Whats going on in F1?

The Formula One governing body the International Automobile Federation (FIA) has been criticized over their decision to allow new teams to enter F1 for the 2010 season.

In a column published on the official Ferrari website, the Italian team has gone on the attack towards the FIA for encouraging the struggling newcomers Campos F1 and US F1 instead of supporting the older teams such as BMW and Toyota, who have both left the sport.

The Ferrari column attributes blame for the current problems to the former FIA president Max Mosley, who rowed with established manufacturers such as Ferrari last season over his plans to bring in new teams. "This is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president," the column continued. "The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into Formula One.

This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third (Stefan Grand Prix) is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand... and, as for the fourth (US F1), where have they gone?

On 24 February 2010 it was reported that Campos and US F1 were in discussions about the possibility of a merger which means Jose Maria Lopez could be transferring to the Campos F1 team.

In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault, there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?

The 2010 F1 season starts on March 12 with practice and the first race on March 14, Who will be there at the first round? Do we need to wait until May to see a full grid?

747-8 flies

Boeing's giant 747-8 freighter is the biggest plane the Boeing company has ever built, It took off on its first flight today which is a year later than originally planned and one day earlier than the anniversary of the first flight of a 747 41 years ago. The 747-8F took off from Everett's Paine Field at 12:39 PST and Touched down at 4:18 PM.

The 747-8 Freighter reached a speed of 230 knots (264 mph/426 kph) and an altitude of 17,000 feet (5,181 meters) on the first flight. It is about 5.5 meters longer than the existing 747-400 jumbo jet. The company conducted high and low speed taxi tests on the freighter on Saturday, with the aircraft performing well.

At this stage there are 76 firm orders for the freighter and 32 for the 747-8 inter-continental passenger jet which was launched on November 14, 2005, Boeing has firm orders for 10 planes from Cargolux of Luxembourg and eight from Nippon Cargo Airlines of Japan and has a list price of more than $US300 million.

After completing the test program, the first freighter will be refitted and delivered to Cargolux later this year. The first delivery was to have been in late 2009 and the first passenger version in late 2010, but Boeing pushed back the dates due to design changes, limited engineering resources and an eight-week strike that shut down factories.

The 747-8 passenger version will carry up to 467 people in three classes, with a range of just under 7,000 miles and assembly of that plane will begin around mid-2010, with the first delivery in the fourth quarter of 2011.