Last year, I wrote a couple of post titled “Boeing vs. Airbus: CEO compensation (2014)” (and 2013) in which I compared the compensation of both CEOs. Yesterday, I saw that those posts received a larger than usual amount of visits which reminded me that now, at the end of the year 2016, we can find the same information for the 2015 fiscal year. Thus, this follow on post.
As both Boeing and Airbus are public companies, the information about their CEOs compensation is public and can be found in the annual report and proxy statement from each one. I will just copy the information below for comparison and future reference.
Airbus Group CEO, Tom Enders’ 2015 compensation (financial statements here, PDF, 1.7 MB, page 58).
Airbus Group’s Tom Enders 2015 compensation.
In the case of Boeing, 2015 was particular in the sense that Jim McNerney was the CEO for the first half of the year and since July 1st the position is held by Dennis A. Muilenburg. Find in the table below the figures for both (proxy statement here, PDF, 3.7 MB, page 30):
Boeing’s Jim McNerney and Dennis Muilenburg 2015 compensation.
It is interesting to note that while the base salary is nearly the same (1.4 m€ vs 1.6 m$, which after taking into account current exchange rate is almost equivalent) the incentive schemes at Boeing end up with a total remuneration about the double of that in Airbus Group.
One of the goals that I had for this year as a recently qualified private pilot was to make a flight crossing the French border. For this purpose, last July I approached a colleague, Asier, who had obtained his license years ago and already had the experience of having flown to San Sebastian, the destination chosen for the flight.
We took a day off at the office to have time enough to make the return flight on a day and avoid constraints with the availability of airplanes. The weather was very good early in the morning all the way from Toulouse to San Sebastian, with only some wind, and a few gusts by the coast.
On the way to San Sebastian we would make a short stop over by Pau. On the way back we had planned another one by Tarbes, but in the end we skipped it. The outgoing flight took us 2h28′ (engine running time, including the stop over) for over 176 nautical miles; the return one, 2h04′.
The navigation went rather well even if we didn’t make use of the GPS and just navigated using the charts, compass and VOR… It basically consisted in departing from Toulouse Lasbordes and flying around the CTR of Toulouse via the southern itinerary. Once arrived at the SN way point we took a west heading towards the VOR of Tarbes (TBO) and from there we sought the integration in the CTR of Pau. At Pau we simply went to the general aviation parking, drank some water, refreshed ourselves, rearranged some papers, visualized the second part of the flight and got ready for departure. While at the holding point we had to wait for an airliner and a French Air Force CN-235, a nice view considering that both Asier and I used to work for Airbus Military.
Navigation log.
It was when flying around Pau that we noticed that the temperature of the oil was rather high, almost in the red zone of the arc. As the pressure was OK we decided to simply reduce the rpm. The action was succesful in lowering the oil temperature back to the green area of the arc, but we were forced to fly for the rest of a very hot day at a somewhat slower speed (between 150-170 km/h vs. the planned 180-200).
Final approach at Pau airport.
From Pau we followed the transit towards Biarritz via Orthez and Dax that follows more or less the high speed way and river Gave de Pau. We flew around Biarritz by the North and coastal transits. The bay and beach of Biarritz are wonderful on the ground, even more so from the air. In general it is a very recommendable experience to fly from Biarritz to San Sebastian, as despite of the turbulence that you may encounter the views are breathtaking. See the pictures and video below.
Atlantic coast.
Biarritz
St Jean de Luz
Leaving St Jean de Luz,the French air traffic controller bid us farewell in Spanish. Those were the first words in Spanish I ever exchanged in the radio as I obtained my license in France and the FCL055 to be qualified to speak in English when flying abroad, but I had never flown by myself to Spain. We then contacted the air traffic control at San Sebastian, who were waiting for us. While talking to the controller I felt very awkward, as despite of being a native Spanish and having reviewed aviation phraseology in Spanish the previous days, the terms and sentences didn’t come natural. I am sure that I used plenty of expressions that are either not correct or not in use. I noticed a couple of them by myself (“back track” the runway was employed by the controller in English, rather than a Spanish form I used or “Responde” for the transponder); there ought to be many more.
Air space around San Sebastian was very quiet. We demanded a clearance to make a detour by the bay of San Sebastian and come back to the airport in neighboring Fuenterrabia and it was granted without hesitation. Basically we could do as we pleased, we just needed to report when approaching the airport. After taking some pictures of the bay we headed back to the airport and we flew through the port of Pasajes, which I had visited on ground a few months before.
San Sebastian
San Sebastian
Entering Pasajes.
It took me a while to spot the runway in long final but the landing went smoothly.
Final approach to San Sebastian airport at Fuenterrabia.
We then went to have lunch with a relative of Asier at a close by restaurant and later had a walk through the village centre (Fuenterrabia).
About 3 hours later we came back to the airport. Just in time to take-off and leave before the weather deteriorated. Clouds were approaching the airport from Pasajes, thus we took off heading North (runway 04), with heavy cross wind (310 degrees, 15-20 kt) in what was the most difficult take-off I have experienced so far. Once on air, at Biarritz the controller adviced us (and any other aircraft around) to either land or fly inland as soon as possible as a front was approaching from the sea. So we did, turned east, inland, and continued our flight towards Toulouse.
Biarritz
The rest of the flight went very smoothly, even though we skipped flying over Tarbes after having slightly diverted from our planned route as demanded by controllers.
To conclude this post, find below:
a video we made during the flight. Despite having played with the camera for most of the flights, of having collected over 1 hour of footage, most of it is about flying in the countryside, not that interesting to watch. However, I rescued the approach and landing at Pau and the flying along the coast in the way back, which are worth seeing (~10′).
the navigation log as it was after using it during the flight.
Used navigation log.
—
If you liked this post, find in the page Flight excursions of this same blog, a list of posts describing similar experiences to other destinations.
Last May, we had to travel by car from Toulouse to Paris. We took the opportunity to make some stop overs along the route, one of them at Cerny, a small village in the department of Essonne where the aerodrome “La Ferté Alais” is located. There, every month of May since over 40 years ago, the association L’Amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis organizes an air show dedicated to old aircraft with an impressive static and dynamic display.
The air show in itself deserves a dedicated post which I will leave for another moment, as in this post I mainly wanted to share the video of my baptism on a Junkers Ju 52. The aircraft in itself is iconic, mainly for its corrugated duraluminium skin. Over 4,000 airplanes of its different variants were built in Germany, France and Spain between 1931 and 1952. Only 8 remain airworthy today, 4 of them are operated by the Swiss company Ju Air. Ju Air brought its Ju 52/3m g4e registered HB-HOS to the air show “Le Temps des Helices” at La Ferté Alais to take part in the dynamic display and to give baptisms to aficionados, at a price of 180 euros per passenger.
When we got to know that we would attend the show I did not hesitate, I booked a place onboard the aircraft as soon as I could.
The flight lasted for about 40 minutes. We departed from Cerny and flew towards Fontainebleu, where we flew over the famous château. Find below an edited video I have made with the different clips and pictures I took in that flight.
Of the 17 passengers that we flew at that time, I believe only one made use of the headphones provided, the rest wanted to hear the roaring of those engines, therefore I left the sound unedited and I didn’t add any music to it; I wanted to leave audible the sound of the 3 engines.
I will leave for another post to provide further information and historical anecdotes of the Junkers Ju 52, as right after that flight I read a book by a former employee of CASA about it “El Junkers JU/52 3m CASA C.352. El avión y su historia” and I believe I will soon write a review of that book.
The Blog by Javier 