Valuev was born on August 21, 1973, in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union . He is of Russian descent, but he also had a Tatar grandfather.He wooed his wife, Galya, with poetry that he composed himself. He has two young children, daughter Irina and son Grisha (Grigoriy). In his professional boxing career Valuev has been defeated only twice by Ruslan Chagaev and David Haye.Valuev is a Russian Orthodox Christian. During his youth he played water polo and basketball.

After an amateur career where he had a record of 23–0, with 16 knockouts, he became a professional fighter in 1993. His debut bout was against American John Morton, and Valuev beat him by knockout in the second round. In 1999 he took the Russian heavyweight title and in 2000 he won a Pan-Asian title.Valuev propelled himself into a position to fight for a world title with victories over Bob Mirovic, Otis Tisdale, Paolo Vidoz, Gerald Nobles, Attila Levin, and Clifford Etienne.

In 2005, Valuev squared off with WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz, and won a twelve-round majority-decision. Two judges favored Valuev by scores of 116–114 and 116–113, while the third saw the fight as a 114–114 draw — enough to give Valuev the title. This victory came after narrowly defeating Larry Donald on points in the title elimination bout.

In June 2006, in his first defence of the WBA Heavyweight Championship, Nikolai Valuev (then 44–0, 33 KOs) defeated challenger Owen Beck (25–3, 18 KOs) by a third-round technical knockout in Hannover, Germany.

In October 2006, Valuev fought Monte Barrett and defeated him with a technical knockout in the 11th round, for Valuev’s 45th win. Barrett was knocked down twice in the 8th and once in the 11th round, but managed to get up. After being knocked down for the final time in the eleventh round, his trainer James Ali Basheer jumped into the ring to stop the fight.

In January 2007, Valuev fought Jameel McCline (38–6–3, 23 KOs) in St. Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland. Valuev won the match, successfully defending his title, after McCline was not able to continue the bout after injuring his knee when throwing a punch near the end of the 3rd round.

In the tournament to determine who would next challenge Valuev for his title, Ruslan Chagaev from Uzbekistan beat John Ruiz, who lost his championship to Valuev in 2005. The title defense was held on April 14, 2007. Chagaev defeated Valuev by a majority decision (111–111, 115–113 and 114–114).Valuev changed trainers, from Manuel Gabrielian to Alexander Zimin, who coached the old Soviet Union amateur boxing team.On September 29, 2007, Valuev won against Jean-Francois Bergeron in Oldenburg, Germany, by a 12-round unanimous decision (118–111 on all three cards).

In a 16 February 2008, title eliminator, Valuev defeated former titleholder Sergei Liakhovich from Belarus, winning every round at the Nuremberg Arena in Germany. The victory earned Valuev the right to face Chagaev for the WBA title again, the only man who had defeated him in his boxing career. He was scheduled to face Chagaev for his WBA title on 5 July 2008, but Chagaev pulled out with an injury. Valuev instead fought John Ruiz for the vacant title on 30 August 2008 and the WBA decided to make Chagaev “Champion In Recess”. Valuev defeated Ruiz by unanimous decision to regain the WBA heavyweight championship, with Valuev and Chagaev set to fight no later than 26 June 2009 to determine who the WBA regarded as their champion. Their scheduled rematch on May 30, 2009 was cancelled due to Chagaev’s viral infection and on 24 July 2009, when the WBA published their Official Ratings as of June 2009, Chagaev was no longer the “Champion In Recess” but the #1 challenger instead.

Valuev’s first title defence of his second reign as WBA Champion was against the 46-year old, four-time heavyweight champion of the world, Evander Holyfield, on 20 December 2008, a match Valuev won on a points decision that was controversial since some observers felt that Holyfield had won the most rounds.

Valuev’s first role in a movie was a cameo appearance in the German film 7 Zwerge – Der Wald ist nicht genug in 2006. In 2008 Valuev played the main role in the film Stonehead by Philip Yankovskiy, playing an ex-boxer who lost his memory. The film took the main prize at the movie festival “Window to Europe”. After the success of Stonehead, it was announced Valuev is being filmed in two new films at the same time.

Valuev has written a book in Russian called My 12 Rounds, with the help of prominent Russian journalist Konstantin Osipov. The book discusses his life in general and his boxing career in particular. For that book, Valuev received an award from the government of Saint Petersburg.

Every control in the model is moveable and functions like the real plane. Every little bit has been shaped, sized and fixed by hand. The picture with the tweezers in them shows how difficult it must have been to put it together and to fashion the parts. The completed model is mind blowing as you can see every little detail put carefully where it belongs.

P51 Mustang

Corsair

All the controls work as designed, by cables, chains, linkages and levers.

Detail of three .50 Cal. machine guns and ammo cans.

P51 MUSTANG

.50 cal ammunition threaded into the three wing guns

engine exhaust ports.

Air Force One is a prominent symbol of the American presidency and its power^. The aircraft are among the most famous and most photographed in the world.

Though Ronald Reagan’s two terms as president saw no major changes to Air Force One, the manufacture of the current 747s began during his presidency. Reagan ordered two identical Boeing 747s to replace the aging 707 that he used for transport. The interior designs were drawn up by First Lady Nancy Reagan, who used designs reminiscent of the American Southwest. The first aircraft was delivered in 1990, during the administration of George H. W. Bush. Delays were experienced to allow for additional work to protect the aircraft from electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects.

The VC-25 is equipped with both secure and unsecure phone and computer communications systems, enabling the president to perform duties while in the air in the event of an attack on the United States.

When President Bush came to the end of his second term, a VC-25 was used to transport him to Texas – for this purpose, the craft was called Special Air Mission 28000, as the aircraft did not carry the President of the United States.

One of the most dramatic episodes aboard Air Force One happened during the September 11 attacks. President George W. Bush was interrupted at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida after the attack on the World Trade Center South Tower in New York City. He flew on a VC-25 from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and then to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska before returning to Washington. The next day, officials at the White House and the Justice Department explained that President Bush did this because there was “specific and credible information that the White House and Air Force One were also intended targets.” The White House later could not confirm evidence of a threat made against Air Force One, and subsequent investigation found the original claim to be a result of miscommunication.

The presidential air fleet is maintained by the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. Air Force One usually does not have fighter aircraft to escort the presidential aircraft over the United States, but this has occurred. In June 1974, while President Nixon was on his way to a scheduled stop in Syria, Syrian fighter jets intercepted Air Force One to act as escorts. However, the Air Force One crew was not informed in advance and, as a result, took evasive action including a dive.

On April 27, 2009, a low-flying VC-25 circled New York City for a photo-op and training exercise and caused a scare for many in New York. Fallout from the photo op incident led to the resignation of the director of the White House Military Office.

The VC-25As are expected to be replaced, as they have become less cost-effective to operate. The USAF Air Mobility Command has been charged with looking into possible replacements, including the new Boeing 747-8 and the EADS Airbus A380. On January 7, 2009, the USAF Air Materiel Command issued a new requirement for a replacement aircraft to enter service beginning in 2017. On January 28, 2009, EADS announced they would not bid on the program, leaving Boeing the sole bidder, with either their Boeing 747-8 or Boeing 787 being proposed.

United Airlines was the only commercial airline to have operated Executive One, the designation given to a civilian flight on which the U.S. President is aboard. On December 26, 1973, then-President Richard Nixon flew as a passenger aboard a Washington Dulles to Los Angeles International flight. It was explained by his staff that this was done in order to conserve fuel by not having to fly the usual Boeing 707 Air Force aircraft.

On March 8, 2000, President Bill Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III while another aircraft with the call sign “Air Force One” flew on the same route a few minutes later. This diversion was reported by several U.S. press outlets.

Other heads of state also have special aircraft assigned. See Air transports of heads of state and government for further details.

An employee of the International Medical Leech Centre demonstrates with a leech on her face in the village of Udelnaya, some 30 km (18.6 miles) from Moscow, December 4, 2009. The leech farm makes a tidy profit shipping them to doctors worldwide. Like many discarded elements of traditional medicine, they have made a come-back as doctors have re-discovered their pain-killing properties, which come from the chemicals they inject into the skin when they bite it. Several medical trials have proven leeches help relieve the symptoms of arthritis and other conditions.  REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov  (RUSSIA HEALTH SOCIETY)

The long-lost guides were said to have been written by a prominent magician, but many officers dismissed them as myth, believing them too fantastical to be true.

But in 2007, retired CIA officer Robert Wallace unearthed an extraordinary archived file and is now making its contents available to the public for the first time.

The file contained once highly-classified manuals written in the early 1950s by American magician John Mulholland that detailed the secrets of magic that could enhance the art of espionage.

It was thought that every copy of his reports had been destroyed in 1973.

But Wallace obtained surviving copies and, with intelligence historian H. Keith Melton, combined the two manuals — one examining sleight of hand techniques and the other on covert signaling — into one book, recently released by publisher HarperCollins.

Complete with illustrations, “The Official C.I.A. Manual of Trickery and Deception” describes a wide range of Mulholland’s Houdini-like tricks designed to help spies pull off a number of clandestine operations, such as slipping poison into an enemy’s drink or surreptitiously removing documents.

Other magician-historians previously established Mulholland’s connection to the CIA and printed portions of his reports – and one, Michael Edwards, said he received full copies of the reports from the CIA in 2003. But the authors say their book is the first to publish the historical documents in their entirety.

Divje Babe (pron. Deew-yeh Bah-beh) is the oldest archaeological site in Slovenia. The site is the location of a horizontal cave, 45m long and up to 15 m wide. It is located 230m above the Idrijca river, near Cerkno, and is accessible to visitors. Researchers working at this site have uncovered more than 600 archaeological finds in at least ten levels, including 20 hearths, the skeletal remains of cave bears, and have studied climate change during the pleistocene. According to the museum, the alleged flute has been associated with the “end of the middle Pleistocene” and the time of Neanderthals, about 55,000 years ago

In 1995, Ivan Turk found an approximately 43,100 year-old juvenile cave bear femur at the Divje Babe site, near a Mousterian hearth. Because it has characteristics of a flute, he has called it the “Neanderthal flute”. Whether it is actually a flute created by Neanderthals is a subject of debate. It is broken at both ends, and has two complete holes and what may be the incomplete remains of one hole on each end, meaning that the bone may have had four or more holes before being damaged. The bone fragment is the diaphysis of the left femur of a one to two year-old cave bear, and is 113.6 mm in length. The maximum diameters of the two complete holes are 9.7 and 9.0 mm. The distance between the centers of the holes is 35 mm^.

Soon after its publication, the status of the object as a musical instrument came under scrutiny by taphonomist Francesco d’Errico (et al., 1998), Holderman and Serangeli (1999), and Chase and Nowell (1998, 552), all of whom suggest it is more likely to be the result of carnivore chewing than Neanderthal construction. The bone has been damaged on all sides by the chewing of a carnivore.

If the bone is a flute it would be evidence of the existence of music 43,000 years ago, and of the making of music by Neanderthals. Thus Ivan Turk has asserted that whether the holes are of “artificial” (made by Neanderthals) or “natural” (punctures from a carnivore bite) origin is the “crucial question.”

Despite the disagreement about the bone’s markings, the bone has become a noted attraction in its Slovenian museum, publicized on official Slovenian websites and is a source of pride for the country. In the West, paintings were made, models constructed, and musicians such as Biology Professor and flautist Jelle Atema have played them publicly.

The arguments for one or the other interpretation are based on the available taphonomic evidence derived from direct study of the artifact, as well as related studies of Neanderthal tools and of carnivores of the time period.

The A380’s upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, and its width is equivalent to that of a widebody aircraft. This allows for a cabin with 50% more floor space than the next-largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400, and provides seating for 525 people in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in all-economy class configurations. The postponed freighter version, the A380-800F, is offered as one of the largest freight aircraft, with a payload capacity exceeded only by the Antonov An-225. The A380-800 has a design range of 15,200 km (8,200 nmi), sufficient to fly from New York to Hong Kong for example, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruising altitude).

In the summer of 1988, a group of Airbus engineers led by Jean Roeder began working in secret on the development of a ultra-high-capacity airliner (UHCA), both to complete its own range of products and to break the dominance that Boeing had enjoyed in this market segment since the early 1970s with its 747. McDonnell Douglas unsuccessfully offered its smaller, double-deck MD-12 concept for sale. Roeder was given approval for further evaluations of the UHCA after a formal presentation to the President and CEO in June 1990. The project was announced at the 1990 Farnborough Air Show, with the stated goal of 15% lower operating costs than the 747-400. Airbus organized four teams of designers, one from each of its EADS partners (Aérospatiale, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, British Aerospace, EADS CASA) to propose new technologies for its future aircraft designs. The designs would be presented in 1992 and the most competitive designs would be used

In January 1993, Boeing and several companies in the Airbus consortium started a joint feasibility study of an aircraft known as the Very Large Commercial Transport (VLCT), aiming to form a partnership to share the limited market. This study was abandoned two years later, Boeing’s interest having decreased.

In June 1994, Airbus began developing its own very large airliner, designated the A3XX. Airbus considered several designs, including an odd side-by-side combination of two fuselages from the A340, which was Airbus’s largest jet at the time. The A3XX was pitted against the VLCT study and Boeing’s own New Large Aircraft successor to the 747. From 1997 to 2000, as the East Asian financial crisis darkened the market outlook, Airbus refined its design, targeting a 15 to 20 percent reduction in operating costs over the existing Boeing 747-400. The A3XX design converged on a double-decker layout that provided more passenger volume than a traditional single-deck design

On 19 December 2000, the supervisory board of newly restructured Airbus voted to launch a €8.8-billion programme to build the A3XX, re-christened as the A380, with 50 firm orders from six launch customers. The A380 designation was a break from previous Airbus families, which had progressed sequentially from A300 to A340. It was chosen because the number 8 resembles the double-deck cross section, and is a lucky number in some Asian countries where the aircraft was being marketed. The aircraft’s configuration was finalised in early 2001, and manufacturing of the first A380 wing box component started on 23 January 2002. The development cost of the A380 had grown to €11 billion when the first aircraft was completed.

Major structural sections of the A380 are built in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Due to their size, they are brought to the assembly hall in Toulouse in France by surface transportation, though some parts are moved by the A300-600ST Beluga aircraft used in the construction of other Airbus models. Components of the A380 are provided by suppliers from around the world; the five largest contributors, by value, are Rolls-Royce, SAFRAN, United Technologies, General Electric, and Goodrich.

The front and rear sections of the fuselage are loaded on an Airbus Roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ship, Ville de Bordeaux, in Hamburg in northern Germany, from where they are shipped to the United Kingdom. The wings, which are manufactured at Filton in Bristol and Broughton in North Wales, are transported by barge to Mostyn docks, where the ship adds them to its cargo. In Saint-Nazaire in western France, the ship trades the fuselage sections from Hamburg for larger, assembled sections, some of which include the nose. The ship unloads in Bordeaux. Afterwards, the ship picks up the belly and tail sections by Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA in Cádiz in southern Spain, and delivers them to Bordeaux. From there, the A380 parts are transported by barge to Langon, and by oversize road convoys to the assembly hall in Toulouse. Roads and canals were widened and replaced; and new barges were developed to deliver the A380 parts. After assembly, the aircraft are flown to Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport (XFW) to be furnished and painted. It takes 3,600 l (950 US gal) of paint to cover the 3,100 m² (33,000 sq ft) exterior of an A380. Airbus sized the production facilities and supply chain for a production rate of four A380s per month.

Five A380s were built for testing and demonstration purposes. The first A380, serial number MSN001 and registration F-WWOW, was unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse on 18 January 2005.Its maiden flight took place at 8:29 UTC (10:29 a.m. local time) 27 April 2005. This plane, equipped with Trent 900 engines, flew from Toulouse Blagnac International Airport with a flight crew of six headed by chief test pilot Jacques Rosay. After successfully landing three hours and 54 minutes later, Rosay said flying the A380 had been “like handling a bicycle”

On 1 December 2005, the A380 achieved its maximum design speed of Mach 0.96 (versus normal cruising speed of Mach 0.85), in a shallow dive, completing the opening of the flight envelope. On 10 January 2006, the A380 made its first transatlantic flight to Medellín in Colombia, to test engine performance at a high altitude airport. It arrived in North America on 6 February, landing in Iqaluit, Nunavut in Canada for cold-weather testing

On 14 February 2006, during the destructive wing strength certification test on MSN5000, the test wing of the A380 failed at 145% of the limit load, short of the required 150% to meet the certification. Airbus announced modifications adding 30 kg to the wing to provide the required strength. On 26 March 2006, the A380 underwent evacuation certification in Hamburg, Germany. With 8 of the 16 exits blocked, 853 passengers and 20 crew left the aircraft in 78 seconds, less than the 90 seconds required by certification standards. Three days later, the A380 received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to carry up to 853 passengers.

The maiden flight of the first A380 using GP7200 engines—serial number MSN009 and registration F-WWEA—took place on 25 August 2006. On 4 September 2006, the first full passenger-carrying flight test took place. The aircraft flew from Toulouse with 474 Airbus employees on board, in the first of a series of flights to test passenger facilities and comfort. In November 2006, a further series of route proving flights took place to demonstrate the aircraft’s performance for 150 flight hours under typical airline operating conditions

Initial production of the A380 was troubled by delays attributed to the 530 km (330 mi) of wiring in each aircraft. Airbus cited as underlying causes the complexity of the cabin wiring (100,000 wires and 40,300 connectors), its concurrent design and production, the high degree of customization for each airline, and failures of configuration management and change control. Specifically, it would appear that German and Spanish Airbus facilities continued to use CATIA version 4, while British and French sites migrated to version 5. This caused overall configuration management problems, at least in part because wiring harnesses manufactured using aluminium rather than copper conductors necessitated special design rules including non-standard dimensions and bend radii; these were not easily transferred between versions of the software

Airbus announced the first delay in June 2005 and notified airlines that deliveries would be delayed by six months. This reduced the number of planned deliveries by the end of 2009 from about 120 to 90–100. On 13 June 2006, Airbus announced a second delay, with the delivery schedule undergoing an additional shift of six to seven months. Although the first delivery was still planned before the end of 2006, deliveries in 2007 would drop to only 9 aircraft, and deliveries by the end of 2009 would be cut to 70–80 aircraft. The announcement caused a 26% drop in the share price of Airbus’s parent, EADS, and led to the departure of EADS CEO Noël Forgeard, Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert, and A380 programme manager Charles Champion. On 3 October 2006, upon completion of a review of the A380 program, the CEO of Airbus, Christian Streiff, announced a third delay, pushing the first delivery to October 2007, to be followed by 13 deliveries in 2008, 25 in 2009, and the full production rate of 45 aircraft per year in 2010. The delay also increased the earnings shortfall projected by Airbus through 2010 to €4.8 billion.

As Airbus prioritized the work on the A380-800 over the A380-800F, freighter orders were cancelled by FedEx and UPS, or converted to A380-800 by Emirates and ILFC. Airbus suspended work on the freighter version, but said it remained on offer,albeit without a service entry date. For the passenger version Airbus negotiated a revised delivery schedule and compensation with the 13 customers, all of which retained their orders with some placing subsequent orders, including Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Air France, Qatar, and Korean Air.

The first A380 with redesigned wiring harnesses achieved power-on in April 2008, with a 3½ month delay. On 13 May 2008 Airbus announced reduced deliveries for the years 2008 (12) and 2009 (21). After further manufacturing and market setbacks, Airbus now plans to deliver 14 A380s in 2009, down from the previous target of 18.

The first aircraft delivered (MSN003, registered 9V-SKA) was handed over to Singapore Airlines on 15 October 2007 and entered into service on 25 October 2007 with an inaugural flight between Singapore and Sydney (flight number SQ380). Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction paying between $560 and $100,380. Two months later, Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choong Seng said that the A380 was performing better than both the airline and Airbus had anticipated, burning 20% less fuel per passenger than the airline’s existing 747-400 fleet. Emirates was the second airline to take delivery of the A380 on 28 July 2008 and started flights between Dubai and New York on 1 August 2008. Qantas followed on 19 September 2008, starting flights between Melbourne and Los Angeles on 20 October 2008. By the end of 2008, 890,000 passengers had flown on 2,200 A380 flights totaling 21,000 hours

Photo Source: sergeydolya.livejournal.com

]]> http://thebizzare.com/photography/airbus-a380-airline-emirates/feed/ 4 http://thebizzare.com/cool/gold-reserve/ http://thebizzare.com/cool/gold-reserve/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:38:05 +0000 rappin http://thebizzare.com/?p=2865 Engraving machine be marked on the bar with a gold content of 99.99% (GOST 28058-89) at the Krasnoyarsk plant of nonferrous metals. VN Gulidov. Mandatory labeling contains the serial number, test, precious metal letters, the stamp of the manufacturer, year of manufacture and weight of the ingot in grams or ounces. Ingots Guests have a weight of 11000, before 13300, the ingots Krasnoyarsk plant assigned industry “seal of quality” – so-called status of Good Delivery (reliable delivery), which allows you to enter the international market of precious metals. In Krasnoyarsk such status bars have five more refining plants in Russia. A total of 55 plants worldwide that received the high status of Good Delivery.