Aviation – Page 14

Alternative Transportation, Aviation, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Inside the high-stakes race to build the world’s first flying taxi

November 13, 2019

The Lilium prototype in a hangar in Wessling, Germany.Credit…Felix Schmitt for The New York Times

Lilium, a German start-up, illustrates the potential and the risks of creating a new generation of electric aircraft for urban transportation.

MUNICH — Inside an airplane hangar about 20 miles from central Munich, Daniel Wiegand lifted the door of a prototype that he said would become one of the world’s first flying taxis. He’s coy about how much it cost to build — “several million,” he says — but promises that within five years a fleet of them could provide a 10-minute trip from Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport for $70.

A lot is riding on his plane. Mr. Wiegand, 34, is the chief executive and a founder of Lilium, one of the most promising and secretive start-ups in the global race to build an all-electric aircraft that will — regulators and public opinion willing — move passengers above cities.

“This is the perfect means of transportation, something that can take off and land everywhere,” Mr. Wiegand (pronounced VEE-gand) said. “It’s very fast, very efficient and low noise.”

Continue reading… “Inside the high-stakes race to build the world’s first flying taxi”

Aviation, drones, Science & Technology News, Weapons

The drone wars are already here

November 10, 2019

A Bayraktar TB-2 unmanned aerial vehicle.

The skies of Syria, Yemen, and Libya swarm with armed and dangerous unmanned aerial vehicles. And the technology is spreading farther and farther afield.

The Kurdish fighters emerged from a tunnel and were spotted by a Turkish reconnaissance drone. As they were loading ammunition onto a truck in a parched Syrian landscape, the drone fed their coordinates to an F-16. It attacked seconds later, sending a huge ball of flames into the air. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left but a crater—a success, Turkey’s defense ministry declared, as it released a video of the strike.

Turkey’s use of drones in such operations is highlighting the changing face of war in one of the world’s most volatile regions. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) turned the tide in Ankara’s decades-old counterinsurgency against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party in the country’s southeast, northern Iraq, and Syria. In addition, the deployment of drones has saved the lives of Turkish soldiers and money for the defense ministry. Now it’s using UAVs to gain the upper hand against the Kurdish party’s sister organization, the People’s Protection Units. After U.S. troops began withdrawing on Oct. 9, Turkish drones, in tandem with fighter jets, started pounding a strip of land along the border with Syria to clear the way for its troops. “In most cases, they reach the scene of the attack and confirm the enemy was totally destroyed,” says Nihat Ali Ozcan, a strategist at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara. Altogether, at least three different types of drones have been deployed: mini drones used for surveillance and photography, the much larger Anka-S surveillance drone, and the Bayraktar TB-2, Turkey’s only armed drone.
Continue reading… “The drone wars are already here”

Alternative Transportation, Aviation, Science & Technology News, Transportation, Uber

We pit the Uber Copter vs. public transit in a race to JFK — here’s who won

October 21, 2019

One is a bumpy, deafening and slightly nauseating way to get to John F. Kennedy Airport — the other is public transportation.

The Post put Uber’s new helicopter shuttle to JFK to the test, racing the car-sharing company and its chopper from Midtown to the hub against old-fashioned New York City Transit — which proved three minutes swifter at a sliver of the price.

Continue reading… “We pit the Uber Copter vs. public transit in a race to JFK — here’s who won”

Aviation, communication, Entertainment, Science & Technology News, Travel

In-flight seatback screens may be going extinct

October 21, 2019

U.S. carriers are split on whether single-aisle fleets need seatback screens. Consumer tastes are changing as in-flight Wi-Fi quality improves.

In the quest to command higher fares and traveler loyalty, airlines are constantly scrambling to market their onboard services as better than Brand X. These days, one highly visible battleground is directly in front of you: the seatback screen.

While such displays are firmly entrenched aboard long-haul fleets, helping pass the hours during ocean crossings, there’s a deep difference of opinion among U.S. carriers when it comes to domestic single-aisle jets. The advent of onboard Wi-Fi has given airlines the option of using your phone or tablet as a portal for films, television shows, and video games, avoiding the expense of costly hardware at every seat.

Three of the largest U.S. airlines — American Airlines Group Inc., United Airlines Holdings Inc., and Alaska Air Group Inc. — are removing screens from their domestic workhorses, the family of medium-range 737 and A320 aircraft sold by Boeing Co. and Airbus SE, respectively. Southwest Airlines Co. has never equipped its Boeing 737s with screens and said it has no plans to change course.

Continue reading… “In-flight seatback screens may be going extinct”

Aviation, Employment, Science & Technology News, Travel

The mega rich are having trouble finding pilots for private jets

October 20, 2019

Empty Cockpit

Bad news for the extremely wealthy: airplane pilots are abandoning their gigs flying private jets for more steady work at commercial airlines.

Pilots seem to be attracted to steady jobs that provide regular pay rather than the hourly wages and short notice that come with captaining some rich folks’ private planes, according to The Independent. The result is a labor shortage that’s not only keeping the wealthy grounded but hurting private jet sales as well.

Continue reading… “The mega rich are having trouble finding pilots for private jets”

Aviation, cutting edge, Science & Technology News, Space Flight, Transportation

The next big leap in space travel will use hypersonic planes

October 18, 2019

Scramjets capable of flying at Mach 15 will make it easier and cheaper to send spacecraft and people into orbit, says hypersonics expert Michael Smart.

Sending satellites, spacecraft and humans into space is an expensive business. If humanity wants to venture further across the Solar System, we need ways of reducing the cost. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to make the vehicles we use to launch missions into space reusable.

Michael Smart, chair of hypersonic propulsion at the University of Queensland, believes hypersonic planes are the solution. He spent 10 years designing hypersonic engines called scramjets for Nasa before establishing his own research group, which now works with the Australian Department of Defence, Science and Technology and the US Air Force.

Continue reading… “The next big leap in space travel will use hypersonic planes”

Aviation, Electric Vehicles, Science & Technology News, Transportation

The CEO of KLM predicts that the first commercial electric airplane will arrive in 15 to 20 years

October 18, 2019

KLM

“I think a realistic projection for an electric plane is somewhere between 15 and 20 years.” Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Today, the sight of an electric vehicle is pretty unremarkable, which shows how much the sector has progressed.

CEO of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Pieter Elbers thinks we should see electric airplanes on commercial flights within the next 15 to 20 years.

When the first electric cars came on the scene, people scoffed. Today, no one would bat an eyelid at the sight of an electric vehicle.

Continue reading… “The CEO of KLM predicts that the first commercial electric airplane will arrive in 15 to 20 years”

Aviation, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Transportation

Zeppelins could make a comeback with this solar-powered airship cargo mover

October 15, 2019

Zeppelins, the rigid airships most famously epitomized by the Hindenburg, now seem kind of retro, rather than the image of futurity they represented in the 1930s. But they could be about to make a comeback in a big way — courtesy of a new aluminum-shelled, solar-powered airship that’s being built by the U.K.-based company Varialift Airships.

According to the company’s CEO Alan Handley, the airship will be capable of making a transatlantic flight from the United Kingdom to the United States, consuming just 8% of the fuel of a regular airplane. It will be powered by a pair of solar-powered engines and two conventional jet engines.

While its lack of onboard battery would limit travel to daylight hours, and its speed will only be approximately half that of a Boeing 747, the Varialift airship does promise to be a useful cargo carrier. Its creators claim that it will be able to carry loads ranging from 50 to 250 tons. Larger models with payloads up to 3,000 tons aren’t out of the question either. Bulky cargo such as electricity pylons, wind turbine blades, and towers, or even prefabricated structures such as oil rigs could be carried underneath using cables. That means that cargo will have a weight limit, but no practical size limit.

Continue reading… “Zeppelins could make a comeback with this solar-powered airship cargo mover”

Aviation, Corporate Manipulation, Report, Science & Technology News

We’re about to find out if airlines really did stuff too many seats on their planes. We might not like the result

October 9, 2019

Forget comfort, are these seats, on display by Spirit Airlines at an airline industry conference in Los Angeles last month, too close to be safe? The FAA will test to see if U.S. airlines meet evacuation time requirements

Many Americans will likely be rooting for 720 volunteers to fail, miserably, when they participate in a series of FAA tests next month to see if today’s larger, wider and taller passengers can safely evacuate an airplane in less than 90 seconds.

But if those volunteers do fail it could become for the rest of us the best illustration ever of the old warning to be careful for what you wish – you just might get it.

Upon orders contained in legislation passed last year by Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration in November will conduct 12 days of aircraft emergency evacuation tests. Last year, when Congress was considering the bill to reauthorize the FAA and its administration of safe air operations in this country not nearly enough votes could be mustered to support various proposals reintroduce elements of economic regulation back into the world of air travel. But so incensed were our federal lawmakers by U.S. airlines’ maniacal stuffing of more and more seats – each of them seemingly designed by medieval torture machine makers – into their planes that a large majority in both houses eagerly voted to order the FAA to conduct a new round of evacuation tests.

Continue reading… “We’re about to find out if airlines really did stuff too many seats on their planes. We might not like the result”

Aviation, Big Data, Hot Issues, privacy, Science & Technology News, Travel

Gatwick Airport commits to facial recognition tech at boarding

October 2, 2019

Gatwick first trialled facial-recognition-based checks at some of its departure gates last year

Gatwick has become the UK’s first airport to confirm it will use facial-recognition cameras on a permanent basis for ID checks before passengers board planes.

It follows a self-boarding trial carried out in partnership with EasyJet last year.

The London airport said the technology should reduce queuing times but travellers would still need to carry passports.

Privacy campaigners are concerned.

Continue reading… “Gatwick Airport commits to facial recognition tech at boarding”

Aviation, new technology, Science & Technology News, Space Flight, Travel

This ‘Spaceplane’ could get you from Sydney to London in four hours

October 1, 2019

There are plans to start running test flights of the ‘hypersonic’ jet in the mid-2020s.

Developers are working on a “hypersonic” jet engine that could see commuters flying from Sydney to London in four hours, and London to New York in one. It’s called a SABRE—that is, Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine—and it allows planes to hit speeds of Mach 5.4 (6400 kilometres per hour). Hence the “hypersonic” moniker: whereas “supersonic” refers to a rate of travel that simply exceeds the speed of sound, “hypersonic” speeds typically exceed it five or six times over.

The hybrid hydrogen-oxygen engine is also way greener and cheaper than current air travel, The Telegraph reports, and will give aircraft the potential to fly in space.

Continue reading… “This ‘Spaceplane’ could get you from Sydney to London in four hours”

Aviation, drones, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Bell’s new, self-flying cargo drone hauls a heavy load

September 16, 2019

The all-electric APT 70 can tote up to 70 pounds, cruise at 75 mph, and cover 35 miles with a fully charged battery.

Bell aims to begin beyond-visual-line-of sight tests for the APT 70 next year, on the road to starting commercial service in the early 2020s.

They say things are bigger in Texas, and it seems that goes for drones as well as pickup trucks and cowboy hats. At least, if Fort Worth-based Bell’s new, autonomous cargo carrier is any indicator.

The four-motor, vertical-lift electric UAV is one of the largest commercial cargo drone projects to reach the skies. It stands nearly 6 feet tall and 9 feet wide on the ground (it rests on its tail before transitioning to horizontal flight after liftoff). It weighs 300 pounds and can carry an additional 70 pounds of cargo, slung in an aerodynamic pod between its two wings. That all-important stat gives it the name APT 70, the letters standing for “autonomous pod transport.” It first started flying in December via remote control, and in the past three weeks began fully autonomous flight, Bell announced this week.

Continue reading… “Bell’s new, self-flying cargo drone hauls a heavy load”