Pilots: Don’t Underestimate Safety Threat Posed by Drones

You’re landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on the “expressway” approach—it’s called that because you come in low enough to buzz the Grand Central Parkway and Mets’ Citi Field before dropping down quickly on a runway that perches over the middle of a bay.

As it is, it’s one of the more jarring landings in the U.S. What, then, would happen if a drone suddenly appeared in the flight path?

The threat in recent years of pilots blinded by high-powered lasers may soon be superseded by this potentially more fearsome prospect: drones finding their way into restricted airspace around airports.

Each month, pilots and air traffic controllers report more than 100 drone “sightings” to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has begun compiling and releasing periodic reports on these encounters. The FAA says such reports have surged since 2014, with more than 1,200 incidents nationwide last year.Over the latest reporting period, from August 2015 through January, the New York metro area led the nation in drone sightings by airline pilots with 43. The Los Angeles area was next, with 25, according to an analysis of FAA data released March 25. The Dallas area was third, with 18.

Pilots consider drones a safety risk that must not be underestimated. “We’re not kidding when we say it has to be mitigated as a threat,” said Tim Canoll, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA, and a drone hobbyist himself. “Your imagination can run wild with the problems of hitting hard metal objects at 200 mph.”

Recent Incident

One of the most recent incidents occurred March 18, when a

Article source: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/04/07/404478.htm

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Dietary changes shaped the evolutionary paths of pro humans – Naperville Tech Time

Australopithecus sediba did not have the jaw and tooth structure required for a diet of hard foods. Most of australopiths were having adaptations in their jaws, teeth and faces that allowed them to process foods that were difficult to chew.

A. sediba was not predisposed to chewing hard foods, even if it did consume them, and may have eaten softer foods that weren’t as hard to chew than tree bark or nuts

The researchers believe A. sediba didn’t share the same nutcracker jaw feature as its ancestors, due to its natural inability to crack hard foods. This also suggests that the species was a transitional one in between human ancestors, coming after A. africanus and most likely before Homo habilis or H. erectus.

“Most australopiths had amazing adaptations in their jaws, teeth and faces that allowed them to process foods that were difficult to chew or crack open,” said study lead David Strait of WUSTL in a press statement. “Among other things, they were able to efficiently bite down on foods with very high forces.”

Strait’s team used an A. sediba skull discovered in South Africa in 2008 and put it to an extensive series of tests and modeling simulations, similar to the tests car and airplane parts go through during their manufacture. According to the test results, A. sediba was not predisposed to chewing hard foods, even if it did consume them, and may have eaten softer foods that weren’t as hard to chew than tree bark or nuts.

The

Article source: http://www.albanydailystar.com/health/dietary-changes-shaped-the-evolutionary-paths-of-pro-humans-naperville-tech-time-16246.html

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Best of the best: 5 fun things to do April 7-13

MOLLY RINGWALD, who won hearts and fans in the ’80s by fending off an amorous Anthony Michael Hall and hanging out in detention with Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy in teen comedies like “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club,” is now a 48-year-old mother of three who still occasionally acts (though we’re betting she hopes we’ve forgotten her role in last fall’s disastrous “Jem and the Holograms”).  Ringwald, the daughter of a jazz pianist, has also been exploring her musical side of late, and she released a jazz album, “Except Sometimes,” in 2013 that includes old standards like “The Very Thought of You” and a moody take on Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” Expect to hear them Saturday when she brings her cabaret act back to town.

8 p.m. Saturday, Heinz C. Prechter Educational and Performing Arts Center, Wayne County Community College Downriver campus, 21000 Northline Road, Taylor. 734-374-3200. http://www.wcccd.edu/about/performingArtsCenter.htm. $37.

The annual MICHIGAN MODERNISM EXPOSITION, which brings together dealers offering furniture and decorative and fine arts from all the 20th Century’s design movements, kicks off Friday night at the Southfield Pavilion with a preview party that will recall Detroit’s early-1960s go-go years. Presented by the Detroit Area Art Deco Society and titled Night on the Town: A Salute to Detroit’s Historic 1960s Dining Spots, the party will feature menus and collectibles from Detroit restaurants of yore,

Article source: http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2016/04/05/entertainment-events-metro-detroit/82625222/

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Drones Take the Place of Lasers as Top Concern for Airline Safety

You’re landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on the “expressway” approach—it’s called that because you come in low enough to buzz the Grand Central Parkway and Mets’ Citi Field before dropping down quickly on a runway that perches over the middle of a bay.

As it is, it’s one of the more jarring landings in the U.S. What, then, would happen if a drone suddenly appeared in the flight path?

The threat in recent years of pilots blinded by high-powered lasers may soon be superseded by this potentially more fearsome prospect: drones finding their way into restricted airspace around airports. Each month, pilots and air traffic controllers report more than 100 drone “sightings” to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has begun compiling and releasing periodic reports on these encounters. The FAA says such reports have surged since 2014, with more than 1,200 incidents nationwide last year.

Over the latest reporting period, from August 2015 through January, the New York metro area led the nation in drone sightings by airline pilots with 43. The Los Angeles area was next, with 25, according to an analysis of FAA data released March 25. The Dallas area was third, with 18.

Pilots consider drones a safety risk that must not be underestimated. “We’re not kidding when we say it has to be mitigated as a threat,” said Tim Canoll, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA, and a drone hobbyist himself. “Your imagination can run wild with the problems of hitting hard metal objects at 200 mph.”

One of the most recent incidents occurred March 18, when a

Article source: http://skift.com/2016/04/05/drones-take-the-place-of-lasers-as-top-concern-for-airline-safety/

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NASA Working with Boeing on Next-Gen Airplanes

Every bit of weight on an aircraft increases the fuel, emissions and money required to put it in the air. NASA and Boeing have been working together to design a longer, thinner and lighter wing – so different from typical commercial transport aircraft wings that it requires a brace, or truss, to provide the wing extra support.

Researchers expect the lighter weight, lower drag truss-braced wing to reduce both fuel burn and carbon emissions by at least 50 percent over current technology transport aircraft, and by 4 percent to 8 percent compared to equivalent advanced technology conventional configurations with unbraced wings.

The wind tunnel model tested has a 50 percent greater wingspan than a comparable aircraft with current wing technology. Engineers are using detailed computer modeling of aerodynamics to iterate the design. Using computational results showing how air would flow around the model, they modify the dimensions and shape of the wing and truss to improve areas that may generate undesirable air flow that would increase drag and reduce lift. Then engineers test models in a wind tunnel using multiple experimental techniques to validate the computations and aircraft performance predictions.

In this image, Greg Gatlin, NASA aerospace research engineer from NASA’s Langley Research Center, inspects the truss-braced wing during testing in the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel complex at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

NASA and Boeing engineers are analyzing results from the recent test and plan to further explore the wing design. The truss- braced wing is part of NASA’s Advanced Air Transport

Article source: http://scvnews.com/2016/04/05/nasa-working-with-boeing-on-next-gen-airplanes/

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Full video from NTSB briefing for Pigeon Forge helicopter crash

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KNOXVILLE (WATE) – Luke Schiada with the National Transportation Safety Board speaks on a helicopter crash that killed five in Pigeon Forge:

And that’s what we’re doing here. We’re very early in the investigation. We’re working on building factual information without speculating and without drawing any conclusions.

Our primary goal right now is to document the helicopter at the accident site, so we can move it so it can be documented further away from the site. Also, during the course of the investigation, we’ll be getting information about the pilot, pilot’s background, experience, type of experience, medical certifications, more information about the company and the company’s background and operations, information as far as the helicopter’s maintenance history, we’ll be doing component and subcomponent examinations as necessary, we’ll be looking at weather conditions, we’ll be interviewing witnesses, we’ll be looking to see if there is any available radar data, any other communications available.

What we’ll do is take the factual information from these areas and others and put it into a comprehensive factual report, which will be sent to the NTSB board in Washington D.C. and they’ll ultimately determine a probable cause. It’s a methodical process that will likely take about a year.

Now, there will be a preliminary report that will be available in about a week, however that preliminary report is just going to have some basic factual information about the initial on-scene activities. It’s not going to have a probable

Article source: http://wate.com/2016/04/05/full-video-from-ntsb-briefing-for-pigeon-forge-helicopter-crash/

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Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT): Where are Shares Headed?

Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT): Where are Shares Headed?

Research analysts covering Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT) shares have provided price target projections on the popular stock. They project that the shares are expected to reach $6 within the upcoming year. This consensus number they’ve arrived at is calculated by Zacks, a quantitative model developed by M.I.T. Mathematics Ph.D., Len Zacks, who discovered that earnings estimate revisions are the most powerful force impacting stock prices, found at zacks.com.

Zack’s Research also project the estimate high of $6 and the estimate low of $6 for the stock.

Zacks provides analysts with an Average Broker Rating, basing it on sell-side recommendations. This can yield a more retail-friendly number by simplifying brokerage recommendations, which can become complicated. Shares of Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT) currently have an ABR of 3.25. Th ABR is scaled on from a 1 to 5 ranking with 1 being a STRONG BUY while the highest recommendation of a 5 represents a STRONG SELL recommendation.

For this current fiscal period, Wall Street analysts have projected that the company will post $-0.16 earnings per share. This is the current Zacks consensus EPS which was calculated at the time of writing. The current period which closed on 2015-12-31, Liquidity Services, Inc. reported EPS of $-0.17 for a surprise factor of -13.33%, calculated by being $-0.02 away from analyst projections. Investors will be marking their calendars for 2016-05-05, when

Article source: http://www.uptickanalyst.com/liquidity-services-inc-nasdaqlqdt-where-are-shares-headed/

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