Personal Multicopter

More info here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 01, 2011 - Comments (4)
Category: Flight, Inventions, Motor Vehicles, Technology, Europe

Wingsuit Slit Flight

Do not try this at home.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 26, 2011 - Comments (2)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Flight, Asia

Big Wingsuit Crowd

Exploring the Sky - Wingsuit Flying 2011 from Richard Schneider on Vimeo.

Posted By: Paul - Thu May 05, 2011 - Comments (2)
Category: Flight

Water-powered Jetpack

Read more here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 21, 2011 - Comments (5)
Category: Flight, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Technology

Pronoun Abuse

If you lease a car for two years from any car company, you would still say it's "my" car. You wouldn't go around telling people "no that's not my car, it actually belongs to X company, I'm just leasing it." Of course you wouldn't, that would be ridiculous! But apparently the FAA has a very different set of rules. Case in point, the US Department of Transportation recently fined a non-profit air ambulance company (Mercy Flights of Medford, Oregon) $30,000 for saying that the helicopter they are leasing is "ours". You can read the details here. Thank goodness our government has the time and money to keep such blatant violations under control!

Posted By: Nethie - Sat Aug 28, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Flight, Frauds, Cons and Scams, Government, Can’t Possibly Be True

I Feel More Secure Already

I stumbled across this essay quite by accident. I was laughing at the image to the right (seriously? snow globes? they must have watched that short by Pixar where the itty bitty plastic snowman tries to blow up his globe to reach the hot mermaid in the snow globe next to his and they thought it was reality TV). Under that image was a link to the following essay, Terrorism, Tweezers, and Terminal Madness: An Essay On Security. It's not a short read, but it is definitely worth reading if you want a pilot's perspective on what airline security has become since September 11, 2001. Perhaps even more interesting is the list of air crimes at the end of the essay, sorted by date, starting in 1970.

Posted By: Nethie - Sun Aug 08, 2010 - Comments (9)
Category: Crime, Destruction, Disasters, Explosives, Flight, Terrorism and Terrorists

It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s A… Hovercraft?!

With all this talk of ground-effect craft on WU recently, perhaps you feel like owning one, and not just a rusting cold-war relic either. Well now you can as self-taught New Zealand mechanic Rudy Heeman has decided to sell the pride and joy it took him 10 years to build, a flying hovercraft.

At low speeds the vehicle behaves much as any hovercraft would, covering most surfaces with the usual ease, but over 70 km/h the craft's detachable lightweight wings kick in and it takes to the air. But despite being surprisingly nimble in flight, Heeman's invention, called the "WIG", doesn't require a pilot's license to fly (in New Zealand at least) since like all hovercraft it is classed as a marine vehicle. Video in the link (Sky News).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Mar 15, 2010 - Comments (9)
Category: Flight, Inventions, Motor Vehicles

F-15 lands with one wing and Monocopter

Even though this happened two years ago, this recreation by the History Channel is pretty cool. There are six minute versions available at Metacafe too.



Here's other evidence one winged craft can fly. I don't think I want to fly in one.



Someone needs to offer a prize for the first human flight. Any volunteers for either?

Posted By: gdanea - Fri Oct 30, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Flight

Car Tossing

When too much time meets a creative imagination.



At the end, watch for the firebomb.

Posted By: gdanea - Fri Jul 03, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Flight

Fly Air Weird!

Next month sees the launch of a new airline, which in today's economy is weird enough, but this one is only for animals. Pet Airways, America's first animal-only air service, will initially only fly between NY, Denver, LA, Chicago and Baltimore carrying 50 'passengers' at a time in individual pressurized cabins. Private lounges and overnight accommodation for long-haul flights will also be laid on (Dream Dogs).

Clearly this is an idea who's time has come, as Air Canada has also announced this week that it is to carry pets on its planes, as long as they board as hand-luggage. From July, passengers will be able to book the space under their seats as stowage for up to 4 pets in ‘leakproof carriers’, let’s hope no-one thinks that means Tupperware (Telegraph).

And when airlines are not treating pets as luggage, they’re usually treating their customers as cattle. Ryanair, for example, this week announced plans to have the passengers load their own luggage, saving the company an estimated 20 million euros (Belfast Telegraph).

A worse fate greeted passengers on a Thomas Cook charter plane recently when due to a mechanical failure only the front hold could be loaded with baggage, hence passengers were asked to move to the back of plane as ballast, to balance it out. After seeing people disembarking from the service’s previous flight kissing the ground and putting their hands together in prayer, 71 refused and made other travel arrangements (Daily Mail).

Finally, if you think the customers have it bad, spare a thought for the staff of British Airways, which once billed itself as "the World's favorite airline". Times are now so hard for the company it has asked its workforce if they'd mind taking a pay-cut or even working for free for a month, just to tide the company over. BA's chief executive has lead the drive, promising to lead by example and forgo one month of his £735k ($1.2m) salary (Guardian).

(Picture from The Bognor Birdman Event, a semi-serious competition to fly 100 meters from the end of a seaside pier.)

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Jun 24, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Business, Flight, Pets