Model Airplanes

Most of us boomers and beyond were raised with dial phones, Kodak film cameras, stick shifts, TV antennas and Encyclopedia Britannica.

But just looky now. Today, even the most revolutionary technologies become obsolete soon after they appear.

A recent Internet article by Dr. Robert Goldman, “Predictions in Technology and Health,” predicts some truly radical changes.

Dr. Ronald Klatz wrote that essay’s introduction, saying: “We live in a miraculous time, due to the rapid growth of new technology … life expectancy is increasing by three months per year. People utilizing the anti-aging tenets for health are seeing a life expectancy of 94, and that rate is also growing. Just as we predicted 25 years ago, medicine is now at last finally transforming from the treatment of illness and disease into preventative measures and the extension of the human lifespan.”

Goldman predicts what we can expect and the impact on our lives, noting that in 1998, Kodak, with 170,000 employees, sold 85 percent of all photo paper worldwide, but within a few years it went bankrupt. Goldman believes Kodak’s woes will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years.

“Did you think in 1998 that three years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?” he writes. “Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975.” That first model, he said, only had 10,000 pixels and was disappointing, but over time its quality surpassed film.

There’s lots to come, Goldman says: “It

Article source: http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2016/jul/02/look-what-lies-ahead-20160702/

In April, a group of Finnish farmers outfitted a spindly black drone with a remote-controlled chainsaw and filmed it decapitating snowmen. They called it “Killer Drone.” More formally, it was a DJI S1000.

This spring, marine biologists flew a drone over the Sea of Cortez to capture samples of the fluid sprayed from the blowholes of blue whales. They called it “SnotBot.” It was a DJI Inspire 1.

In March 2015, two men in Ottawa equipped a sleek, white drone with Roman candle fireworks and sprinted away shirtless as the machine fired spark-spewing projectiles. They called it “Roman Candle Attack Drone 2.0.” It was a DJI Phantom 2.

DJI, which stands for Da-Jiang Innovations, is a midsize company based in Shenzhen, China, and it essentially put recreational drone-flying on the map. Fans call it the “Apple of drones,” and for good reason — the company owns 70% of the consumer drone market, analysts say. As of March, it was valued at about $8 billion. It may be the first Chinese company to create, and then dominate, a hot new class of consumer electronics. 

As China’s decades-long investment and exports-driven “economic miracle” comes to an end, the Chinese government is attempting to boost innovation to keep the country’s economy afloat. Officials are investing billions of yuan in gleaming new office parks, university engineering programs and start-up incubators.

ARLINGTON — When four students from Wisconsin won the chance to build their own aircraft at Glasair Aviation in Arlington, they didn’t expect to see the debut of the company’s latest aircraft, much less meet U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen.

The students of Weyauwega-Freemont High School were among 76 high schools in 31 states, plus Washington, D.C., to enter this year’s General Aviation Manufacturers Association/Build A Plane Aviation Design Challenge.

“We designed a plane, on computer, that could bear the heaviest payload with the least amount of fuel,” said Logan Feltz, who was accompanied by fellow students Natasha Stemwedel, Derrick Cleaves and Austin Krause in an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington state, to spend two weeks building a Glasair Sportsman airplane.

Larsen visited Glasair June 29, and quizzed the students about their experiences at Glasair and other parts of Washington, since they also visited the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program at Friday Harbor High School on San Juan Island.

“We each picked parts of the plane to work on,” said Feltz, noting that he focused on the rudder and engine, while Stemwedel and Cleaves covered the wings and controls. “Compared to designing an aircraft on a computer, we’ve learned how the parts are actually put together.”

Feltz credited the Glasair personnel with making sure they understood exactly how to install each specific part, as well as how to use all the requisite tools.

“It’s definitely been worth it,” said Feltz, who expects to take up piloting as a hobby, even as he plans for a career as

Article source: http://www.arlingtontimes.com/business/385445211.html

By Susan Larson. Photo provided by the Virginia State Police.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined “[t]he student pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed after takeoff” resulting in an “aerodynamic stall” as the probable cause of the crash that killed Riverbend High School sophomore Ryan McCall on March 29, 2015.

McCall, 16, was leaving Orange County Airport in his first solo airport-to-airport flight, with no instructor in the cockpit.

Witnesses told NTSB officials the 1974 Piper, model PA28140 single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft, appeared to be “abnormally slow” on take off, and did not seem to be gaining altitude. Witnesses also said the saw a trail of “smoke” or “exhaust” coming from the engine, but none reported “rough engine operation or a loss of power before the accident.”

“When the airplane was about 150 feet above ground level, its nose pitched up abruptly, the left wing dropped, and the airplane impacted terrain about 1,300 feet from the departure end of the runway,” the NTSB report said. “Ground scars and damage to the airplane were consistent with a near-vertical impact.”

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“Each of the witness observations was consistent with an aerodynamic stall/spin,” investigators said.

In testing the plane’s engine parts, NTSB investigators found that “three of the eight [spark] plugs displayed weak and intermittent spark,” and “the carburetor produced a fuel flow that was richer than the maximum acceptable limits prescribed by the manufacturer.”

“Although the effect of

Article source: http://fredericksburg.today/aerodynamic-stall-ruled-probable-cause-of-plane-crash-that-killed-riverbend-sophomore

For the first time in its history, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office will take to the skies in its own aircraft.

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on June 21 unanimously approved the acceptance of a 1982 Cessna Model 182R fixed-wing, single-engine, single-propeller airplane being donated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department that will be used by the local sheriff’s volunteer pilot team for search-and-rescue operations and, if needed, for surveillance and narcotics operations.

The plane, which was purchased by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in 2001 with grant funds that have since expired, was appraised two years ago at about $111,000, according to a San Luis Obispo County staff report.

The $79,075 cost to transfer and repair the plane is being split by the Sheriff’s Advisory Foundation and the county’s asset forfeiture fund and will not impact the county general fund. However, the Sheriff’s Office will likely ask the Board of Supervisors for $60,000 in annual funding for ongoing maintenance costs beginning in the 2017-18 fiscal year.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said the department has no plans to ask for any additional staff positions for the aircraft.

The airplane is expected to arrive in the county this week, and it will be taken to two local aeronautical maintenance companies for repairs and other work. The initial $79,075 will cover registration, a factory-rebuilt engine, a propeller overhaul, interior upholstery, flooring replacement, a new transponder,

Article source: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article87423667.html

The Glenview Park District is considering three locations for a new Naval Air Station Glenview Museum, but the project is not a top priority for the district, officials said.

In March 2015, members of the Glenview Hangar One Foundation, a nonprofit organization that owns and operates the existing museum, and Bring It Home, Glenview, a community organization dedicated to preserving the history of the Air Station, spoke with Park District officials about building a new museum and learning center, said Elsa Fischer, the Park District’s superintendent of leisure services. The new facility would be owned and operated by the district, Fischer said.

Both organizations want to build the new museum to help preserve the history of the Naval Air Station, and to have space to display a restored World War II Navy aircraft that flew from Glenview and crashed into – and was recovered from – Lake Michigan, said Bill Marquardt, president of the Glenview Hangar One Foundation. The current 900-square-foot museum is neatly organized with model airplanes, photos, military uniforms and a flight simulator.

At a June 23 Museums and Historical Preservation Committee meeting, representatives from Williams Architects, a firm hired by the district to identify potential sites for the new museum, presented 12 possible locations for it. The committee narrowed it down to three choices: the tower in The Glen Town Center, the amphitheater and behind Park Center, Fischer said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/glenview/news/ct-gla-naval-air-station-considered-locations-tl-0707-20160701-story.html