Model Airplanes

In a central Kansas wheat field, two combines roar to life and start to make the rounds, slowly bringing in the harvest.

Now, this in itself is not an unusual sight for Kansas in mid-June. But what is unusual is the models of combines that are moving through that field. They don’t gleam in the June sunshine with fresh green or red paint. Actually, the factory paint jobs on the 1979 model White 8900 and the 1973 model Oliver 7600 lost their lusters a decade or so ago. They may be noisier, dustier and come with fewer gadgets and doodads than today’s combines, but these two machines have something those new models can’t imagine—experience.

And maybe that’s why Rowe Garrett, of Woodbine, Kansas, keeps using them to cut the family’s wheat fields decade after decade.

On this particularly scorching

Article source: http://www.hpj.com/crops/plenty-of-rounds-left-in-these-combines/article_c9a6ac70-3a4b-11e6-8307-77dc340522ba.html

It’s a multi-rotor drone, much like a helicopter. Unlike fixed-wing drones that need a launching space and a 50-m-long runway to land, this 1.5 kg machine needs neither. As preparations begin to fly this drone at Nawabganj on the Raebareli-Allahabad highway in Uttar Pradesh, cyclists and motorcyclists stop on the road, shopkeepers keep their outlets unattended and customers outside a desi sharab ka theka (country liquor shop) do a double take. As the drone ascends, before manoeuvring itself to a pre-programmed destination 500 m away, and begins to click high-resolution photos with a clarity of 3 cm objects, onlookers cheer and wave at the “chota hawai jahaj” (little airplane).

“It’s a miracle,” says RP Maurya, who runs a cycle-repair shop at Nawabganj in UP, before bombarding the “scientists” with questions: Why are you flying it here? Does this plane crash? Does it harm people? What’s the cost? Can I fly it too? “We usually select out-of-the-way places to fly drones.

But crowds invariably pour in,” says Rahul Jain, after addressing some of Maurya’s questions. As this writer accompanied Jain and his team from Delhibased aerial mapping solutions company Matrixgeo on a 10 km stretch on NH 24B last week, he conceded that some of Maurya’s questions were pertinent. He quickly added that his team strictly follows the draft drone guidelines of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the absence of any licensing mechanism in India as yet. Adds his partner Amit Sharma

Article source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/how-various-ministries-are-exploring-the-use-of-drones-for-effective-infrastructure-creation/articleshow/52919438.cms

Imagine a giant woolly mammoth skeleton in the middle of a classroom.

Or maybe the object is instead a large, detailed model of a human skull, accompanied by the circulatory system, on a table for everyone to observe. Or, even better, picture the moon, with all of its cracks, craters and its dark side, sitting right there to explore freely.

Students at the University of Oklahoma can see all of those things inside the Oklahoma Virtual Academic Laboratory, or OVAL, at Innovation @ the Edge inside the Bizzell Memorial Library. It uses modern virtual reality technology to take learning into three dimensions.

“You can do stuff to objects here that are too far away, too fragile or are microscopic that you can’t do in real life,” Emerging Technologies Librarian Matt Cook said. “That’s one of the major benefits. 

Currently, OVAL consists of two stations with chairs fixed to sliding mechanisms, each with its own computer connected to a headset and earpiece. Through the headset, the user is transported into virtual reality, which can be manipulated to include 3D models from multiple subjects.

One user is designated as a “professor,” — though it often will actually be a professor — who guides attendees through the object. Viewers can observe details here that are otherwise difficult to see in reality. 

“We’ve been saying all along it’s like a field trip every day, but never leaving campus, because you get to experience it,” Associate Dean for Knowledge Services and Chief Technology Officer Carl R. Grant said. “The increase in

Article source: http://www.normantranscript.com/news/university_of_oklahoma/oval-brings-virtual-world-to-ou-students/article_2ecd4742-a3ef-5a28-9159-7e9f1ae84b86.html

Rick Baldwin, left, and his son Tommy Baldwin, 19, right, look under the hood of Tommy’s 1968 Ford Mustang on Saturday at the Yellowstone Valley Mustang Club’s All Makes Car Show on Saturday June 18, 2016 at the Shrine Auditorium.

Article source: http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/work-pays-off-for-classic-car-owners-at-summer-shows/article_f965bc4a-5b37-5330-9cac-a886bb7881c5.html

When the Concorde, a 1970s design, made its last flight in 2003, few may have guessed how hard it would be to achieve commercial supersonic flight once again. Aerospace companies have underestimated the challenges of developing a supersonic airliner ever since, though we might finally be getting close to overcoming the technological hurdles that have stymied supersonic air travel. 

But there is still a major problem with breaking the sound barrier: You can’t fly supersonic planes on standard over-land routes because nobody wants sonic booms shaking their neighborhood. For this reason, the Concorde had to fly out over the ocean before breaking the sound barrier. 

It’s a problem NASA hopes to solve with a Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) demonstrator aircraft, a planned experimental X-plane that could hit Mach 1.42 while limiting the noise generated by a sonic boom. The agency is hoping the technology developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works in the QueSST program can be implemented on business jets and eventually on 100- to 120-seat airliners. 

“We believe the technology is ready,” NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technologies (CST) project manager Dave Richwine told Aviation Week. “We feel we have got the sonic boom now to the stage where it is not going to be bothersome to the general public.”

To reduce the sound of sonic booms, aerospace engineers need to find a way to prevent pressure waves from coalescing into a single shockwave. Just like waves in water created by

Article source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a21312/nasas-low-boom-supersonic-aircraft/