Aeroscopia

We had an exciting morning visiting Aeroscopia, the aviation museum near Blagnac.

The museum is a huge space filled with planes and helicopters including a Super Guppy! And there is a large collection of scale models.

For most of us, the most exciting thing was entering inside the concord and an Airbus A300B. The Concord was very long and narrow with tiny windows and a very small door, Mr. Gregg had to duck to go inside! Most of the inside space was full of machinery so we think that it was a test plane. Inside the A300B part of the floor was glass, so we could see through to the lower level where the luggage would be stored.

Here is a slide show of our fun day:

One of our activities was to sketch an MS760.

Here is a slide show of our wonderful sketches:

Making airports in the playground

We've continued our look at the naming of runways in the playgound today. We used a compass to find out which direction north was, then we made sure the runways we created had the right headings on them.

See a slideshow of us working here.

Scaling down Blagnac Airport

Yesterday we looked at two models of the A380.

The real A380 is one hundred times longer than the big model, and five hundred times longer than the small one.

Taking the small one, how long would the runway at Blagnac need to be to be the same scale?

We looked on Google maps:

So, about 4km. We divided this by 500 together, and got...

8 metres!

We made some runways (they're a bit too thin, but never mind):

What numbers to write at each end?

Coming in to land...

Runway names

We've been learning about runways.

Each runway has a name.

Or rather, it has a number.

No actually it has two numbers, one at each end.

When pilots and air traffic controllers talk about a runway, they just use the number at the end where the pilot is landing .  On this end is the number of the pilot's heading when they land.

We made some dials to find out this heading:

It's like a heading indicator that you get inside planes:

 Here's an A380 landing at Paris Orly. 

Zoom in to the runway to see what its number is:

 The aeroplane landing there would be going in the direction of the arrow...

The arrow points to 6, so the runway is called 06.

Here's a question for you. Can you answer it without looking... what number would be at the other end of the runway. Answer in the comments, and then check.

We had a go with another airport:

Now we're designing and naming our own runways...

Antelope Canyon

I want to see a lot of places in the world. But first, I want to see the Antelope Canyon in Arizona, USA. 

The Antelope Canyon is a canyon formed by flooding of water flowing through the rock and also wind erosion. Over time, the paths and the rocks wearied away, making them deeper and smooth edged. This has formed the flowing shapes in the rock. These flowing rocks look beautiful to me. 

I want to go there because it is very beautiful to see. I also want to see how the earth looks like. I have always been seeing roads and footpaths, this will be a different experience. I love taking photos and the Antelope Canyon looks amazing. So I want to go there and take lots of photos.

I have also never visited Arizona before, so I can also visit the Grand Canyon and the petrified forest there. Also, I can visit my cousin who stays in USA!   

Using the Great Circle Mapper, I saw that there is a direct flight from Toulouse to the closest airport near the Antelope Canyon which is the airport in Page, Arizona. 

I can't wait to go to the Antelope Canyon! I wish I get a chance to go there soon! 

Reykjavik,Iceland

 I have chosen Reykjavik as my destination. It is located in Europe and it is the world's most northern capital.

Just a small population live in Iceland which is famous for its hot springs, geysers and active volcanoes. Lava fields cover most of the land and hot water is pumped from under the ground to supply much of the country's heating and on top it is a spectacular show for tourists like me. By the way that's why I took my binoculars.

The most known geyser is called Geysir and its highest recorded gush of water was 100 meters. Unfortunately it rarely erupts any more. To help it erupt a ditch was dug, but later they added soap. This practice was against nature so they had to stop.

Luckily, bubbling pots and a very active smaller geyser nearby keep tourists coming to this area. It erupts every 4-8 minutes, shooting sizzling water into the air and spraying tourists who happen to be standing too close. Then you should go in the hot lagoon and have a warm bath!

On top you can enjoy Iceland's lovely nature:

Have a walk on the enormous lava fields...



or wait for the beautiful northern lights...

or visit the biggest glacier in of all Europe...

The only thing I don't like about Iceland is their whale hunting tradition. Iceland was forced to abandon the practice in 1989. Later it restarted with scientific whaling and in 2006 it announced a return to commercial hunts. Greenpeace is still against it.

Mr Skelly's talk

Today Mr Skelly came and talked to us about his job in sales and marketing for Airbus.

We had so many questions for him!

And he knew so many answers! What an interesting talk!

Here are lots of our questions: