare at Logan Airport in Boston this week when she tried to board a Cape Air flight with a pocketknife in her handbag.
The "Golden Girls" star, now 81, was flagged by a Transportation Security Administration agent, who discovered the knife - a strict no-no following 9/11.
"She started yelling that it wasn't hers and said 'The terrorists put it there,' " a fellow passenger said. "She kept yelling about the 'terrorists, the terrorists, the terrorists.' "
After the blade was confiscated, Arthur took a keyring from her bag and told the agent it belonged to the "terrorists," before throwing it at them.
As she boarded the plane, she told the TSA employees, "We're all doomed."
Kuro5hin
offers a novel proposition: Bea for President!
posted by Vidiot
on Aug 28, 2004 -
58 comments
Buying biometrically into big brother? Privium is an IBM-backed pay service at Amsterdam's
Schiphol Airport that allows passengers to identify themselves by iris recognition and thus speed their way through security checks. This being the privacy-respecting Netherlands, the biometric information is not stored in a central database, but only on a card you carry with you; other countries may not be so enlightened. This could well become a standard form of identification. In the meantime, could the failure to buy this service qualify someone as a security or insurance risk?
posted by liam
on Apr 29, 2004 -
6 comments
2" GI Joe Rifle Confiscated in Airport Security Crackdown Airport security staff confiscated a TWO-INCH plastic gun from a toy soldier. "They examined the toy as if it was going to shoot them . . . Then they asked me if there were toy grenades as well. I thought they were joking, but they weren’t smiling — they were deadly serious." Have the terrorists already won?
posted by dogmatic
on Aug 5, 2002 -
43 comments
Is the passenger screening less secure than purely random screening? According to the write-up in this paper, complete with probabilistic analysis and computer simulation, the answer is yes. I've hijacked the link from
BoingBoing.
posted by substrate
on Jul 24, 2002 -
10 comments
