Model Airplanes

Starting August 31, Verizon will issue an ultimatum to wireless customers who use “extraordinary” amounts of data every month: either move to one of the company’s five tiered service offerings or face having their lines disconnected.

The migration plan is aimed at legacy customers still on Verizon’s old unlimited data plan, according to a Wednesday report in Droid Life. Over the past several years, the company has made a number of changes affecting users on such plans, including raising the monthly prices.

Verizon currently offers five different mobile service plans with data caps of 2 GB to 24 GB per month. It last updated those options earlier this month, raising data allowances for each and increasing monthly prices by $5 to $10.

Rising Data Usage, Changing Habits

Rolled out on July 7, the changes to the service plans were designed to address rising customer data consumption. The average Verizon customer’s monthly data use has nearly tripled over the past three years, largely because of increased viewing of streaming video content.

Despite changing user habits, wireless plans with unlimited data have become increasingly scarce in recent years. Verizon, for example, began grandfathering support for such plans in 2011, and ATT now provides unlimited data only to customers who have had the service since 2009 and haven’t updated their phones since then.

Increasingly, customers are keeping their current phones and plans, according to several recent studies. For example, a survey by the marketing firm Fluent in June found that 42 percent of smartphone

Article source: http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=112003I57HTC

There are many ways to play in the Children’s Museum’s new permanent exhibit “Beyond Spaceship Earth,” which now occupies significant real estate on the museum’s bottom level.

You can, for starters, stuff a flight bag. You can don a space suit. You can use a hose to clean up floating droplets of spilled grape juice (an activity that led me to wonder if this was an actual problem on the International Space Station). And, if you are particularly dexterous—or young—you can crawl into a confined area and tighten some bolts.

There are also plenty of interesting artifacts to contemplate as well: checklists, notebooks, a NASA selection letter, a flag from the Gemini 8, and everyday items used when your every day is spent in orbit. I heard one visitor from Philadelphia say the collection is more impressive than you’ll find in his town’s Franklin Institute science museum. Pride point, Indy.

Of course, pop culture is also given its due, with displays featuring an actual Chris Pine/Capt. Kirk “Star Trek” suit, a Ravell Apollo-Soyuz model kit, and even a Yuri Gagarin post card. (Gotta collect ‘em all!)

But, for me, the exhibit celebrating the exploration of space—and recreating parts of the International Space Station in kid-friendly form—is at its most impactful in a subtle pairing that beautifully captures humanity’s desire for flight, our ongoing quest to reach out to what’s next, and the appeal of both science and art that should be fostered in young people.

It’s impressive enough to have astronaut Roger Chaffee’s Apollo inflight

Article source: http://www.ibj.com/articles/59588-space-to-play

One of the most important parts of New Mexico history is the railroad. Its development brought commerce and community to the Land of Enchantment.

Located on the Rail Yards campus here in Albuquerque is the Wheels Museum. The Wheel Museum shares the history of the railroad in New Mexico.

Featured at the museum are full-sized vehicles, model trains and an airplane.

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Article source: http://kasa.com/2016/07/22/legendary-nm-the-wheels-museum/

(July 22, 2016) A piece of aviation history, a 1940s-era Aeronca Chief, was delivered on Saturday, July 9, to a hangar at the Ocean City Airport, where the Ocean City Aviation Association will begin a lengthy restoration project.

Coleman Bunting, OCAA treasurer, said the recent purchase came about from an attempt to bridge the generation gap with area youngsters.

“We wanted to try to reach some of the kids in the schools,” he said. “I checked with Stephen Decatur (High School) and Wor-Wic (Community College) and told them we were interested in doing this project and we never got any response.”

The OCAA has been in existence for half a century, Bunting said, and its primary mission is to promote safety and education at the airport.

“It used to be we made model airplanes and now everybody is on their computer,” he said. “Not too many of them are interested in mechanical skills. It’s going to be a lost art doing some of this stuff.”

Despite the apparent lack of buy-in, Bunting said the OCAA decided to forge ahead after locating a disassembled, but well preserved, Aeronca Chief in storage at the Essex Skypark Airport in Baltimore.

“We found this antique and decided to get her,” he said. “Right now, she’s basically frame work, parts and pieces.”

Ocean City Airport Manager Jamie Giandomenico, who helped transport the relic, said the plane has less than 1,000 hours of airtime and is a discovery to be treasured.

The plane made its last landing and went into storage about five years

Article source: http://www.oceancitytoday.net/p/association-gets-to-work-restoring-1940s-airplane/1551191

Things are looking up for Facebook’s plans to provide high-speed Internet connectivity to virtually everyone on the planet. Not only did a team of scientists from the company figure out how to improve data transmission by laser beams this week, but the social network’s experimental Aquila drone finally had its maiden voyage.

The flight, which was the first full-scale test of the Aquila vehicle, actually took place about three weeks ago at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Yuma, Ariz. The company had been running test flights with a one-fifth scale model of the vehicle for several months, but the June flight represented the first time it had flown a full-scale version of the drone.

Internet from the Sky

During the low-altitude test flight, the drone remained airborne for 96 minutes, the company said, during which time it cruised at an altitude of about 2,150 feet above sea level, while consuming only 2,000 watts of power. The drone is designed to run on solar power during the day and battery power at night.

Eventually, however, the Aquila will reach a regular cruising altitude of 60,000 — 90,000 feet, putting it far above both commercial flight lanes and any inclement weather, all while consuming only 5,000 watts, about the same amount of electricity needed to power a high-end microwave. The drones are designed to be deployed as a fleet of autonomous aircraft capable of delivering Internet connectivity to anyone within a 60-mile communication diameter for up to 90 days at a time.

We spoke

Article source: http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=112003I57HQ8

On November 26, 1934, the Secretary General of the League of Nations, Joseph Avenol of France, delivered to the Romanian delegation a “note” to be considered under the “procedure in force in the matter of the protection of minorities.” The end of World War I had led to confusion, to put it mildly, as borders were changed all throughout Europe and elsewhere. The cause of the petition was that of Dr. Meer (Mayer) Wilderman. The unfortunate industrialist had built and owned factories in Germany starting in 1912. But because he was born in Bessarabia, then part of Russia, at the outbreak of war the capital assets were seized under the accusation that Wilderman was an “enemy alien” in Germany.

The Wilderman case became something of a regional fixation, with good reason, which is why the League of Nations became involved two decades later. Like something out of the best Hollywood fiction, there was enormous intrigue and dirty tricks, the kind of underhanded tactics and immorality that seems only appropriate from a clichéd movie villain. Secretary General Avenol’s note to the Romanian (Roumanian) government spells it all out in 501 pages of 30 annexes. Dr. Wilderman had to fight years not just to reclaim his factories, but prove that they were rightfully his and further that they were even worth reclaiming (the LoN note is in French, the following quote is Google Translate).

“During the following months (H1 1917) the group Stinnes, who managed to guard

Article source: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2016/07/22/the_question_now_is_whether_or_not_sense_can_prevail_102274.html