Collaborate Disseminate
Software-defined radio came on the hacker scene in a big way less than a decade ago thanks to the discovery that a small USB-based TV tuner dongle could be used for receiving all kinds of radio transmissions. Two popular projects from that era are tracking nearby airplanes and boats in …read more
Continue reading Tracking Boats and Ships in Real Time at the Same Time
Ask any airline executive what their plans were back in January 2020, and you’d probably get the expected spiel about growing market share and improving returns for shareholders. Of course, the coronovirus pandemic quickly changed all that in the space of just a few months. Borders closed, and worldwide air …read more
Continue reading Airlines Seek Storage For Grounded Fleets Due To COVID-19
If you’ve exhausted your list of electronics projects over the past several weeks of trying to stay at home, it might be time to take a break from all of that and do something off the wall. [PeterSripol] shows us one option by building a few walkalong gliders and trying …read more
Question: Can a flywheel store enough energy to power an airplane? Answer: Yes it can, for certain values of “flywheel” and “airplane.”
About the only person we can think of who would even attempt to build a flywheel-powered airplane is [Tom Stanton]. He’s a great one for off-the-wall ideas that …read more
Continue reading Flywheel Stores Energy to Power an Airplane – Eventually
One of the current hype trends is the supposedly imminent revolution in air transport. So many companies showing digital renderings and mockups to illustrate their own utopic vision for the future, reaching fevered pitch at events like CES 2020. But aviation has a long history of machinery that turned out …read more
Continue reading How Efficient Can An Airplane Be? The Celera 500L Sets To Find Out
Bacon and eggs, chocolate and peanut butter, salt and pepper; some things just go together. You’d think that a mashup of an airplane and a helicopter would be great, right? The Fairey Rotodyne was just such a thing from the late 1950s and while it looked to be the wave …read more
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office intends to fine British Airways £183.39 million over a breach that compromised the personal data of some 500,000 customers. In October of 2018, the self-touted “world’s favorite ai… Continue reading ICO to fine British Airways £183.39 million under GDPR over 2018 breach
Hacked drones are breaching physical and cyberdefenses to cause disruption and steal data, experts warn. Continue reading Analysis: Drone Tech Creates New Type of Blended Threat
Not that we don’t love Star Trek, but the writers could never decide if ion propulsion was super high tech (Spock’s Brain) or something they used every day (The Menagerie). Regardless, ion propulsion is real and we have it today on more than one spacecraft. However, MIT recently demonstrated an ion-powered airplane. How exciting! An airplane with no moving parts that runs on electricity. Air travel will change forever, right? According to [Real Engineering], ion-propelled (full-sized) aircraft run into problems with the laws of physics. You can see the video explaining that, below.
To understand why, you need to know …read more
Continue reading Ion Powered Airplane: Not Coming to an Airport Near You
Owning and flying your own small airplane offers a nearly unmatched level of freedom and autonomy. Traveling “as the crow flies” without having to deal with traffic on the ground immediately shrinks your world, and makes possible all sorts of trips and adventures. Unfortunately the crippling downsides of plane ownership (storage and maintenance costs, knowledge that you might die in a fiery crash, etc), keeps most of us planted squarely on terra firma.
But not [ITman496]. His dream of owning an ultralight has recently come true, and he’s decided to share his experience with the world. He’s got a long …read more