Model Airplanes

The Yomiuri ShimbunMitsubishi Aircraft Corp. has started production of a 70-seat test model of its Mitsubishi Regional Jet airplane. This model is smaller than the 90-seat version, for which test flights have already been successfully conducted.

The MRJ is Japan’s first passenger jet. Mitsubishi Aircraft hopes to meet growing demand and increase orders for its small passenger airplanes in the United States — the largest market in the world for this type of airplane — by releasing the 70-seat model, which has fewer competitors than the 90-seat model.

The aircraft maker aims to complete development of the smaller model by the end of 2017.

The test model of the 70-seat type in production is 33.4 meters long — 2.4 meters shorter than the first, 35.8-meter-long MRJ test model. The test flight for the first one was successfully conducted in November last year.

According to sources, Mitsubishi Aircraft is scheduled to start delivering the 70-seat type to airline companies as early as the middle of 2019.

Mitsubishi Aircraft is expediting its development of the 70-seat type MRJ mainly because major U.S. airline companies keep the number of seats in small passenger planes for short-distance flights to no more than about 70. They do this to protect pilots’ jobs.

Embraer, a major aircraft manufacturer in Brazil, successfully conducted test flights in May of a small passenger plane featuring the same type of engine as the MRJ. The number of orders for Embraer’s planes exceeds that for the MRJ.

The

Article source: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002999109

A new biography on famed White Stripes frontman and blues-rock solo artist Jack White is reportedly in the works from author Nick Hasted.

Recently announced by The Overlook Press, the declaration has led White to publicly waive any responsibility for the book’s contents via his creative conglomerate, Third Man Records.

On Friday, Third Man issued the following statement on Twitter: “Neither Jack White nor TMR has approved this biography. No one Jack is personally acquainted w/ contributed.”

The unauthorized memoir is scheduled to be released on Oct. 4. Titled Citizen Jack: How Jack White Built an Empire From the Blues, the book is described by its publisher as “the only book yet to tell the full story of the 21st century’s most influential rock star.”

White, who came to fame with the Stripes and is now an acclaimed solo performer, has also found success with his other rock bands, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. Upon releasing his second solo album, 2014’s Lazaretto, the singer-songwriter told The Guardian that he approaches his songcraft the same way, no matter the performing outfit: 

“All I can do is attack the song, song by song, [it] doesn’t matter if it’s the Dead

Article source: http://www.musictimes.com/articles/71115/20160606/jack-white-biography-white-stripes-singer-denies-involvement-overlook-press-nick-hasted.htm

This article was originally published by War is Boring on 1 June 2016.

We have it on highest authority — the recent killing of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan marks “an important milestone.”

So the president of the United States has declared, with that claim duly echoed and implicitly endorsed by media commentary — The New York Times reporting, for example, that Mansour’s death leaves the Taliban leadership “shocked” and “shaken.”

But a question remains — a milestone toward what, exactly?

Toward victory? Peace? Reconciliation? At the very least, toward the prospect of the violence abating? Merely posing the question is to imply that U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world serve some larger purpose.

Yet for years now that has not been the case. The assassination of Mansour instead joins a long list of previous milestones, turning points, and landmarks briefly heralded as significant achievements only to prove much less than advertised.

One imagines that Pres. Barack Obama himself understands this perfectly well. Just shy of five years ago, he was urging Americans to “take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.” In Iraq and Afghanistan, the president insisted, “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.”

“These long wars,” he promised, were finally coming to a “responsible end.” We were, that is, finding a way out of Washington’s dead-end conflicts in the

Article source: http://www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/articles/article.html/00a523e8-5936-483b-b0ed-c0dbb7a53695

SMYRNA — Sunday afternoon at Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport was a bittersweet  ending to the Great Tennessee Air Show for World War II Air Force veteran Vincent “Vinny” Pollizzotto.

The Smyrna resident finally got a one-on-one tour of his favorite airplane, the QuickSilver P-51 Mustang, one of the featured acts in the air show.

“It was the most beautifully designed airplane ever made. It was gorgeous,” Pollizzotto said, his eyes lighting up as he talked about the aircraft. “They took the design of a shark from the side.”

Pollizzotto was supposed to take a flight on Thursday, courtesy of QuickSilver pilot Scott “Scooter” Yoak. Before his dream ride, Pollizzotto was at the airport early to watch Blue Angels go through practice runs when he witnessed the tragic crash of Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss.

Pollizzotto and his wife, Marie, were distraught and tearful after seeing the crash.

“That was a horrible day. … It brought back memories, and not good memories,” said Pollizzotto, who watched a B-29 crash during the war, killing 11 on board. “That sticks in my mind. All night while I slept (Thursday) I dreamed out (seeing Kuss crash).”

Pollizzotto served as a gunner on B-29s, which often escorted P-51s into air battles. He was enamored with the sleek design of the single-man fighter plane known

Article source: http://www.dnj.com/story/news/2016/06/05/world-war-ii-plane-tour-memorable-affair-veteran/85462478/