Telstar Logistics

Photos from a Somali Pirate Attack

Our maritime friends over at gCaptain recently spotted a vivid collection of photos detailing the November hijacking of the tanker M/V Biscaglia by Somali pirates. The images, of provenance unknown, were published in the British tabloid The Mirror. The pirates approached the Biscaglia in this high-powered skiff:

The Biscaglia was reasonably well prepared. Following a long string of pirate attacks in the waters off Somalia, the ship had been equipped with water cannon, acoustic deterrents, and a small detachment of British security guards. Here are the water cannons, hard at work:

None of these defenses proved effective, however, and the Biscaglia was quickly seized. The British security guards -- ex-military, one and all -- retreated to the roof of the ship. Outgunned and outnumbered, they eventually jumped into the sea, where they were rescued by a French navy helicopter. In breathless tabloid prose, the Mirror tells the tale:

The Biscaglia and 18 other cargo vessels at first sailed with a French frigate for protection. But two days out of Oman, 300 miles off the Somali coast,  it fell behind. [Former British paratrooper Mike Kelly], from Dublin, said: “We noticed a skiff about three miles off our port side – and knew it was pirates.”

The Biscaglia sent a distress signal to the frigate as the skiff circled the tanker staying well out of range of water cannons.

Mike said: “We used our makeshift bazooka but it was wildly inaccurate and the pirates started firing rocket-propelled grenades.”

While two pirates stayed in the skiff, six scrambled on board, firing AK-47s at the bridge where the three men were masterminding the defence.

[ex-Royal Marine Carl “Rocky” Mason], from Poole, said: “They started shooting at me and I ran with them coming after me. They were only about 18, skinny and looked high on the local drug, called khat. They were spraying bullets everywhere.”

The men decided to use the sonic weapon, called an L-RAD.

Mike said: “We thought it would make the pirates back off, but they just laughed. It was a total waste of time.”

 

The trio locked all the hatches and doors and retreated to the roof of the bridge. Half an hour after the attack had begun, a helicopter from the French warship appeared.

Although it was armed, it is against maritime laws in the area to board a vessel by force after it has been taken by pirates. So the helicopter crew were forced to hover and photograph events from above.

LINKS:

Heroic Brit Trio Take on Somali Pirates Before Escaping into Sea (UK Mirror article)

Pirate Attack Photos (gCaptain blog post)

PREVIOUSLY:

Aaarrrr! The US Navy Battles Modern Pirates to Save North Koreans off the Coast of Africa

(Images from www.mirror.co.uk)

RIP Andrea Pininfarina, Maker of Beautiful Automobiles

Sad news from Italy: Andrea Pininfarina, CEO of Pininfarina S.p.A, the exclusive automotive design firm, was killed yesterday after he was struck by a motorist while riding his Vespa scooter.

Pininfarina, of course, is the famous firm that designed many of the most sexy and sensual Ferraris of the last 50-odd years, and under Andrea's leadership the company produced designs ranging from the 2004 Maserati Quattroporte and the 2006 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano to the 2006 Volvo C70 and the 2006 Mitsubishi Colt CZC.

From his obituary in today's New York Times:

Mr. Pininfarina was part of a family dynasty that began its move into industry in 1930 when his grandfather, Battista Pinin Farina, founded the company, which in its first year designed cars for Alfa Romeo, Fiat and other Italian manufacturers. Mr. Pininfarina’s father, Sergio Pininfarina, is the company’s honorary chairman and one of Italy’s seven senators for life. His younger brother, Paolo, is Pininfarina’s vice chairman. His older sister, Lorenza, is on the board.

“Our country has lost a leading personality of its industrial life and the representative of a dynasty that has contributed to creating the Made in Italy brand in the world,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a statement.

Andrea Pininfarina was born on June 26, 1957, in Turin, the heart of Italy’s auto design industry. After graduating in 1981 with a degree in mechanical engineering from Turin’s Polytechnic University, Mr. Pininfarina went to work in the United States. He joined the family company upon his return to Italy a few years later and became the chief executive of its German unit in 1991. He became chief executive of the company as a whole in 2001 and chairman in 2006.

Under Mr. Pininfarina, the company diversified its portfolio, balancing flashy projects like the Ferrari Enzo supercar with less exciting car designs for Hyundai, Daewoo and Ford.

LINK:

Andrea Pininfarina, Chief of Car Designer, Dies at 51 (New York Times obituary, August 8, 2008)

(IMAGE: Top, Andrea Pininfarina in 2006, with the one-of-a-kind Ferrari P4/5, designed for a collector. Photo by the New York Times.)

Shipping Container Shortage Plagues American Exports

As every wannabe titan of global industry knows, the value of the US dollar has fallen precipitously in recent months relative to other benchmark currencies like the British Pound, the European Euro and the Japanese Yen.  That's bad news if you're an American planning a vacation in London, Paris, or Tokyo. But if you happen to be in the export business, it's a huge opportunity. The dollar's decline makes American-made products significantly cheaper — and more competitive — on international markets, but as the Wall Street Journal reports, a shortage of shipping containers has created big headaches for US exporters. In order to sell the goods, you need to be able to move the goods, but you can't move the goods if you can't find enough shipping containers.  The WSJ says:

Finding enough of the big metal boxes used to be a cinch, because the nation's massive hunger for imports meant they were constantly arriving and stacking up from Long Beach, Calif., to Long Island, N.Y. Shipping companies typically scoured the country for anyone willing to fill outgoing boxes. But with the slump in the value of the dollar making U.S. goods more attractive to foreign buyers and many overseas economies continuing to hum, the tide has shifted in recent months. Trade figures being released Thursday are expected by many economists to show further growth in exports.

Shipping containers -- and the way they're handled -- reflect how the U.S. interacts with the global economy, which is one reason the problem has emerged now. For years, the U.S. crafted a trading system that was designed to pull in masses of imported consumers goods such as sneakers and VCRs as efficiently as possible from countries like China. Far less was expected to flow the other way.

What has happened now has thrown a wrench into the works. Cutbacks by U.S. consumers have slowed the growth of imports, while the weak dollar is making the U.S. into an export machine. Meanwhile, the places where most of these exports are originating are far from where boxes are being unpacked and soaring energy costs make it too costly to just load them on trucks and move them around.

"There are some places, particularly in the Midwest, where there's a complete lack of containers," says Philip Damas, the head of container research at Drewry Shipping Consultants in London. [...]

Analysts say shipping costs are rising, too. Mr. Damas, the London-based consultant, says the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from the West Coast to China is now $1,500, up at least 20% in the past year. In many cases, boxes that previously would be sent to inland locations never leave the coast.

The problem surfaced about six months ago and can be traced to a confluence of factors, beyond the slump in the dollar. For one, the global commodity boom has increased the cost of shipping items by bulk, which in turn has pushed more goods into containers.

It doesn't help that containers don't tend to flow to places that make most U.S. exports. More imports to the U.S. are consumer goods, which are often unloaded near retailers and warehouses in large cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. In the case of Chicago, many containers come off ships from Asia and onto trains destined for "inland" destinations. But U.S. commodity exports, such as cotton and corn, are grown far from those hubs.

LINKS:
Container Shortage Puts U.S. Export Boom in a Box (Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2008. Supscription required)

Big Metal Box (Flickr group devoted to photos of shipping containers, container terminals, container ships, and container-based architecture)

PREVIOUSLY:
Freitag Takes Container Architecture to New Heights

Emma Maersk: The Largest Cargo Ship in the World

IMAGES: Top, HO scale plastic shipping containers used on model railroad sets.  Bottom, a container ship passing under the Golden Gate Bridge. All photos by Telstar Logistics

Video: Mini Monkeys Ride Mini Motorcycles

No, this is not a metaphor.  This YouTube video, which may have been filmed in Thailand, shows some very well-trained monkeys demonstrating their sophisticated motorcycle riding technique:

PREVIOUSLY:

Pop-Up Market Shares a Train Track in Bangkok

Airbus Wins Air Force Tanker Contract; Boeing 767 Doomed?

Wow.  Talk about saving the controversial news until Friday...

Today the US Air Force announced that it has selected Airbus to build it's new fleet of airborne refueling aircraft.  The Airbus plane, a variant of the civilian A330 airliner, beat out a competing proposal from Boeing which was based on the 767.  All told, the contract may be worth more than $30 billion.  Aviation Week carries the summary:

Northrop Grumman and EADS have won the U.S. Air Force's KC-X tanker award, beating a Boeing-led team for the long-awaited, controversial and delayed decision.

The award, for a total buy of 179 tankers to be dubbed KC-45A, is expected to result in a deal worth tens of billions of dollars and leading to a dozen or more new aircraft each year for several years at a cost of about $3 billion per year.

KC-X is the first iteration of a three-phased approach to replace the Air Force's fleet of 530 KC-135E/Rs and 59 KC-10s. The next tranche to replace the Air Force's larger KC-10 tankers, dubbed KC-Y, is not expected until at least 2020, effectively freezing Boeing out of the tanker market for the foreseeable future.

The decision also seals the fate for Boeing's 767 production line. The far newer A330 design continues to outpace the 767 in commercial orders. Boeing has about four years of work left for its Everett, Wash., production line without more orders. The company was looking to the U.S. Air Force to be the only and final 767 customer in the coming years.

What's the new plane got?  This Military-Industrial History Channel-style marketing video explains the highlights:

Rest assured, this isn't the last you'll be hearing about this, and it's safe to say many members of Congress will be making a lot of noise in the days and weeks ahead to protest the Pentagon's decision to purchase "a tanker plane made in Eurrrrp."  Fasten your seatbelts, folks ... the ride is gonna get bumpy.

LINKS:
Northrop Grumman KC-30 Tanker (Manufacturer's webpage)

Congress in Turmoil over Air Force Tanker Decision (Reuters, 29 February, 2008)

PREVIOUSLY:
Airbus Delivers the First A380 — and a Management Lesson

The "Gimli Glider" 767 Retires Peacefully, at Last

Telstar Logistics Gets Intimate with an Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 Invades America

(IMAGE: Artist rendition of a KC-45 refueling a B-2 bomber, by Northrop Grumman)

Japanese Art Bikes Mimic Japanese Trucks

Our fascination with pedal-powered Art Bikes continues. As with so many things, the Japanese took the idea of bicycle customization in their own unique direction — with impressive results. The genre is called "Dekochari" in Japanese, and the Wikipedia describes it thus:

Deko-chari is a form of art bike indigenous to Japan dating back to the mid 1970s. 'Deko' in Japanese is short for decoration and 'Chari' is slang for bike. The Dekochari was a response by children to the Dekotora ('Tora' is short for Truck) craze which swept Japan after a series of movies called Truck Yaro was released. These movies featured giant trucks decked out in chrome and flashy lights.

Unable to drive the giant chrome-plated flashing trucks they coveted, children instead built plywood boxes around their bikes and attached chrome plating and lights. Almost all current Dekochari's have elaborate light displays and many include hi-fi audio systems and cup-holders.

Here's the video of some dekochari in action, and according to this site, the accompanying soundtrack is "'Ichiban-boshi Blues' (sung by Bunta Sugawara and Kinya Aikawa), the theme song from the Torakku Yarou movie series that sparked Japan’s dekotora craze in the ’70s.":

If you'd like a better view of what these rides look like in the light of day, you can see that here.  Gambatte!

PREVIOUSLY:
The Art of the Bicycle as Art Bike

An International Art Bike in Copenhagen

A Different Way to Ride on the Golden Gate Bridge

(IMAGE: Top, photographer unknown, via Photo-Reports.)

The Joys of Off-Road Motoring in Northwest Russia

Back in 1999, when analysts from the Telstar Logistics Division of Procurement were asked to choose a vehicle platform for use by our field operatives, they selected the 4 wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee XJ. Today the XJ remains the backbone of our ground fleet, because superior off-road performance is one of our key system requirements, and the Cherokee XJ is famously capable in that regard.  That said, however, we use the XJ's 4WD system almost exclusively in deep winter snows, as company policy frowns upon other kinds of off-road adventure.

Why? Our experiments with off-road motoring suggest that the activity largely consists of a) getting stuck, or b) breaking things that require costly repairs, or c) both. For some time we thought  these outcomes were attributable to either our limited off-road experience or our exceptional talent for getting stuck. But after subscribing to 4 Wheel & Off-Road magazine for two years, we came to a very different conclusion: Veteran off-roaders also spend a lot of time a) getting stuck, or b) breaking things that require costly repairs, or c) both. The only difference is, they think this is fun.

Hey, whatever floats your boat. Still, we experienced a nightmarish sense of deja vu recently when we looked at the photos shown here. Getting stuck may be a recreational activity for American enthusiasts, but for drivers in Siberia, it appears to be an essential part of daily life.  Because when there are no roads to begin with, off-roading is simply how you get from Point A to Point B.

The pictures shown here came to us via the Dark Roasted Blend weblog, which also provides the following dollop of context (attributed to a Russian gentleman named Evgeny Belyaev who has a LiveJournal page here):

The Mud Rules, and the Absolute Mud Rules Absolutely!
This is the Ural road between regional centers Syktyvkar-Ukhta-Pechora. The worst section is between Nizhny Odes & Irael, where even KAMAZ trucks and other heavy machinery meet their mud "nemesis". The helpless drivers of private cars ask for a ride on top of heavier trucks, hoping to make any progress. But soon the mud seals their fate, some trucks even overturn and remain lying on their side for days.

We don't speak Russian, so we can't verify that these photos were actually taken on the road between Nizhny Odes & Irael in northwestern Russia. But as a demonstration of how just much fun off-roading can be, we'll happily vouch for their authenticity.

(Thanks KK!)

LINK:
Siberian No-Road Adventures (Dark Roasted Blend blog post)

(Photos from Evgeny Belyaev via Dark Roasted Blend)

Aaarrrr! The US Navy Battles Modern Pirates to Save North Koreans off the Coast of Africa

The Aegis destroyer USS James E. Williams (DDG-95). Photo via Navsource.

How's this casting for a future action movie? Captain Jack Sparrow vs. Team America!

In the Telstar Logistics Situation Room, our analysts are tracking a story about recent skirmishes between US Navy vessels and modern-day pirates off the coast of Africa. Even stranger, one of the ships rescued by the US Navy belongs to North Korea. CNN reports:

The crew members of a North Korean freighter regained control of their ship from pirates who hijacked the vessel off Somalia, but not without a deadly fight, the U.S. Navy reported Tuesday.

When the battle aboard the Dai Hong Dan was over, two pirates were dead and five were captured, the Navy said.

Three wounded crew members from the cargo ship were being treated aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS James E. Williams.

The captured pirates were being held aboard the North Korean vessel, the Navy said.

The bandits had seized the ship's bridge, while the crew kept control of the steering gear and engines, the Navy said.

The Koreans moved against the attackers after the Williams -- responding to reports of the hijacking -- ordered the pirates to give up their weapons, according to the Navy.

When the crew members stormed the bridge, the deadly battle began. After the crew regained control, Navy sailors boarded the Dai Hong Dan to help with the injured.

North Korea and the United States have no diplomatic relations. VideoWatch why the U.S. helped the North Koreans »

The incident took place about 70 miles northeast of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, the Navy said.

It is the second incident of piracy reported in recent days. A second U.S. Navy destroyer was searching waters off Somalia for pirates who hijacked a Japanese-owned ship, military officials said.

Over the weekend, gunmen aboard two skiffs hijacked the Panamanian-flagged Golden Nori off the Socotra archipelago near the Horn of Africa, said Andrew Mwangura, a spokesman for the Kenyan-based Seafarers' Assistance Program.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke has been pursuing the pirates after entering Somali waters with the permission of the troubled transitional government in Mogadishu, U.S. officials said Monday. In recent years, warships have stayed outside the 12-mile limit when chasing pirates.

Two military officials familiar with the details confirmed the ongoing operation.

The Navy's pursuit of the pirates began Sunday night when the Golden Nori radioed for help. The Burke's sister ship, the USS Porter, opened fire and sank the pirate skiffs tied to the Golden Nori's stern before the Burke took over shadowing the hijacked vessel.

When the shots were fired, it was not known the ship was filled with highly flammable benzene. U.S. military officials indicate there is a great deal of concern about the cargo because it is so sensitive.

Airbus Delivers the First A380 — and a Management Lesson

As most casual readers know, Telstar Logistics loves a good tale about big airplanes. But what you may not realize is that as a leading provider of customer-focused integrated services, Telstar Logistics also loves a great management story. And since our research indicates that 97.3 percent of Telstar Logistics readers think that a "newspaper" is a biodegradable form of fish-wrap, we figure there's no harm in calling your attention to a fascinating article that ran in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about an aircraft that we know well: the Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Yesterday, Airbus handed over the first service-ready A380 to Singapore Airlines. But as the WSJ reports, after two years of delays and cost-overruns, it took a lot of sleepless nights to reach yesterday's delivery milestone. In fact, owing to high-level executive disarray and trans-national pissiness between the French and German arms of Airbus, the task of getting the A380 out the door fell to Rüdiger Fuchs, a German engineer who was tapped to manage the A380 production program after the first Airbus delivery delay was announced in 2006.

Mr. Fuchs faced two main problems: The electrical wiring schemes for the A380 were complex and poorly designed, and the German engineers who created the wiring schemes interacted poorly with their manufacturing colleagues in France. In other words, Mr. Fuchs had to push a rock uphill with a team that spent as much time fighting amongst themselves as they did pushing the rock. The WSJ tells us:

Mr. Fuchs's first order of business was Hamburg, where Singapore Airlines's first A380 sat without cabin fixtures because wiring wasn't finished. In early July, Mr. Fuchs for the first time compiled information from all German managers on the plane. He realized there was no way to deliver it by year end.

To accelerate work, he ordered engineers to move from their cushy offices to the factory floor, near assembly workers and the plane itself.

To keep tabs on progress, every day at 6 p.m. production managers and engineers would gather in a so-called "war room" with a big window overlooking the first superjumbo. On the walls of the crisis room hung more than 200 colored charts with labels like "Engineering Issues" and "Red Flags."

Each participant would update colleagues on the day's progress and problems. To keep them focused, Mr. Fuchs got rid of the chairs in the room and forced everyone to stand. "When you stand for two hours, you have to be concrete," says Heiko Lütjens, an engineer under Mr. Fuchs.

As problems persisted, the management solutions became more radical:

A group of German engineers would move to Toulouse. French engineers would train them on French software and design methods. The French engineers would in turn work on German parts of the A380 and report to Mr. Fuchs.

For the first time ever, the two nationalities would work as one on key parts of a major project. "I could sense it was an historic decision for Airbus," recalls Mr. Carcasses.

Soon, 80 German engineers from Hamburg arrived in Toulouse and paired with French mentors. To make the Germans feel at home, French workers organized dinners at restaurants with local specialties such as duck, foie gras and Languedoc wines.

Finally, as the revised delivery deadlines approached, the pressure to harmonize the conflicting Airbus teams reached critical mass:

In Hamburg, work rewiring Singapore Airlines's first A380 had fallen behind because setting up the new team in France distracted Mr. Fuchs. "We lost focus," he says.

By late last fall, Mr. Fuchs was desperate to finish an electrical test that Airbus had promised customers by year end. In a last-ditch effort to improve productivity, he ordered his German engineers to move off the factory floor and finish their work inside the A380 itself, to better advise assembly workers laboring on the cables.

Productivity doubled within weeks. On Dec. 30, the plane passed its test. With the plane finally wired correctly, workers installed seats, the galley and toilets.

So there you have it: A lesson in industrial-scale team-building, and a brand new A380 delivered at last to Singapore Airlines. Rest assured we'll be discussing this case study in the Telstar Logistics Executive Lounge for years to come, and we can't wait to hear the stories that will eventually emerge about how Boeing plans to overcome the latest 787 production delays.

LINKS:
Airbus, Amid Turmoil, Revives Troubled Plane (Wall Street Journal article by Daniel Michaels, October 15, 2007. Subscription required.)

Luxury takes to the skies in Singapore A380 (The Age article about the new private cabins installed in Singapore's A380s.  Great photo.)

PREVIOUSLY:
Telstar Logistics Gets Intimate with an Airbus A380

How to Evacuate 873 People from an Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 Invades America

More A380 Wake Turbulence

(Photos: Top: Pascal Parrot/Getty Images. Illustration by the Wall Street Journal. A380 wiring photo by Telstar Logistics)

Small Comfort: The Sky-High Cost of Airline Travel in 1954

Next time you find yourself squished into a non-reclining middle seat situated near the filthy lavatory on a long transcontinental flight that left three hours late, try to derive some solace from this improbable thought: You're getting a pretty good deal for your money.

Yes yes, contemporary air travel does have the effect of making passengers feel like steerage. It's no wonder some travelers wax nostalgic for the days before the U.S. airline industry was  deregulated — when stewardess were polite, the food was free, and passengers were issued souvenir carry-on bags emblazoned with sporty airline logos. Heady days. What we tend to forget, however, is that these perks were enjoyed by a privileged few. Airline travel was glamorous then for the same reason Louis Vuitton handbags and 1996 bottles of Dom Perignon are glamorous today — it was an expensive status symbol. But how much, really, did it cost?

While digging through the corporate archives recently, Telstar Logistics  came upon a 1954 brochure from Trans World Airlines promoting TWA's daily service to San Francisco.  Included in the brochure was the table shown here, listing some typical fares to and from SFO.

Here's how those 1954 fares would convert in 2006 dollars:

San Francisco to New York, round-trip:
First Class: $2198
Sky Tourist: $1448

San Francisco to Chicago, round-trip:
First Class: $1587
Sky Tourist: $1106

So economy-class tickets on these routes can now be purchased routinely for roughly one-third the price of what they cost in 1954. This is a salient thing to keep in mind when enduring the rigors of a dirty and cramped airline seat.  Yes, it's unpleasant. Objectively, it may even be as grim as taking the bus. But the difference is, the bus took days to reach San Francisco, and in 1954, that may have been all you could afford.

So you've got that going for you.

Meanwhile, some things remain unchanged. Here's what it says on the back of the TWA brochure:

GRACIOUS METROPOLIS OF THE WEST
One of the most extravagantly admired cities in the world, San Francisco has been called "sophisticated," "cultured," "urbane," "gay" -- and it is certainly one of the most cosmopolitan of cities.

Amen to that.

Ahoy to the "Ship of the Day"

Like the ebb and flow of the tides, the rising of the sun in the morning, and the phases of the moon at night, the Ship of the Day blog delivers a regular dose of ocean-going awe to maritime enthusiasts the world over. Along the way, you might just learn a few intimate details about ships like the giant Berge Nord, shown above.

Ship of the Day sez:

The Berge Nord (IMO: 9127150, Port of Registry: Stavanger, Norway) is scheduled to arrive later this evening at the EECV bulk terminal in Rotterdam from Seven Islands, Canada carrying iron ore. From Rotterdam the iron ore is transported in barges to the steel mills of ThyssenKrupp and Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann in Germany.

The Berge Nord has a deadweight tonnage of 218,000, a draught of almost 19 meters and has seven holds and hatches. The ship was built in 1997 by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea and is owned by Bergesen Worldwide Shipping. This 305 meters long, 53 meters wide bulk carrier is the biggest ship to enter the Arctic sea.

There you have it:  Another new day. Another new ship.  And who knows what tomorrow might bring?

LINK:
Ship of the Day (Maritime weblog)

PREVIOUSLY:
Loose Lips Find Ships

(Tip of the dixie cup: gCaptain)

Obituaries: Jack Odell, Creator of Matchbox Cars

While sipping our morning coffee last weekend, Telstar Logistics noticed an item in Saturday's Wall Street Journal marking the life and times of Jack Odell, the man who invented the classic Matchbox line of toy cars.  Mr. Odell died on July 7, at age 87. A self-taught tool and die maker, Mr. Odell was a stickler for detail -- a trait that clearly carried over to his work on Matchbox vehicles.  From the Wall Street Journal's remembrance:

Jack Odell became the founder and chief designer of Matchbox, the iconic miniature toys that have entertained car-crazy kids for half a century.

After creating a miniature steamroller for his young daughter, who wanted something that would fit into a matchbox to show her classmates, Mr. Odell -- who died last Saturday at age 87 in Herfordshire, England -- realized he had stumbled upon a product that the company he co-owned, struggling Lesney Products, could sell.

After producing such early models as a cement mixer and a dump truck, the company had its first hit with a miniature of Queen Elizabeth II's horse-drawn golden coach -- produced in the year of her coronation, 1953. More than a million of the coaches sold for the equivalent of about 40 cents in U.S. currency at the time; online today, they sell for hundreds of dollars. [...]

Mr. Odell, who left school at age 13, held odd jobs before enlisting in the Army, where he repaired fighting vehicles during World War II and had a profitable sideline of repairing Primus stoves.

Meanwhile, a pair of unrelated ex-servicemen named Smith -- Leslie and Rodney -- founded Lesney in 1947 in a bombed-out London pub called The Rifleman. The pair struggled to find die-making work for electrical sockets and other products. Soon, they brought in Mr. Odell, and Rodney Smith sold his stake and left the company.

When Lesney went public in 1960 it was producing one million cars a week. Production eventually rose to one million a day, and employed about 6,000. "We produce more Rolls-Royces in a single day than the Rolls-Royce company has made in its entire history," Mr. Odell told the New York Times in 1962.

His eye for detail and abilities as a die-cutter led to realistic dashboard dials and hoods and trunks that opened. Car companies, sensing free advertising, eagerly provided blueprints to ensure accurate reproduction. Clad in a white apron and sporting a close-trimmed mustache, Mr. Odell could be found checking on quality on the factory floor.

It's no exaggeration to say that Mr. Odell played a formative role in shaping (warping?) the world-view of Telstar Logistics during our startup years, and this blog is but a symptom of his influence. For that we remain forever grateful. So as Mr. Odell continues his metaphysical journey, we say, "Thank you and Happy Motoring!"

LINKS:
Jack Odell, Matchbox toymaker (Obiturary from independent.co.uk) 

Matchbox toys (Wikipedia page)

Frank's Matchbox Lesney Page (Extensive Matchbox photos, history, and links)

Matchbox Cars 1-37 (An excellent photo gallery of early Matchbox cars)

Bay Area Matchbox Collectors Association

Matchbox.com (Official website by Mattell, Inc.)

(Images: Top: 1960s Matchbox cars, from the Telstar Logistics Executive Collection. Middle: Original Matchbox steamroller, 1953(?), image from Mattell, Inc. Bottom: Jack Odell, circa 1968, image from Elizabeth Odell)

The Unveiling of the First Boeing 787

Well, it happened -- right on schedule.  Yesterday, Boeing unveiled the very first production model of the company's new 787 Dreamliner. Telstar Logistics couldn't be there (grrrrrrr), but Daniel Terdiman from CNET's News.com was on the scene, and he blogged this report:

If you've never partied underneath a jumbo jet, you should.

And that's what thousands of Boeing employees are doing right now, as the launch of the 787 Dreamliner concludes at the company's mammoth facility here--the world's largest building, by volume.

It's a pretty cool thing, I must say. After 45 minutes of obligatory celeb-speak -- Tom Brokaw MC'd the launch event -- the doors to the facility rolled open and there was the new plane, sparkling in the glorious sunlight.

And it took some time for the thousands of people here to make their way up the narrow aisles between all the folding chairs to the tarmac, but they did. And I did.

And next thing you know, it was a sea of people under, around and all sides of this spanking new plane, the very first of its kind.

The mood, of course, is jubilant. Many, many of these people worked on the creation of this plane, and it was easy to overhear a Boeing employee telling his or her partner, "I worked on that bit there..."

 

Just for the record... we have partied underneath a jumbo jet, and we can heartily recommend the experience.

LINKS:
787 Rollout Photos (Flickr photoset from timothylhendrix)

Boeing unveils assembled 787 Dreamliner (AP News story)

PREVIOUSLY:
Coming Events: Rolling Out the First Boeing 787

(Photos above by timothylhendrix)

Coming Events: Rolling Out the First Boeing 787

This will be an exciting weekend for aviation nerds, as Boeing plans to roll-out the first production model of its next-generation airliner, the all-new 787, at the company's Everett, Washington facility on Sunday. The 250 passenger 787 has been a colossal success for Boeing -- with more than 600 copies sold thus far, it's already the most successful new airplane launch in the history in the history of commercial aviation.

Sunday's unveiling is a big milestone, not least because Boeing staked a lot of credibility on having the jet ready for public debut on July 8, 2007, or 7.8.07.  Get it?  787!! Get it? Get it???

These are the kinds of pranks hatched in the minds of Boeing publicists.

Regardless, hitting the deadline is an impressive feat, partly because it creates a tidy contrast with the trouble-plagued Airbus A380 superjumbo, and especially because the 787 uses a new production process that involves farming out large parts of the assembly to outside contractors.  These subassemblies are shipped to Everett via a specially-modified 747 LCF, where Boeing more or less snaps them together to build a complete aircraft. The fact that this system has thus far worked more or less as planned is, as the engineers say, "nontrivial."

Telstar Logistics will bring photos and news from the event, as they become available. In the meantime, here's a video that explains how the 787 final assembly process works.  Notice that Boeing has gone from delivery of major subassemblies to roll-out in less than two months.  In time, the company hopes to be able to complete final assembly of a new 787 in just three days:

(Video courtesy of Flightblogger)

LINKS:

Newairplane.com (Boeing's official 787 website, with 787 rollout webcast)

Boeing 787 (Wikipedia)

PREVIOUSLY:
Boeing's 747 LCF: The Ugliest Airplane in the World. Maybe.

The First Boeing 747 (Definitely Not the Last)

(Photos above from Boeing Media)

Size Matters: California = France and Alabama = Iran

The United States is a famously big place, but this map helps put the size of the US economy in global perspective.

Created by Strange Maps, the idea here is pretty simple: If the annual economic output of each US state were compared to the GDP of a sovereign nation, what nation would each state represent?  For example, California's global economic heft is about the same as France (with a GDP of $2,15 trillion), while Alabama's is about the same as Iran (with a GDP of $195 billion). New Jersey's economy is comparable to that of Russia (with $733 billion GDP), which may explain why the Garden State made Tony Soprano feel so at home. And it's nice to see the connection between Wyoming and Uzbekistan (GDP: $11 billion) confirmed at last.

LINK:
US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs (Strange Maps weblog)

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)