Model Airplanes

A Raleigh-area company is partnering with a solar plane team that keeps making aviation history. Both are aiming even higher.

ABB, the Swiss global electric engineering firm with North American headquarters in Cary, recently announced that it will work with world-renowned Solar Impulse on energy projects. Solar Impulse’s most visible undertaking is its plan for next year: to circumnavigate the world in a plane powered only by the sun’s energy.

Zurich-based Solar Impulse has made international headlines. Solar flight feats by co-founders and pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg include the first manned overnight flight (26 hours, in 2010); the first intercontinental flight (2012); and a trip across the United States last year that set several world distance records for solar flight.

But Solar Impulse’s ultimate goal has little to do with records, or even aviation. It’s about demonstrating the dramatically useful impacts of clean energy.

“Our primary purpose is not to revolutionize aviation but the way in which people think about energy and clean technologies,” said Piccard, who captained the first nonstop, around-the-world balloon flight in 1999. “If Solar Impulse technologies were used on a massive scale, the world would be able to save up to 50 percent of the current consumption of fossil energy and produce half of the rest with renewable energies.”

ABB – the second-largest maker of solar power adapters worldwide – has its own solar resume. Its PowerStore is a flywheel technology that protects conventional microgrids and ensures the safe integration of large amounts of wind and solar energy.

Article source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/08/03/5076175/cary-company-forms-technological.html

Sunday, August 03, 2014, 03:55 pm PT (06:55 pm ET)

Review By Neil Hughes

As the name suggests, DJI’s Phantom 2 Vision+ isn’t much different than its predecessor, with the same exceptional flying capabilities as the last model. But the newfound “plus” for this drone is mostly found in its vastly improved camera and gimbal, which offers super-smooth recording capabilities from a bird’s eye view.

On its own the Phantom 2 Vision+ is a high-end radio-controlled and camera-equipped quadcopter, or more commonly known as a “drone.” But it also integrates with Apple’s ecosystem of devices, namely the iPhone and iPad, to greatly enhance its capabilities for aerial footage.

DJI remains firmly entrenched in the high end of the market, with its current flagship model selling for $1,299 — $100 more than its predecessor, but with greatly improved optics and stabilization. Cheaper Phantom configurations are available without an integrated camera and gimbal, but only the Vision models feature a Wi-Fi booster that allows users to view live video and information from the drone as it takes to the skies.

For this review, DJI loaned AppleInsider the Phantom 2 Vision+ with a 4-gigabyte micro SD card and the Phantom smart battery which provides 25 minutes of uptime. Many resellers offer a free second battery with purchase, which we were not provided. In the box, the device also

Article source: http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/08/03/review-using-the-dji-phantom-2-vision-camera-drone-with-apples-iphone

The main campus of Vitra, a Swiss furniture company that produces Frank Gehry’s Wiggle chair, is an Epcot of contemporary architecture. It includes buildings by Gehry, Herzog de Meuron, and Tadao Ando; a fire station by Zaha Hadid; and an elegant white factory, shaped like a slice of eight-minute egg, by the minimalist Japanese firm Sanaa. All these architects have won the Pritzker Prize, the field’s highest honor. The work of this year’s laureate, Shigeru Ban, has also been displayed at Vitra. Huddled on a lawn, his structures, three fifty-dollar tents sheathed in standard-issue plastic tarps from the U.N., intended for the refugees of the Rwandan civil war, looked as if any minute they might be loaded on a pallet and removed. Ban’s work lay underneath the plastic: a simple skeleton of recycled-paper tubes, fitted together with plastic joints and braced with ropes describing the pattern of an unfinished star. Ban, who has built museums, mansions, corporate headquarters, and a golf-course clubhouse in South Korea, takes pleasure in distinguishing himself from his peers, and in pointing

Article source: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/paper-palaces

• Swiftair MD-83 vanished 50mins after take-off from capital of Burkina Faso
• Now Mali president has confirmed wreckage has been found in desert
  
• Plane ‘made detour over fears it was flying into a storm over northern Mali’
  
• Crew also worried it may collide with another aircraft, airline source said
• Mali air space graded ‘high risk’ by U.S. aviation authority due to civil war
  
• Comes after 298 killed in MH17 disaster and 48 die in plane crash in Taiwan
  

By
Simon Tomlinson
and John Hall
and Nabila Ramdani

Published:
05:04 EST, 24 July 2014

|
Updated:
03:41 EST, 25 July 2014

Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2704018/BREAKING-NEWS-Algerian-airline-loses-contact-plane-carrying-110-people-disappears-radar-flying-Burkina-Faso-Algiers.html

A Raleigh-area company is partnering with a solar plane team that keeps making aviation history. Both are aiming even higher.

ABB, the Swiss global electric engineering firm with North American headquarters in Cary, recently announced that it will work with world-renowned Solar Impulse on important energy projects. Solar Impulse’s most visible undertaking is its ambitious plan for next year: to circumnavigate the world in a plane that’s powered only by the sun’s energy.

The Zurich-based Solar Impulse team has already made international headlines. Solar flight feats by co-founders and pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg include the first manned overnight flight (26 hours, in 2010); the first intercontinental flight (2012); and a trip across the United States last year that set several world distance records for solar flight.

But Solar Impulse’s ultimate goal has little to do with records, or even aviation. It’s about demonstrating the dramatically useful impacts of clean energy.

“Our primary purpose is not to revolutionize aviation but the way in which people think about energy and clean technologies,” said Piccard, who captained the first nonstop, around-the-world balloon flight in 1999. “If Solar Impulse technologies were used on a massive scale, the world would be able to save up to 50 percent of the current consumption of fossil energy and produce half of the rest with renewable energies.”

ABB – the second-largest maker of solar power adapters worldwide – has its own solar resume. Its PowerStore is a flywheel technology that protects conventional

Article source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/08/03/5076175/cary-company-forms-technological.html

INTERVIEW PAGE 2

Chairman Air Peace, Allen Onyema, is also the founder/Chairman of Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria (FEHN), a non-governmental organisation, which has been playing active roles in peaceful resolution in some parts of the country, particularly the Niger Delta. An accomplished businessman, Onyema recently ventured into the aviation industry by floating an airline named Air Peace, which has already acquired seven airplanes for scheduled and chartered local flights. In this interview with some editors in Lagos, he spoke on his new pet project, Air Peace and President Goodluck Jonathan’s contributions to the aviation industry. Festus Akanbi was there

You recently invested in aviation; can you shed light on this new business outfit?
First and foremost, I am fulfilling the promise I made to God Almighty in 2003 that I would not only give him one per cent of my gross earnings for the purposes of evangelism but that I would also create massive jobs for others if only he would come to my aid in my businesses. I challenged God and he answered me. That money (one percent) is never my money, it is God’s. I have an account in one of the banks referred to as God’s Account. It is used for evangelism only. I have built and helped churches all over the country from this fund. It is never used for my sake. I have helped other religious bodies from there too. So floating Air Peace is a promise I made to God towards creating massive

Article source: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/onyema-jonathan-administration-has-tried-for-aviation-industry/185264/