Model Airplanes

If there ever were a combat pilot cat-like in survival, it would be John Alwyn (Pee Wee) Phillips. But what made his successful wartime record of walking away from crashes so amazing? In each case he ensured his crew walked away safely with him.

His first “prang,” as he called it, occurred at the RAF No. 22 Operational Training Unit (OTU) in England, in 1943, while training in Wellington bombers with a Canadian crew of five on board. On the approach to land, Phillips couldn’t get the undercarriage down, so he got permission from the control tower to land wheels up on the aerodrome grass.

“Luckily, we got away with it scot-free,” Phillips said during an Imperial War Museum interview. “We just bent the propellers doing a belly landing.”

Two engines were gone. Only one instrument still worked. There was no way the Halifax could return to Britain.

A few months later, Phillips was crewed up for combat duty with a principally Canadian crew. While they learned to respect his flying ability, the RCAF airmen noted their pilot’s diminutive stature and nicknamed him “Pee Wee.” It stuck. Now, the bomber crew was training at an OTU in Yorkshire, England, where Flight Sgt. Phillips attempted another landing, this time in a four-engine Handley Page Halifax bomber, just as the wind direction changed. Committed to a landing, Pee Wee desperately tried to bring the 30-tonne bomber down while descending crab-like over the runway. The violent crosswind caught his wing, forced the bomber to nose over

Article source: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/ted-barris-bringing-the-hally-home

I spoke to the manager of DARPA’s 3D printing program about how the Pentagon’s technology incubator is using additive manufacturing.

This week in Las Vegas the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will host, “the world’s first, all-machine hacking tournament.” The winner will then face the “World’s best human hackers in the annual DEF CON Capture the Flag competition.” I asked DARPA’s Mick Maher whether the agency is planning something similar for 3D printing, for now nothing is on the cards he says. Makers with a penchant for watching machines battle can always enjoy the recent reboot of Robot Wars.

Mick Maher joined DARPA in 2011, prior to this he studied chemistry and was initially hired by the Martin Marietta Corporation to run a chemistry lab in Baltimore. “They had a big problem on the production floor. On my first day they said you’re no longer in the chem lab, you’re now on production.”

Chemistry’s loss was 3D printing’s gain and after stints at DuPont, AAI and the Army Research Lab (ARL) his work on composite manufacturing caught the attention of DARPA. “DARPA were paying attention to what I doing with materials and manufacturing and when the opportunity came to run the Open Manufacturing program it became a good fit for both me and DARPA. And the rest in history,” he says.

DARPA was founded in 1958 to prevent surprises such as Sputnik.

DARPAs

Article source: http://3dprintingindustry.com/news/darpas-advanced-3d-printing-research-interview-mick-mahler-90715/

Migratory birds can glide over very long distances with minimal wing-flapping, thanks to their strategic use of rising warm air currents. A new study has found that the birds use two basic sensory cues, combined with reinforcement learning algorithms (RLA), to navigate this turbulent environment.

These new computer simulations employ the same architecture that Google used for its DeepMind AlphaGo program, which shocked the Go playing world when the AI beat
professional champion Lee Sedol earlier this year. The lessons learned could help improve the design of long-distance automatous gliders and self-driving cars.

Some species, like frigate birds, can migrate thousands of miles, for weeks on end, without ever landing. A study published earlier this month in Science found that the birds seek out rising air currents called thermal vents to minimize how much they need to flap their wings in order to soar for long distances over the ocean.

These thermal vents are highly turbulent, which is why human-piloted airplanes tend to avoid them. But researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Villiers-en-Bois found that frigate birds exploit such vents to gain elevation. This in turn gives them more time to gradually glide downward before finding a new updraft.

Given that this requires fairly complex decision-making, how do the birds manage to navigate such a turbulent environment? Prior simulations of

Article source: http://www.gizmodo.in/science/How-Migrating-Birds-Can-Soar-To-Such-Great-Heights/articleshow/53493849.cms

Many times, when an entire industry faces selling pressure, buying opportunities arise for those willing to wade through the details. The airline industry has seen share prices significantly fall throughout 2016, and one firm stands out as undervalued. With a long history of industry-leading profits, improving ROIC, and an attractive valuation, Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) is on July’s Most Attractive Stocks list and is this week’s Long Idea.

Impressive Revenue Profit Growth

Since 2009, Southwest’s after-tax profit (NOPAT) has grown by an astounding 52% compounded annually to $2.8 billion in 2015 and $2.9 billion over the trailing twelve months. Similarly, Southwest’s NOPAT margin has improved from 2% in 2009 to 14% TTM. See Figure 1. Since 1998, the company has grown NOPAT by 11% compounded annually.

Figure 1: Southwest’s Improving Margin Profits

Click to enlarge

Further showcasing the strength of Southwest’s operations, the company generated $2.8 billion in cumulative free cash flow (FCF) over the last decade.

Improving ROIC Highly Correlated With Increasing Shareholder Value

The growth in profits has come without significant expansion of the balance sheet. As a result, Southwest’s return on invested capital (ROIC) has improved from 6% in 2005 to a top-quintile 18% over the last twelve months. This improvement is impressive since ROIC is directly correlated with creating shareholder value. In fact, Figure 2 shows that ROIC explains 84% of

Article source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3994088-southwest-airlines-post-earnings-play

While most people watching the men’s and women’s diving competition at this year’s Summer Olympics will be focused on the athletes, Douglas Bowman will pay close attention to the other key component of the event.

Bowman is the chief operations officer of northern Nevada-based Duraflex International Corp., which has been making diving boards that are used in virtually every international competition since 1960. He is traveling to this year’s games in Rio de Janeiro to oversee the assembly of the boards and stands prior to the Games commencement, and keep a keen eye on the equipment during the competition to make sure no problems arise.

Not that it has been a huge concern. In all the years since it’s has been the official diving board for competitions, Bowman recalls never having a equipment malfunction.

Duraflex makes approximately 1,500 diving boards and 700 stands a year from its facility in the heart of the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. The boards, made from aircraft grade aluminum, can have life expectancy of about one to three years.

Duraflex is able to market abroad partly because all competitive divers, both internationally and domestically, need to use the same equipment not only during competition but in practice as well.

“Everybody has to dive on the same equipment,” Bowman said. “You can’t have the Chinese diving on one board and the Europeans diving on

Article source: http://www.nnbw.com/news/23111988-113/duraflex-makes-a-splash-in-diving-board-industry

Garmin’s STC for the G5 is available for 562 makes and models of fixed-wing single- and twin-engine aircraft below 6,000 pounds and not certified for operation in known icing conditions via a comprehensive approved model list, Garmin said July 24.

“The importance of creating a pathway for simplified certification processes and its impact on safety and the ability to deliver lower cost avionics can’t be overstated,” said Carl Wolf, Garmin vice president of aviation sales and marketing. “AOPA worked closely with the FAA and Garmin to outline the need and opportunities for such equipment. Their counsel and input from their highly active membership base helped guide Garmin’s decision to further engage our engineering and certification teams, and enter this important market, a decision that will help improve the legacy fleet.”

The G5, introduced in 2016 for the experimental/homebuilt market, will be approved as a primary source for aircraft attitude or turn coordinator information, and as a secondary source for altitude, airspeed, and vertical speed in a single instrument. It is approved for installation in either position and is valid for flight under VFR and IFR conditions, Garmin said.

“This can  be and is more reliable than vacuum-driven systems,” said Jim Alpiser, Garmin director of aviation aftermarket sales.

The retail price is anticipated to be $2,149, which includes the G5 unit, a four-hour back-up battery, and an installation kit. An optional GPS antenna can be purchased, which brings the retail price to $2,499. The units will begin shipping in September.

“This

Article source: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/july/24/garmin-g5-stc