GE’s Engine to Reignite Civil Supersonic Flight

On October 24th, 2003 the last Concorde touched down at Filton Airport in England, and since then commercial air travel has been stuck moving slower than the speed of sound. There were a number of reasons for retiring the Concorde, from the rising cost of fuel to bad publicity following a crash in 2000 which claimed the lives of all passengers and crew aboard. Flying on Concorde was also exceptionally expensive and only practical on certain routes, as concerns about sonic booms over land meant it had to remain subsonic unless it was flying over the ocean.

The failure of …read more

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83North closes $250M fourth fund focused on European, Israeli startups

 European VC firm 83North (formerly Greylock IL), which since 2008 has focused on backing startups in Europe and Israel, has closed its fourth fund — taking $250M in a raise that it says was both oversubscribed and its largest to date, and bringing its total capital under management to $800M. Read More Continue reading 83North closes $250M fourth fund focused on European, Israeli startups

Supersonic Speed Measurement With A Sound Card

You might think that if you have a need to measure the speed of a projectile that is too fast for your high-speed camera, you would have to invest in some significantly expensive equipment.

That was the problem facing [Nick Moore], and the solution he arrived at is extremely elegant in its simplicity. He’s arranged a pair of foil tapes in the path of the projectile, as it passes through them they break, and he measures the time between those breaks. The clever bit though lies not in the tapes, but in how he measures the timing. Instead of relying …read more

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