I have always been fascinated by airplanes, from the mundane (airports) to the cool (A-10 Thunderbolts). One of the more fascinating things of late is the Boeing-Airbus battle on the airliner front.
The scorecard (from the WSJ). In addition to the 787 orders (these are through march), Boeing just this month sold 20 to Air India and 60 to Air Canada).
Boeing 787
|
Firm Orders |
Number Of Aircraft |
| Air New Zealand | 2 |
| All Nippon Airways (Japan) | 50 |
| Blue Panorama (Italy) | 4 |
| First Choice Airways (U.K.) | 6 |
| Icelandair | 2 |
| Total Firm Orders | 64 |
| Pending Orders | Number Of Aircraft |
| Chinese Airlines | 60 |
| Continental Airlines | 10 |
| Ethiopian Airlines | 5 |
| Japan Airlines | 30 |
| Primaris (Las Vegas, business-class only) |
20 |
| Vietnam Airlines | 4 |
| Total Pending Orders | 129 |
| Total Firm and Pending Orders | 193 |
Airbus A380
| Firm Orders | Number Of Aircraft |
| Air France | 10 |
| Emirates (United Arab Emirates) | 43 |
| Etihad Airways (U.A.E) | 4 |
| FedEx | 10 |
| Korean Air | 5 |
| Lufthansa (Germany) | 15 |
| Malaysia Airlines | 6 |
| Qantas (Australia) | 12 |
| Qatar Airways | 2 |
| Singapore Airlines | 10 |
| Thai Airways | 6 |
| Virgin Atlantic Airways | 6 |
| International Lease Finance Corp. | 10 |
| Total Firm Orders | 139 |
| Pending Orders | Number Of Aircraft |
| Chinese Southern Airlines | 5 |
| UPS | 10 |
| Total Pending Orders | 15 |
| Total Firm and Pending Orders | 154 |
Source: CIBC World Markets, the companies
The next part, the part i needed Dad’s expertise, was hooking the new softener to the already installed piping. There was a bit of a height difference so we had to do some bends to get it all to come out. A bit of soldering, and some weird pipe glue later we had soft water! Here’s a shot of the final product:
The Morton Water Softener Unit
Getting the water where you need it. The one on the right is the master water on/off switch. The incoming water into the softener is the middle pipe coming out of the wall and you can’t really see it but the out for the softened water is the left pipe going into the wall.
Here is a better shot of the piping in and out of the wall. The rough-in we had done when we had the house built had nice easy valves to control the water flow. One valve each, the incoming, outgoing and a connection between that effectively bypasses the softener. We have to do this now (bypass the softener) if we are using the outside water. A leak in the pipe going to the outside spicket at build time was fixed by making the outside spicket use the house internal water. That wasn’t a big deal until we installed the softener. Salt water isn’t good for plants. For now we have to bypass the softener when watering. In the future Dad and I will put in another spicket that is connected to the pipe coming out the top (the blue handle). This will eliminate this annoyance.
Here’s a shot of the inside of the softener. Looks like we need more salt!
