Model Airplanes

For investors, the conversation about value in 3D printing stocks depends on one’s time horizon. Last year, Goldman Sachs named the sector as one of its eight “creative destructor” industries that would remake the global economy. Analyst Cristina Colón presented the following chart showing a 16% 10-year compound annual growth rate.

Goldman Sachs

 
“3D printing is penetrating the automotive, aerospace, and medical industries, among others,” she wrote. “For example, Boeing now 3D prints 300 distinct airplane parts, noting a 25% to 50% cost savings per part. As materials properties improve and processes become more robust, 3D printing could become increasingly appealing for end-parts production.”

The two largest publicly traded 3D printing firms have seen solid growth in recent years, but they have experienced a difficult 2014. Shares of Stratasys (SSYS), America’s largest 3D printing company, have climbed more than 50% since August 2012 but are down 17% since Jan. 1. Likewise, 3D Systems (DDD) is up nearly 90% since summer 2012 but off approximately 45% this year. 

The consensus seems to be this recent performance is not so much a no-confidence vote in the sector but more of a cooling-off period after the extreme run-up in interest that 3D printing saw last year among investors. 

RBC Capital’s Amit Daryanani remains bullish on the sector, calling it a “hyper-growth market” in a July note. The most recent evidence one could point to is Amazon’s announcement in July that it would team up with two

Article source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-for-3d-printing-stocks-2014-8

Article source: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140825/NEWS01/140829276

Aug. 26–The Wright “B” Flyer, a recognizable flying piece of Dayton’s history seen by thousands above the Vectren Dayton Air Show, could be replaced with a new look-a-like replica.

An unnamed contributor has donated $50,000 to build a new model of the old replica of the Wright “B” Flyer, also known as the “Brown Bird” or “Iron Bird,” that first took to the air in 1982.

The plane, flown passed the State of Liberty in New York to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., has over the years soared over events throughout the Miami Valley.

“For us to bring the organization into the next 30 years, we needed to really update the platform,” said Jay Jabour, president and acting chairman of Wright “B” Flyer Inc., the non-profit, volunteer organization that flies the plane out of the Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport in Miami Township. “We’ve been flying this airplane for a long time.”

The new plane, an historic look-a-like of the Wright brothers 1911 biplane, may cost more than $115,000, or the amount paid for the former Wright “B” Flyer replica “Silver Bird,” he said.

A yet-to-be chosen experimental aircraft builder could start assembly in about a year, Jabour said.

“The Brown Bird was built the same way, but it was built at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base by a bunch of enthusiasts out there,” said Jabour, a former Air Force brigadier general and retired aerospace executive.

The volunteer group wants to be able to find and replace parts more easily on the new replica. It also wants a plane

Article source: http://www.aviationpros.com/news/11669025/unnamed-donor-gives-50k-to-build-wright-flyer-replica

Everyone backstage calls Cirque du Soleil a family, but it’s never more obvious than when director Michel Laprise is around. It’s half an hour before a Friday matinee and so many performers in makeup come to hug and greet Laprise that his cheeks are marked with lipstick and green glitter.

Back in Montreal after a month travelling to Japan, China, Las Vegas and Toronto (where he spent three days dancing at WorldPride), Laprise is excited to watch his show, Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, again. Throughout its first month this past spring, the director had been sitting in the audience almost every day. Today, along with a dark denim jacket emblazoned with the company’s insignia, he wears an indefatigable smile – he is inviting every single person backstage to a party at his house on the weekend.

Laprise’s directorial debut reinvents Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian entertainment company that is celebrating its 30th birthday this year. “I know the house, so I know how to challenge the rules,” says Laprise, who started working with Cirque in 2000, first in casting and then in special events. “I don’t want us to be sleepy; we have to be awake all the time.”

Kurios certainly keeps the audience wide awake. Beneath the yellow- and blue-striped grand chapiteau, the show takes place in an alternate steampunk reality where a mad scientist transports an ensemble cast of mechanical, aquatic and humanoid creatures into his laboratory from a parallel dimension. Invention plays a starring roll, from what

Article source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/cirque-du-soleils-30th-anniversary-show-manages-both-to-defy-logic-and-be-utterly-real/article20169022/

Posted: Friday, August 22, 2014 7:27 pm

National Park Service issues temporary ban on unmanned aircraft

Katrina Koerting

newsadvance.com

Most skies above units of the National Park Service, including the Blue Ridge Parkway and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, will remain drone-free for at least 18 months because of a recent policy banning unmanned aircraft.

The National Park Services’ interim policy went into effect Wednesday while the agency reviews the use of unmanned aircrafts and creates an official rule on the use of the devices and determines which parks, if any, would allow them.

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