That new plane smell

Today, in Toulouse, France, Singapore Airlines took delivery of the plane. My plane. The Airbus A380 that I'll be flying on next week, representing Alcoa on the world's first commercial flight. I and 550 other privileged flight pioneers will get to spend five hours inside what looks, from the pictures, for all the world like a flying cruise ship.

People have paid as much as a hundred grand for this experience. They're looking forward, I'm sure, to the fabled Singapore Airlines flight experience: the extensive wine cellar; the right cheese at the right time; the unobtrusive yet ever-present cabin service, and the rest.

Me, I'll be looking at the seat tracks.

My friend Cindie Giummara at Alcoa Technical Center said I ought to check them out if I want to see a cool application of Alloy 2099; a special aluminum-lithium cocktail designed by Alcoa to make aluminum even lighter and stronger than it already is. Cindie, by the way, is from Australia, where I'll be flying to. She and I are currently not speaking due to the fact that I'm making this trip instead of her. A shout out to you, mate.

As Cindie explained to me, if you leave lithium alone in open air, it explodes. But if, under exotic high-tech manufacturing conditions that include an argon-charged casting chamber, you alloy white-hot lithium with good ol' Alcoa aluminum in the right proportions, you get the kind of stuff they make jet fighters out of. And, for Airbus, the kind of stuff that can deliver critical strength and shave precious pounds off a superjumbo where it matters most.

So why use it for the seat tracks? I expect because there are probably several hundred miles of them in the A380 (note to fact checkers -- check this fact). Whatever. With 8 to 11 rows of seats for up to 550 passengers plus crew, you wind up with a lot of track. And it has to be strong because, hey, who likes a loose seat when you're flying through a thunderstorm?

So while everybody else is looking to get autographs signed and be first in line at the bar, that'll be me down on my hands and knees, peeling up the carpet.