Model Airplanes

Remotely piloted aircraft help to assess needs of people fleeing conflicts and persecution in Mali, Nigeria and South Sudan.

NIAMEY, Niger – For many people drones conjure up images of remotely piloted aircraft bristling with missiles, used for military ends. But in conflict-affected parts of Africa, versions of the technology are being used by humanitarian aid organizations like UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to plan relief responses and save lives.

Drones are increasingly in use in countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Uganda to help map huge populations of displaced people, assess their needs and figure out how best to get assistance to them. They are also being used to evaluate environmental damage caused by displacement.

“There are numerous peaceful applications of this technology, whether in human rights, aid delivery, or settlement mapping,” says Andrew Harper, head of UNHCR’s Innovation unit, noting that the potential use for drones is “overwhelming.”

The technology has come into its own at a time when record numbers of people have been uprooted from their homes by wars and persecution, more than three million of them by conflicts in South Sudan, Nigeria and Mali that have caused widespread displacement both within and across national borders.

In eastern Niger’s Diffa region, the need for enhanced information management has become increasingly urgent since Boko Haram attacks last June forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes or refugee camps.

As of late October, more than 250,000 men, women and children had been displaced since 2015, many of them seeking shelter in

Article source: http://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/unhcr-uses-drones-help-displaced-populations-africa

A skinny little airplane parked in a hangar of the Centennial Airport aims to revolutionize how people fly and reintroduce the world to supersonic flight.

Boom Technology has spent two years designing a supersonic passenger plane with the financial economics the defunct Concorde could never achieve. A full-size mockup of a smaller test plane will be unveiled publicly on Tuesday. If all goes well in flight tests next year, the company will move ahead and build a full-size 45-seat aircraft that can travel 2.2 times faster than the speed of sound at a price on par with business-class tickets: $5,000 round trip for a 3 hour and 15 minute flight from New York to London.

“This isn’t a private jet,” said Boom CEO Blake Scholl, who co-founded the company in 2014 with chief engineer Joe Wilding and chief technology officer Josh Krall. “We want to build something that we can see our friends and family flying on. We’re starting with business-class prices because that’s what we have technology for. But our line of sight is we want to make the fastest ticket the cheapest ticket.”

On Tuesday, guests will see the exact design of “Baby Boom.” About one-third the size of the full-sized plane, this two-passenger plane measures 70 feet long and has all the curves you’d imagine a supersonic jet should have. It has a distinctive long skinny nose and streamlined wings that barely angle away from the fuselage. While this baby will never fly, parts for the real Baby Boom are

Article source: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/14/supersonic-jet-boom-technology-centennial/

Those of you that follow us with the utmost attention already know that we recently made a few cover stories regarding the largest engines found in production cars, as well as the smallest ones available in current production automobiles.

We talked about motorcycle engines fitted in vehicles from the factory, but also about innovative turbocharging and supercharging solutions.

As this year winds to a close, we thought it would be fun to look back at something that would be unimaginable today – a car with an aircraft-sourced engine. For the fun of it, we have also included helicopter engines as well, and the full list was shortened to five of the coolest ones we could find.

Evidently, from the first moment someone fits an airplane engine into a vehicle, the result will be cool, but we only selected the best of the best here, so bear with us to see why each of them was chosen.

Every once in a while, someone manages to fit an airplane engine in an automobile, but it is almost impossible to document all the builds that have been done. Instead, we focused on cars that were designed to have airplane engines in them, or have received the transplant for a particular purpose.Tucker 48

This was a production vehicle that featured a flat six engine, which was a modified variant of a Franklin 6 Series

Article source: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/these-are-the-five-coolest-airplane-engined-cars-ever-made-113105.html

An aerial view, taken by a drone camera, of shelters housing displaced people at the Sayam Forage refugee camp in Niger.  © UNHCR

NIAMEY, Niger – For many people drones conjure up images of remotely piloted aircraft bristling with missiles, used for military ends. But in conflict-affected parts of Africa, versions of the technology are being used by humanitarian aid organizations like UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to plan relief responses and save lives.

Drones are increasingly in use in countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Uganda to help map huge populations of displaced people, assess their needs and figure out how best to get assistance to them. They are also being used to evaluate environmental damage caused by displacement.

“There are numerous peaceful applications of this technology, whether in human rights, aid delivery, or settlement mapping,” says Andrew Harper, head of UNHCR’s Innovation unit, noting that the potential use for drones is “overwhelming.”

The technology has come into its own at a time when record numbers of people have been uprooted from their homes by wars and persecution, more than three million of them by conflicts in South Sudan, Nigeria and Mali that have caused widespread displacement both within and across national borders.

“There are numerous peaceful applications of this technology.”

In eastern Niger’s Diffa region, the need for enhanced information management has become increasingly urgent since Boko Haram attacks last June forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes or refugee camps.

As of late October, more than 250,000 men, women and children

Article source: http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/11/582dc6d24/unhcr-uses-drones-help-displaced-populations-africa.html