Found this video last night from a YouTuber based in Mexico. It claims to show a very smoky A320 cockpit captured on cell phone video while the aircraft was sitting on the ground, presumably at an airport in Mexico. Can anyone shed light on what's happening here?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) yesterday awarded Lockheed Martin $481,352 to complete a design study for an autonomous medical evacuation system.
A Google search turned up some interesting concepts that might hint at what Lock Mart may propose....
At an American Telemedicine Assocation conference in April 2008, Lockheed gave a paper discussing work it was doing for the US Army Medical Reseach and Materiel Command. In the paper, the writers describe using a Boeing Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) that would reduce risk to first responders by autonomously entering a hot zone for airborne casualty evacuation and resupply.
Features of the system include:
Of the major design components needed to realize such a system, a key driver is the sensors and software needed to map out an unprepared landing zone. Lockheed talks about using LADAR (Laser Radar) sensing for the job.
More information on using LADAR for such purposes is available from the CMU Field Robotics Center (Carnegie Mellon University) which developed a similar capability for Piasecki Aircraft Corp.
According to CMU, "in order for an autonomous medevac system to land near a casualty in uncontrolled circumstances, it must first be able to identify a suitable landing site. Our approach uses a laser rangefinding scanner coupled to an inertial navigation system. As the medevac helicopter flies over the scene near the casualty, it scans the terrain to build a three-dimensional map. Our analysis software then chooses among potential sites based on slope and smoothness, the surrounding obstacles, and the proximity to the casualty."
"For experimentation we mounted our sensor suite on a Eurocopter EC135 (provided by Stat MedEvac) twin-turbine helicopter norrmally used for ambulance missions. With the assistance of an expert Navy pilot, we scanned and evaluated many types of terrain for potential landing sites. The pilot provided expert feedback on the suitability of different landing zones. We scanned a total of 9 sites in 8 hours of flight time. For each site, we logged the laser survey, high-resolution video from the laser's point of view, and manual photographs/video from the cabin."
Below is a video of the EC135 during one of the test flights...
The idea at first seems preposterous. But if you look a little closer, it begins to look, well, brilliant....
Lockheed Martin inventor Ronald Stroud has applied for a US patent (20090127381) for what he describes as a ring-winged rotor.
Though it might look like a toy, the ring-wing is designed for a very real purpose - a high altitude, long endurance (HALE) vehicle capable of reconnaissance, weather surveillance, communications relay, scientific observation or military operations.
The chief competitors for this technology, Stroud contends, are airships, satellites and heavier-than-air vehicles, all of which have significant drawbacks.
Airships are slow and have trouble in high winds (though Lockheed itself is hoping to prove the vehicles a viable fit for a HALE platform under a $400 million DARPA program); satellites are "extremely" expensive and can't be easily relocated; heavier-than-air vehicles tend to be fragile and difficult to control due to the very long wings needed to provide lift in low air density, high-altitude environment.
So why not take a bunch of those long slender wings, tie them together at the ends (to make elliptical rings) and spin them, one in one direction, the other in the opposite direction for lift?
Pictures in the patent app include a ring-wing viewed from the side and from the top...
The odd-looking result, powered by propellers or jet engines at the tips of the counter-rotating rings, promises to give HALE performance while taking off from short runways and handling more like a helicopter than an airplane, says Stroud.
Flight International (read: ME) was given an early look at Bell Helicopter's newest family member on 20 May at the Bell Canada production facility in MIrabel, just outside of Montreal.
The $4.865 million Bell 429 is set for certification some time in June, and represents the first clean sheet design for the company since the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, according to officials.
Rather than try and describe this very fast new medium twin (150kt high speed cruise, 155kt Vne), I've put together three videos featuring Bell Canada test pilot Leo Meslin showing all there is to know about this 7 passenger, single-pilot IFR-capable machine.
Enjoy!
By July, the Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to fund Boeing to take the next step in tightly-spaced travel as part of its Formation Flight for Aerodynamic Benefit program.
The idea is to take advantage of the physics that geese and other flocking birds have known for millennia - By keeping the appropriate spacing between leader and follower, the bird behind can cut his or her cruise power requirement by 15% by enjoying "vortex upwash".
The concept has been studied and proven in Germany by the Braunschweig University of Technology with two Do-28s in the mid-1990s and by NASA with two F/A-18s in 2001 (picture left).
In today's Federal Register, DARPA says Boeing will "build upon" technology it developed in an earlier DARPA-funded program.
The sole-source contract for Phase One of the Formation Flight for Aerodyamic Benefit program, value not listed, calls for the airframer to extend "dynamic analysis and simulation tools with existing wake encounter data", perform "detailed flight test planning" and conduct "data gathering flight tests in the wake of a large military transport aircraft."
Though Aviation Partners Inc. first flew its unique spiroid winglets in 2001, I had yet to see a video of the devices in flight.
Until now...
File this one in the d'oh!! category.
Apparently this JAL Boeing 747-400 was departing LAX yesterday when.... Hey, how did *that* get there?
Local new reports that Flight 61 was leaving the gate when it sucked up a cargo container into the engine. Or, as the airport operator described it, "the unidentified object blocked one of the engines."
Scale models of VIP versions of Boeing's 787 and Airbus' A350 are now on display here in Geneva as part of the European Business Aviation Association's annual convention and exhibit. Not too shabby.
The White House military liaison Louis Caldera has quit his post in the wake of a photo-op gone bad. Caldera had approved the April 27 flight of a presidential VC-25 and F-16 escort flying quite low over the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan. The event, quite rightly, scared many in New York.
A geekishly interesting video out on YouTube of a Malaysian Airlines B747-400 passing 1,000ft over the top of a passenger with a video camera aboard a different plane. Water vapor in engine exhaust, cooling and condensing in the atmosphere (aka contrails), and spun up by the action of induced drag and winglets makes for some pretty cool aerial DNA...
Here's another...
The LoPresti's Fury, a modernized version of the Globe Swift, is getting one step closer to production. The Vero Beach, Florida-based company, operated by a son of the late Roy LoPresti, the designer of the Mooney 201, Grumman Tiger and many other aircraft, is opening a new facility in Sebastian, Florida. There, as many as 45 workers will soon begin assembling three new prototypes of the 200+ mph two-seater as part of the FAA certification process. LoPresti ultimately plans to build the Fury at a plant in New Mexico.
Elon Musk came out of an aerospace nowhere and built SpaceX, a successful rocket booster company, one that will likely carry cargo and perhaps astronauts to the International Space Station, and most probably beyond. He also launched an electric sports car with his Tesla Motors venture.
Now Musk, an avid pilot who uses business jets to boost his productivity (like most really smart businessmen), says he would like to develop an electric aeroplane.
Not just any aeroplane, but a supersonic one.
Take a listen to his stream-of-conscious thoughts on 7 April in this YouTube video, starting at 1:50 or so.
The Transportation Security Administration may not always know how to treat passengers, but they appear to be looking out for man's best friend...
In a recent solicitation, the agency spelled out its requirement for kennels that will be home to more than a hundred new dogs to be used for sniffing out explosvies in air cargo.
While any self-respecting dog that I've ever met (like Chloe the Weimaraner, left) would turn its nose up at the thought of spending time in a kennel, if you gotta live in a kennel, this one aint half bad.
Some specs:
o Free standing, floor of kennel should not be resting on the ground
o Minimum dimensions - 96"L x 40"W x 48"H to accommodate large working dogs plus ventilated sleep box
o All aluminum construction except for insulation material and floor
o Fully welded panels assembled with stainless steel bolts
o Padlock-able, front entry door
o Full roof must extend the entire length of the kennel
o Washable, non-porous, fully supported floor sloped to rear drain/trap
o Fully collapsible for shipping and stacking
o Rounded-edge slats
o Floor that reflects heat
o The unit shall be able to accommodate the future addition of a heater and/or a fan
o All kennels must also be equipped with tie-downs to secure the kennels during inclement weather
Sleep box must meet the following specifications:
• Attaches to kennel unit
• Double aluminum walled,
• Properly Insulated
• Securable, hinged lid that lifts up for cleaning
• Ventilation ports on each side
The following aspects of the kennel are not minimum requirements fro the purposes of evaluation, however, they are preferred additives:
o Desire rounded-edge slats
o Desired floor that reflects heat is desired
o Desired that the unit accommodate the future addition of a heater and/or a fan
The former head of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) Germany, says he is "amazed" that Boeing is filing for a patent for work "already debated and documented" by the DLR more than 20 years ago.
Boeing in April applied for a US patent (# 20090105891) for an aircraft control system that could be configured for two, one or zero pilots, where autonomous operations would receive input from a remotely located operator by way of wireless signals.
Peter Hamel, former director of the DLR, wrote to me in response to my 29 April story about the Boeing patent. The text of his email follows...
I would like to inform you that some basic ideas of this issue were already debated and documented at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the year 1986 after the Tschernobyl crisis.
As the technology demonstration programme was intended to be tested on a planned BK-117 FbW (fly-by-wire) Inflight simulator to be monitored by an onboard saftey pilot ("Sicherheitspilot") there was no risk involved. If such a system would have been realized operationally - the safety pilot would stayed on ground.
One of the outcomes is that DLR is now operating the world-unique fly-by-light EC 135 In-flight Simulator FHS (Flying Helicopter Simulator) with all the potentials described as below schematically (pictures taken out of a 32-page-brochure published as DFVLR IB 111-86/41 in the year 1986 and entitled Tele-HESTOR - Forschungs- und Technologie-Programm für ein fernbemanntes Hubschraubersystem für den Katastrophenschutz (R & D programme of a remotely manned helicopter system...).
The study was also presented and discussed with US Army R&D representatives in the late 80s. A further bochure was sent to the US in 2001. Hence, I am amazed that Boeing is filing for a patent related to an equivalent approach some 20 years later. May be there are big differences which I am not aware of...
An oldie but goodie from the ranks of the wily RC types....
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