Model Airplanes

Computer rendering of Boeing 777-9X and 777-8X. Photo courtesy of Boeing

Boeing has been able to achieve up to a 40% improvement in first-time quality of the parts and systems it uses to manufacture commercial and military airplanes by using the digital twin asset development model. This model is going to be the biggest driver of production efficiency improvements for the world’s largest airplane maker over the next decade, said Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

The use of the digital twin is changing how Boeing designs its airplanes, by providing a virtual replication of physical airplane parts and simulating how they will perform over the lifecycle of the airframe, Muilenburg told investors at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference in Dana Point, California, Sept. 12.

A digital twin is created by using ultra high-fidelity simulation software that can create a virtual working model of highly complex systems and components, such as those featured on Boeing’s airplanes. Digital twin replication software is capable of creating a virtual three dimensional model that can go through a simulated lifecycle of the environments and conditions that asset will experience. The lifecycle is created by digitally threading together bits of data about that component’s in-service product lifecycle.

“We’re moving to model-based engineering digitizing our entire engineering and development system up front including down into our supply chain and connecting that with the production system and how we service and support to create value for our customers,” said Muilenburg. “That digital life cycle — think of it as a digital

Article source: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/14/boeing-ceo-talks-digital-twin-era-aviation/

Q: Greg, I really enjoy “Cars We Remember” and would like to know more about Chrysler during the war years and also about two cars my grandfather owned, a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker and then a 1958 Chrysler Imperial. Both were beautiful cars that I remember as a teenager.

— Francine S., Philadelphia

A: Francine, first let’s talk about the Chrysler and Imperial, both top offerings from Chrysler Corporation. Back then these beautiful cars produced during 1957 to 1959 not only looked good, they packed some real punch under the hood.

The New Yorker was Chrysler’s full-size, 126-inch wheelbase luxury model, joined by siblings albeit less luxurious Saratoga (also 126-inches) and entry level Windsor, which rode on a smaller 122-inch wheelbase. However, if you wanted the true top-end MOPAR luxury car those years, it had to be an Imperial which rode on a 129-inch wheelbase while the Crown Imperial limousine stretched out to 149 inches.

These Imperials sat atop the Chrysler lineup in luxury appointments and special, upper-class opulence. As for corporate pecking order, Chrysler competed with cars like Buick and Mercury while Imperial went head-to-head with Lincoln and Cadillac for consumer dollars (and did quite well).

In my early 1950s memories, if you pulled up to my grandfather’s economy and grocery store in Ranshaw, Pennsylvania, in a New Yorker or, better yet, an Imperial, you were held in high esteem. I most remember the dual headlights that began appearing those years and also the rear tail fins, which grew bigger every

Article source: http://www.pawhuskajournalcapital.com/business/20180913/cars-we-remember-chrysler-imperial-and-war-years

Originally published on Spectrum

It’s 7 p.m. on a Friday and Rebecca “Becky” Audette is already in bed, tucked under a polka-dotted lavender comforter. Dark purple velour curtains with butterfly ties hang over the lavender walls of her bedroom.

Purple has been Becky’s favorite color since she was a toddler, before she was diagnosed with autism at age 7. Now, the young woman functions at about the level of a 4-year-old.

“Am I going to bed? I want to go to bed,” she insists.

Becky lives with her mother, Pamela Peirce; brother, Jason Audette; and Jason’s wife in a gray-and-white colonial-style house that was Peirce’s childhood home in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. When Peirce was a child, her extended family owned five houses along this quarter-mile stretch of road, dirt back then. Peirce and her grown children are the last of the clan to occupy the street. It’s paved now, but the house still sports features of an earlier time: two-pronged electrical outlets, a VCR, inherited furniture.

It also offers a hopeful vision of the future. Becky bears the markings of an invasive, high-tech treatment under her purple plaid pajamas: two linear scars, each about 3 inches long, over her clavicle, and two circular bulges protruding ever so slightly from her chest. Beneath these marks lies the power source for an implant that stimulates key parts of her brain.

When Peirce opted for this treatment, called deep brain stimulation

Article source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/can-brain-stimulating-implants-treat-some-severe-cases-autism

 AeroVolga International Circumpolar Flight PIREP

Guest Editorial written by By Sergey Araslanov — Between July 3 and August 14, 2018, AeroVolga in Russia successfully completed the International Circumpolar Flight. Three amphibians-two light eight-seat aircraft LA-8 and an ultra-light “Borey” flew more than 20.000 kilometers, crossed nine countries, three continents and two oceans.

What’s The Use Of It?

This flight drew the attention of the aviation community. And, as it often happens, among the thousands of optimists there was one disbeliever, who declared that in the modern life he does not see the point in such expeditions. Of course, today millions of people fly between the continents, flying, including, and over the North Pole, and for hundreds of years there is no reason to prove to someone that the Earth is round. But do we know much about the Far North? And can there be only one goal for the expedition, in which several different planes and several pilots participate, whose life path is unique?

The Magnificent Seven

This flight united the seven pilots into one team. Two of them have already flown around the Earth thousands of times: a doctor, scientist and astronaut Oleg Atkov spent 236 days in the near-Earth orbit at the Salyut- 7 station, and his counterpart, the president of the flight, cosmonaut Valery Tokarev twice was at the International Space Station and was in orbit of the Earth for a total of 189 days.

The exhibition participants (from L to R): Sergey Alafinov, Loïc Blaise, Oleg Atkov, Dmitriy Suslakov, Valeriy

Article source: https://seaplanemagazine.com/2018/09/14/aerovolga-international-circumpolar-flight-pirep/