February 2011

Boston - February 16th, 2011

One of the highlights of our 20th year is certainly the release of old VHS programs on DVD. You've asked for them and we started bringing them back. Cargolux and Citybird have been top sellers so far and the latest installement featuring Crossair is doing amazingly well. This program is really exciting as it follows 4 different aircraft types on some really great routes. You will fly the Saab 2000 to Genoa, not covered in another program, and to Lugano with its very complicated approach ; fly the MD83 to Funchal and Porto Santo in Portugal's Madeira Island, the Embraer 145 to Manchester and the Avro RJ100 to the always interesting London City Airport. Keep in mind that the Crossair DVD is currently the only program to show the Saab 2000 aircraft! On this occasion we created a new page dedicated to Switzerland where you can find all the Swiss airlines we've covered as well as all the other airlines that include flights to the Swiss airports of Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich. You can find this and other such pages in our Site Map. Our plan is to continue to release these older VHS programs on DVD at a rate of one a month. The Crossair was a top pick by our viewers and we continue to ask for your input as to which programs we should be bringing back. We will include all the viewer top picks in our programing plans so it is very important for you to let us know which programs you're looking for. The way to do this is to join the discussion when we ask these questions on our Facebook page. Hope to see and hear you there the next time this subject comes up!

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We started going through our video libeary a couple of months ago and have discovered a number of previously filmed footage that was not yet released. The plan is to clean all that up, edit it and have it all released during 2011 so that from 2012 on we will only be releasing newly filmed programs. However in the meantime we shall bring you some interesting airlines and aircraft and/or routes and destinations such as the newly released One Two Go DVD. The one has a lot of nice features to it... first of all the airline no longer operates as it was merged into Orient Thai but more importantly, the Boeing 747-100 and 757-200 covered in this program were replaced with MD80s many years ago so they've not been around for a while, as a matter of fact the 747-100 is a very very rare sight in passenger service these days if it operates at all and its always cool to be able to release a program featuring the Jumbo! The route covered on the 747 is Bangkok to Phuket to Bangkok and you will see one very scenic approach into the resort destination of Phuket. Another nice thing about the progam is that it adds 2 destinations not previously covered in the series : Chiang Rai and Hat Yai taking the total number of destinations filmed in Thailand to 7. And last, but certainly not least, this program is selling at our new low price of just $20. We introduced this new line of pricing a few months ago and it has been very well received by our customers. Incidentally we just re-released a great program from the Indian Ocean featuring Air Austral Boeing 777-200 & 737-300/500 and lowered the price for that DVD from $30 to $20! If you haven't added this program to your collection you should consider it today, it features a flight on the airline's 777 to Paris and some very scenic flights on the 737s from Reunion Island to destinations in the Indian Ocean including Antananarivo and Nossi Be in Madagascar and the very special landing on the tiny runway of Dzaoudzi located in Mayotte. To find the list of programs selling for $20 I recommend you visit our List of DVDs page. Also re-released was the 2003 produced program featuring Aeropostal of Venezuela. This one is a classic as it features the Boeing 727-200 and Douglas DC9-20/30/50... types you don't see too much in passenger service these days. This program takes you on a 727 flight across the Caribbean to the islands of Aruba and the Dominican Republic and then on the various DC9s to 5 domestic destinations in Venezuela. This is a sold out program that had been requested by our viewers and more of those are scheduled to come back during our 20th Anniversary year at a rate of 1 to 2 a month! and last but certainly not least I'm delighted to be bringing back the Iran Air Fleet DVD. It was pretty incredible to be allowed into Iran to film but we did it and we get a wonderful glimpse at a very interesting carrier and its fleet. We were able to capture flights in the cockpit of no less than 6 types of aircaft including the very rare Boeing 747SP on a flight to London Heathrow, the now classic Boeing 727-200 on a pair of domestic flights along with the old Airbus A300B2, a little less older A310 and more recent A300-600 plus the Fokker 100 on flights to a variety of destinations within Iran as well as Frankfurt. The nice thing about this program is that it doesn't limit itself to just the flying, you will also visit the airline's maintenance facility with some presentations and even take a ride inside the Boeing 727 flight simulator. Some scenery is also included to round off one of the highlights in the World Air Routes series. We're currently working on a number of other re-releases of sold out programs and will continue to bring those out at a rate of 2 a month throughout 2011. Some other programs may sell out in the meantime but we will always try to give you notice before they do sell out but its good you keep an eye on the website and most important sign up for out twitter so you can get the latest news delivered right to your computer and if you have not yet done so, please Like Us on

 
Over the years some of you have asked me about our operation... so here is a look at our warehouse. The Just Planes warehouse is located close to the runways of Boston Airport. It is normally staffed 5 days a week. Your orders are shipped twice a week (on Wednesdays and Friday) for Mail orders and 5x a week for Fedex and UPS orders. Our warehouse is basically 2 stories and 5 big rooms which stock around 150,000 DVDs. The Just Planes Production Studios are located about half a mile from the warehouse.
 

On to the last subject of this month's newsletter. So many of you wrote in to congratulate us on the 1st new release using the new technology and asked about new titles. I can confirm that all new Cockpit DVDs are being filmed in High Definition and we've introduced more equipment that will make the result even better than the 1st program! The picture quality which you liked in program 1 gets better with program 2 and what I've seen on the 3rd program is outstanding. For those 2 programs we've made use of 2 cameras in the cockpit. Recently we filmed nbr 4 with 3 cameras and our plans call for more cameras when there is a need for it but I am personally still against showing you 6 angles on takeoff and switching the views 20x because in the end you've seen nothing. As I completed the editing on the 3rd program (which might be released before the 2nd one... am I confusing you yet?) I decided to show the landings and takeoff from the 2nd camera in its entirety, in other words you will see the full takeoff and full landing twice from 2 different angles (for the same price:) ). So to recap our plans here... we currently have 3 new programs in production at this time, if I was to play weatherman and forecast things I would say, expect them to be released in March, April and May but I will certainly know more by the time the March newsletter comes out. Thank you for stopping by here and enjoy the remainder of this short month!