Listen: New conversion milestones and cargo drone orders

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect'' podcast, Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke discuss Mammoth Freighters, which this week inducted its first, conformity 777-300ERMF at the Aspire MRO facility in Fort Worth, Texas. In addition, Lee talks about his tour of ANA’s maintenance facilities, and Crider discusses Ameriflight’s order of twenty Natilus cargo drones . The unmanned Kona drone, powered by sustainable aviation fuel, will be able to carry as much payload as a Saab 340, using an efficient blended wing body design. Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more with the Cargo Facts team for the week ended Jan. 27, 2023. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider Hello, and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host Andrew Crider, associate editor of cargo facts. Robert Luke And I'm your co-host, Robert Luke, associate editor of cargo facts. Jeff Lee And I'm Jeff Lee, editor of cargo Facts. Andrew Crider I want to begin by thanking Jeff in Robert for welcoming me back on from my brief stint for my ACMI lease to our sister publication air cargo next. Happy to be back for the podcast this week. And then turn it over to you, Robert, because we have some very wide body news this week. Robert Luke Yes, it's extremely wide. And you really didn't need to welcome yourself back because you're never left. So as we progress forward, but it's good to have you here this evening on the podcast, we're going to talk about two major STC holders or conversion programs are out there let me correct myself that have made some significant milestones this week. The first is the iai 767 300, which had its large cargo door cut at the Jet Technica facility in Belgrade. However, Iai also did manage to be the first to cut the 737 800 and it's Naples facilities conversion line as well. But back to the 767 300. They definitely brought in the ex PEGAS fly aircraft and that was going to be also in life convertible was not the first one it was actually the ex Air Canada as I correct myself. And that one is going to be converted for challenge group and it arrived back in September. So again, major milestone serious congratulations to the IAI team as well as the challenge group as they prepare to take on their first 767 300 but not too far behind them. We also had the conversion line being opened up from Mammoth freighters who basically had their second freighter triple seven freighter conversion type in triple seven 300ERMF began preparations to be inducted for conversion. And this aircraft was also promoted today by the company on social media. So kudos to the mammoth freighters team as they prepare to get that aircraft converted and underway. This one also was going to make extreme headlines because this aircraft indeed will be the first one for its launch customer avia am leasing and once they complete conversion of that aircraft, it is going to establish an opening line at its new facility at Fort Worth Alliance Airport. The Aspire MRO which I might add, was noted that they will also be able to convert the triple seven 300 Er MF as well as the triple seven 200 LR MF at the very same time and this is an unusual, great approval or actually approval by the Federal Aviation Administration. So big kudos up the man that time. From that I'll go ahead and pass it back to you, Andrew. Good to keep us updated with the latest scoop. Andrew Crider You mentioned seven six sevens and I want to bring up 767 operated by air Nippon Airways collided with the ground operations vehicle just yesterday at Tokyo Narita International Airport. Now, certainly I'm no accident investigator. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of damage to that. Very happy that everyone's okay. But that brings me to Jeff Lee, Jeff, you recently were in Japan and toured the ANA facilities. Jeff Lee I was just last week actually and funnily enough, tomorrow, I will be in Tokyo again, as I make my way over to you guys in the US, but yes, the so I don't know how many people know this. But ana and Japan Airlines actually both offer tours of their maintenance facilities for free to the public. And all you have to do is make sure you book I think, exactly 30 days in advance because the minute those things open up, they're gone just like that. Mostly by locals but so yeah, I managed to get myself into one of these tours and yeah, I loved it. They had this whole exhibit where you look through various things that tell you about the maintenance activities all that and then the they make you watch a brief film again to introduce the MRO Division I guess, then then they actually take you into the hangar and ana. So these are not at Narita Airport, but it Haneda Airport which is much closer to the city. And so ANA has two large maintenance hangars. And they, they, so they split you up into small groups of I guess like five or six, and then they take you into the hangars they take you actually down into the floor and they walk you around the various planes they have. When I visited they happen to have. I think it was that there was a triple seven 200 Er, there was a couple of seven elevens. There was a 737 800. And there was also an A321 Neo in there. And yeah, it was just eye opening. They pointed out various bits and things and what people were doing. And I guess Yeah, I was being really close to these airplanes. And I guess another highlight was the fact that in one of the hangars, they had the doors open and that happened to be facing the one of the runways at Haneda and this was at the time this happened to be one that we're using for landings and so we yeah, we saw several aircraft coming into land right in front of us. So I mean, yeah, I thought it was too short. It was I think, an hour and a half, but I could easily have stayed there for I don't know an entire day. Probably. Andrew Crider I can only imagine how you must have been a kid in a play in the candy shop or playground. Jeff Lee Yes. And I was always the last one when everybody else had moved on. I was like, Can we stay for two more minutes? I don't want to leave yet. Andrew Crider Did you ask them any great questions? Jeff Lee Um, I think so. Or well, no, not too many. Because I guess I was just transfixed. Andrew Crider Well, I happy happy you have that experience. I want to briefly mention quick item that we emerged today. novelists Natilus autonomous Blended Wing Body. aircraft manufacturer based in San Diego secured a major order that would be for 20 of its lighter Kona aircraft. From a mirror flight Mira flight right now operates a mixture of Saab 340s And I think M LIDAR Embraer aircraft. With major orders from 15 of the type for the Saab. The Saab can carry 3.8 tonnes and so can the Natilus with deliveries expected in 2026. I think the Natilus is going to be major player for that airline and will be the mainstay of the fleet once they've accepted all those deliveries. And it's going to be very interesting to see both the autonomous Natilus and the Saab 340 be operating side by side for that regional airline. So congratulations to nationalists and Ameriflight on that deal. Before we went, Robert, I believe you want to give a special shout out to our friends at Global X. Robert Luke Yes, we definitely wanted to give a special shout out to the global x team and congratulate them on taking in their first aid 321 200 P two F which arrived two days ago roughly about 730 In the evening, we will see making its final approach into Mia after completing its touch up paint for the painting of the library on the airframe MCI so congratulations to that team that's been a long awaited and heavily anticipated arrival of its first grader as that will be the aircraft once it completes final testing with the FAA and certification to launch its air cargo division so huge shout out and congratulations to the global x team also want to give a recognized acknowledgement to the air cargo network team as well out of Malaysia, World Airways world cargo airlines excuse me just actually added its third triple. It's 737 800 freighter all BCF all definite shout out to bbam whom they lease that one from. As they continue to grow their 737 800 freighter fleet. We are looking forward to many bigger and better things on the horizon for that group over there in the lower belt of the Asia Pacific region for the 23 year. And I think those are the ones that I definitely will give the shout outs to for this week. Hopefully, we'll have more coming on down the path pretty soon that we can mention in the next podcast. Andrew Crider Well, Robert is giving everyone a bunch of shout outs and kudos. Jeff, is there anything that you'd like to say on the A 320? Fun? Jeff Lee Yes, there is indeed. And I want to give a shout out to Smartlynx. Because if you remember, I think, two podcasts ago, we were talking about the fact that we were talking about the first e 321 conversion at that precision had completed at the Haeco facility in Xiamen, China, and I was seeing how that aircraft went to Montpellier inFrance and how there were already two other the 321 freighters there up the conversion and how fun it would be to see 3 A321 Freighters together straight after conversion. Well, now we have actually the answer to that, because turns out, all three of those are going to be joining SmartLynx. Now be it's interesting because SmartLynx says just adding a three to one on ones all over the place. So both from both precision conversions and EFW conversions. And with both engine types, so they have really got a mixed fleet and will continue to add a321 freighters of various kinds. So that yeah, these three from different lessors. But it is interesting that they're adding so many and actually they expect to have as many as 20 by the end of this year, which is pretty ambitious, but they along with global crossing airlines are equally ambitious when it comes to having the these a321s in service. But yeah, and they also hinted that these at least a couple of these will not be operating for DHL. So SmartLynx's current four that they have in service are all flying for DHL in Europe. We may be seeing their first operation outside of Europe and not for DHL. So we'll continue to keep a close eye on that. But yeah, shoutout to smartlynx and their A321 freighter expansion plans. Andrew Crider Truly incredible stuff. And on that I want to close I want to close today with a special Happy birthday message. This is of course to Queen Bessie or brave Bessie we're recording on January 26 2023. But January 26 1892 131 years ago, Bessie Coleman was born with American family in Atlanta, Texas. She had Cherokee grandparents would go on to become the first African American woman to earn an international pilot's license from the Federation Aeronautic international on June 15 1921. Being one of the first female black aviators and being one of the first Native American aviators at the same time, she earned the name Queen Bessie brave Bessie for her airshow performances. She'd flown at a time before in the air mail will be done by electric lamps on high buildings above gas lantern lit cities and arrows pointing in the proper direction across deserts. Truly an icon that we can look to today, for an inspiration to guide us the way forward. I want to end today with a special Happy Birthday to her in her celebration. And with that, that's all the time that we have for today. For more multimedia coverage like this search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify and search cargo facts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in. And join us again next time Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor . Cargo Facts EMEA, the essential event for stakeholders in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, will take place live Feb. 6-8 in Dubai. Register today.

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