1. anne sarabia - November 3rd, 2008  

   Thank you for taking time out to answer all the crazy questions coming your way! Enjoying it. Sincerely, Anne Sarabia

2. David Wild - November 5th, 2008  

   Hello,

   Does Richard have any plans on visiting Tokyo, Japan ?
   If so, would it be possible to have a Supply of English texts available for his ubiquitous signings alongside the Japanese ones please.

3. Carlos de Melo Jr - November 5th, 2008  

   Don´t you know anything about ejects seats in virgin airlines flights? off course not. It´s my idea! Incredible design.

4. Daniel H. Graham - November 7th, 2008  

   Just to comment on Carlos de Melo Jr.`s comment. Think for a minute, it is much better to keep all passengers inside a plane, if it were to make an unscheduled crash landing, and use the fuselage to absorb most of the crash impact. There are many reasons why so few survive violent plane crashes. Here are some possible solutions that can be designed into new aircraft. 1- Break-away wing design, before impact, which will minimize the fire that ultimately kills upon impacting the ground. 2- Having a break-away and buoyant designed solid crash proof compartments near the rear of the fuselage where all passengers would lay down on top of one another with their feet against a bulkhead and their heads facing towards the rear of the plane. Upon impact, large airbags would deploy to restrict violent body thrashing inside these compartments. A rear fuselage parachute would also deploy after wings have detached themselves by an explosive charge. The parachute would insure that the fuselage would crash at an optimum angle to either the ground or the ocean to maximize impact absorption. I say this just to get people thinking, why have we designed our vehicles to protect us in case of a crash, and not our airplanes, trains and even our buses?

5. Sylvie Tan - November 13th, 2008  

   Dear Richard,
   May I call you so? Your name sounds so familiar to me,
   but I only know you from films and tv, so forgive me if I am wrong.
   You are a blessed person, my husband is a retired surgeon, we are materially not rich, but from the heart:yess! We both dream of a cruise along the ice cubes at the North or South Pole, I don’t kwnow which pole, but I saw people taking cruise now, but I have been dreaming about such a cruise when it was not yet there (many many years ago). Now that we have become at a certain age, but this cruise is so expensive, just to tell you that,
   thank you so much that you’ll going to read my e-mail,
   sincerely yours,
   Sylvie Tan
   (I have corrected the word “familiar”)

6. Damien Miller - November 13th, 2008  

   Richard,

   Thanks for taking the time out to answer these questions. I asked the one “What’s the most difficult decision you’ve ever had to make… and why?” I’m really pleased to hear that your most difficult decision involved not yourself but the people around you and the effect your decision had on them. I can honestly say that I felt it was said with genuine sincerity. I’m even happier to hear that in the end it all worked out for most of your staff.

   I also made a comment about the Virgin Media Machine not being as great as it once was but I take all that back. The past few weeks have proved me wrong and there has been a great deal of press around your Atlantic crossing attempt, (good luck with the next go!) your new book and more. I hope we see something in the news soon about a new Virgin Bank… I’m sure you don’t need to hear this from me but don’t let those stuffy old MPs stop you with digging up what happened when you were 19.

   Oh, and on another note, I hope you don’t take offense to this comment and I know it can consume your day but the idea of a blog is to get involved. There are a lot of people taking the time to comment on your posts and perhaps the odd reply once or twice a week (I don’t mean to this) would give us all in insight to the mind of and make one or two people feel a bit closer to the real Ricky B.

   Can’t wait to get my hands on your new book - you are a real inspiration to us all and often the topic of conversation between my business coach and I and I only hope that one day I can be in a position to inspire others as you have me.

7. Bob - November 14th, 2008  

   Hi Damien

   Thanks for your comment

   As Richard said in his first post he can’t promise to respond to everybody’s comments but, for a busy busy man not always near a computer, he’s doing his best to answer people’s questions and we’re on hand to to help him out.

   Keep following though, there’s more to come!

   cheers

   Bob

8. Corinne Torres - November 16th, 2008  

   Hello Richard

   Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge, experience and wisdom with the rest of the world. I was so engrossed in your book, I read it in one day!..and will go back to my notes time and time again. It is direct, informal and genuinely informative. I felt I was having a personal 1:1 mentoring session with you over a long lunch!

   However, I do have a query in relation to the distribution of your book. Considering that you would have a good team for your IP and that there aren’t any large photographic files in your book, why wasn’t the decision made to deliver the content exclusively online (audio + ebook) and exclude print as a medium? Digital distribution is cheaper, smarter, faster and greener; all the values Virgin stands for.

   I am always incredibly frustrated when people fail to grasp my ideas…but nothing would have compared to your disappointment about the Northern Rock saga…No doubt, you and your team would have developed a brilliant bank.

   Thanks again for the invaluable insights.
   Warmly,
   Corinne Torres
   (Australia)

9. Damien Miller - November 18th, 2008  

   Hi Bob,

   Thanks for taking the time to reply, I must admit, after writing that post I thought it was a bit too much to ask from the man himself. However, I just wanted to thank you personally for doing such a great job of running this blog, it’s a real hub of activity and there’s always something new and interesting.

   PS it was nice to get 15 seconds of fame on Diggnation for winning the competition!

   Thanks,

   D.

10. baraka nelson peneza - November 19th, 2008  

    hi..
    thank you for the great work your doing.
    Am a Tanzanian boy aged 23 years living london,the reason as to why i have written to you is i have got a bussiness idea about investing in TANZANIA and when i read one of your books i got motivated to look on how we can share this.
    hope this could change our lives and the lives of the Tanzanians in general.if this sounds great am more willing to share.
    thank you.

11. Laura Read-Mills - November 20th, 2008  

    Hi, I would love to have the opportunity to meet Mr Branson one day, but as a commercial helicopter pilot I have always wondered if he has ever thought of starting a helicopter operation? If so I know someone that would be keen to apply :) If he is ever in NZ again I would love to shout him a cup of coffee

12. Requier Sebastien - November 29th, 2008  

    Dear Bob,

    thank you to have transmitted my question about how sir Branson will keep his vision alive once he retires.

    Could you please transmit my excuses for this tough question, as I knew it wouldn’t be an easy one to answer.
    It was really nice to not skip it though.

    Yours faithfully,
    Sebastien Requier

13. Richard C. Phillips - December 6th, 2008  

    Hi Richard: I have heard that you want a cheap, relatively inexpense way to commercialize going into outer space, and to the moon and back in a relatively short time. I have the answer to your problem. I am a professional engineer, graduate of Auburn University in Mechanical Engineering in 1957. I worked on the Space Program for the Boeing Corp in 1966 to 1970, and was awarded into a special award called “The Boeing Roll of Honor”, and this award which details my work on the “Apollo Space Program” to get “man on the moon” is located in the Library of Congress, and can be validated if you go to the Library of Congress in Washingtion DC. and read it. Currently I am self employed in the Real Estate Business, and I personally own 21 very nice homes and am worth over 2 million dollars assets. Not as much as you, but I get along very well.
    I know you are a busy man, so I will get to the point of this letter to you. In 1968, while working at the Cape for the Apollo Program, and Lead Engineer for the Boeing Company, I witnessed a UFO at a very close range. My wife and son, then 10 old witnessed it also. My son is now a Music Director at a private school, and is in the “Whos Who in America”. He is available to discus this sighting without hesitation, and is now 49 years old. Bottom line, the craft was about 25 feet above our heads, and remained there for about 2 minutes. The craft picked us up about 1 foot off the ground and dropped us on our backs. We continued to watch it from the ground, and as an engineer I was extremely facinated, and not afraid, of what I was looking at, and tried to absorb every detail of what was going on below the craft where the propulsion system was taking place. It was stationary and directly over our heads at no more than 25 feet. After years of study, and getting a patent on the propulsion system, I am ready to produce what is called a UFO, or flying saucer. The UFO is relatively easy to build, and has no moving parts. The UFO has 18 separate high voltage electric fields, and one set of electric fields allows the craft to hover for long periods of time utilizing a special ionic vapor, and very small amounts of current electricity converted to high voltage “Static Electricity” by the use of on-board, huge, “induction coils” and a huge system capacitor. I saw “first Hand” how the propulsion system works and studied many reference books showing pictures of the ground effects where UFOs have landed and effects on human being struck with the special ionic vapor that the UFO uses. I have written enough about this so will close for now. If you are interested to know more about this or even run your own tests to prove the “Tremendous Power” that is generated by the UFO, please contract me, and we can discus it further. Sincerely yours, Richard C. Phillips.

14. Requier Sebastien - December 12th, 2008  

    Hello Richard C. Phillips,

    Since you’re a businessman I was wondering why you don’t exploit this discovery by your own. If you can prove it works, you will have no difficulties to find financial support.

    That being said, if someone finds such a technology (or anything else that can provide stationary lift), I’d be interested in it to found a new airline company.

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