Today, Norwegian will fly a fully loaded aircraft with emergency aid to Africa

Today, Norwegian will fly a fully loaded aircraft with emergency aid to Africa

Today, a fully loaded Norwegian aircraft with emergency aid will head for The Central African Republic (CAR).

The transport of vital aid is a collaboration between UNICEF and Norwegian. For more than ten months, children and families in Bangui in CAR have been helpless victims of a brutal war.

Norwegian has provided an aircraft and crew to bring emergency aid like medicines and equipment to CAR. In addition to providing an aircraft with crew, Norwegian will also give an additional 500 000 NOK towards the project in order to achieve the goal of collecting three million NOK and to fill all available space on the plane with vital emergency aid. This means that the "fill a plane" campaign, which has been ongoing since August this year, has sufficient funds to fill the aircraft’s cargo, overhead bins and all seats with medicines and other necessities.

Norwegian will first fly from Oslo to Copenhagen, where the aircraft will be loaded with emergency aid from UNICEF’s Supply Division Warehouse. The aircraft will then head to the airport in Bangui, CAR. UNICEF and Norwegian have been partners for many years. Together they have decided to highlight one of the world's forgotten crises, where 2.3 million children are suffering. One million people have been displaced in the civil war-torn country, and lack the most basic of equipment to survive. The violence in the country is ruthless, and children are not spared. Norwegian and UNICEF Norway have cooperated in this campaign to fill a plane with emergency equipment, which has included fundraising among many passengers.

“I would like to thank our passengers and colleagues at Norwegian for helping children in CAR by donating money to UNICEF's important work and our joint "fill a plane" project. UNICEF and Norwegian's common goal is to fill every available space on board with vital equipment,” said CEO Bjørn Kjos at Norwegian.

“I would like to thank Norwegian and its passengers who have helped us to fill the plane with lifesaving emergency relief. This important cargo enables us to provide even more children the opportunity to survive and to have a more dignified life,” says UNICEF Norway's Secretary General Bernt G. Apeland, who visited the country earlier this year and has seen the suffering first hand.

UNICEF is present in more than 190 countries around the world and has a big presence in CAR. The world's largest organization for children coordinates relief efforts within health, water / sanitation and schools, and is also a key player in getting child soldiers released and for the protection of children in general. UNICEF's appeal to the world community is to contribute 500 million NOK to CAR, however, today, just 37 percent of this amount has been reached.

Norwegian and UNICEF have had a so-called signature partnership since 2007. Norwegian supports UNICEF with campaigns and travel support. Norwegian’s employees support UNICEF by donating their annual Christmas present to the organization. In 2013, Norwegian donated one NOK from each water bottle sold on board to UNICEF's important work. Norwegian turned 10 years on 1 September 2012 and marked the day with an anniversary concert at Fornebu. The profits from the concert were donated to UNICEF.

Airbus want us to cross the atlantic in only 1h

 
   Airbus cooperates with the Aerospace investigations and studies office (ONERA, in french) a prestigious  french institution. The equivalent to NASA, specially in aspects like the use of bio-fuel and electric propulsion. On another hand, the japanese agency (JAXA), that executed its own supersonic project back in 1997, its working on the S3TD ( Silent Supersonic Technology Demonstrator) enphasising on the demonstration of new technologies in order to reduce the sonic BOOM and the aerodinamic drag.

   But the supersonic transport of goods and passengers presents a great challenge to technology and cientist,  there are success like the HTV-2 that can fly at Mach 20 almost 21 000khm/h and its outside temperature can reach 2000 C caused by the air friction. The problem is not only finding materials able to stand that temperature but also the design of an air conditioning system able to make the interior of the airliner cool enough for its future passengers.

   On another hand there is the prototype ZEHST ( Zero emissions high speed transport) that will be ready for its first demonstration flight in a period of 6 years and hopefuly ready to opereate with passengers in 2050. As its name says, this aeroplane will produce no emissions that afcts the global warming as its power source is based on electricity and bio fuels extracted from sea begans. This plane will be able to fly at 32000m of altitude, three times the current cruise altitude, and its sonic BOOM will not be heard from the earth surface despite of its cruise speed that will be Mach 4, twice the speed of the famous Concorde. When it is ready it will be able to fly from LA to Tokio in only 2:30h.

Supersonic airliners may be the near future basis

   In the 60's and 70's, the battle for producing a supersonic aeroplane was held by 3 main rivals, United States, with 2 projects from Boeing,  Douglas and Lockheed; Europe with a British-French project and the URSS that was developing in secret their prototype, Tupolev Tu144.

   Although the battle was tense, the model from the URSS, the Tupolev TU144, was the first one to take off  on the 31st of December 1968, followed by the famous Concorde. Despite many efforts, the American projects never had the change to fly.

   Very shortly, after the Concorde first flight, the environment defenders started their plans to stop the supersonic airliner from flying over the American continent, where the most profitable routes were located,  claiming that the sonic BOOM was harmful of those who were supposed to hear it regularly, like people living close to airports or supersonic routes. Later rumours that the American industry was behind the plans to stop the Concorde because of their fails with their projects of a supersonic airliner, even there were rumours saying that they were supporting economically the ecologist in their protest.

   The suborbital flights could be the future of commercial aviation

   Technology was the key to motivate the production of the Concorde, and at the end of the 90's there was a similar situation: technology was able to bring supersonic airliners back to reality, able to fly at several times the speed of sound and at altitudes almost out of the Earth's orbit, avoiding chemical and noise pollution.  NASA has been experimenting with new models like the X-43A, created to test the liability of its power source called SCRAMJET. The bad news is that despite all efforts, here were many problems and fails that demanded more extensive investigations.


It was not until 2 years ago when new brands were able to launch new project promising commercial aviation at very high speed. One of the biggest project is the Icon II that will be able to carry 120 passenger at a speed of 1600 km/h with a range of 9000km. It will be only a matter of time until these marvellous machines will be flying over us or taking us on holidays from London to New York in only 3-4 hours of flight.