Model Airplanes

For adventurers, Colorado offers fourteeners, national forests and famous sand dunes, but if you live in the Denver metro area and aren’t fond of hours-long drives, the state is still home to many places where you can escape city life.

“It depends on what you’re looking for,” said Lauren Truitt, Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman, about state parks. “With Cherry Creek, you forget there’s city all around you. Roxborough has that stunning, vista-style view that looks over Denver and south to Castle Rock.”

And Barr Lake, up north near Brighton, is still less than an hour away from much of the rest of the metro area — out on the eastern plains but still boasting a “phenomenal view of the whole northern mountain range,” Truitt said.

More getaways sit in your backyard. Here’s a look at nearby state, federal and local stops and the kinds of eclectic activities they offer.

Cherry Creek State Park

The massive park located between Aurora, Denver and the Centennial area isn’t just about its reservoir.

The park also allows camping, a shooting range and even rides on horses that parkgoers can rent, Truitt said. Enthusiasts can also fly model airplanes there, and, of course, the reservoir is open for fishing, she added.

Cherry Creek State Park is located along Interstate 225 and along South Parker Road.

Chatfield State Park

South of Littleton along C-470 and South Santa Fe Drive, Chatfield also offers fishing, model-airplane flying and camping.

Horses are available for rent,

Article source: http://littletonindependent.net/stories/get-away-by-staying-nearby-this-summer,281732

A V-shaped airliner that seats passengers in the wings instead of a central fuselage could make long-distance air travel more sustainable — and it’s more than pie in the sky.

The Dutch airline KLM announced Monday that it would team up with Delft University of Technology to develop the lightweight, fuel-efficient “Flying-V” aircraft.

No plans for building the concept craft have yet been announced, but KLM said it would unveil a scale model and full-size section of the plane’s interior at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in October.

Forgoing the fuselage as well as the tail of conventional airliners would cut the plane’s weight and reduce aerodynamic drag, resulting in significant fuel savings. KLM said the plane should consume 20 percent less fuel than an Airbus A350, a twin-engine airliner that is now in wide use around the world.

“This airplane is a lot more efficient because you create a synergy of the fuselage and the wing,” said Justus Benad, who came up with the concept in 2015 when he was a university student in Berlin and an intern at the airplane manufacturer Airbus. The plane’s cargo holds and fuel tanks would also be incorporated in the Flying-V’s wings.

The plane would be shorter and lighter than an A350 but could carry just as much cargo and could accommodate 314 passengers, just like the Airbus plane. Its 212-foot wingspan would also be identical to that of the A350, which means the Flying-V could

Article source: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/futuristic-flying-v-airplane-concept-puts-passengers-inside-wings-ncna1013851