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Article source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-14/as-flying-shame-grips-sweden-sas-ups-stakes-in-climate-battle
Stratolaunch’s rocket carrier jet, the largest aircraft in the world by wing span, took off Saturday morning from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California for its first test flight.
The twin-fuselage airplane took off at 6:58 a.m. PDT (9:58 a.m. EDT; 1358 GMT) Saturday and flew for nearly two-and-a-half hours, reaching a top speed of 189 mph (304 kilometers per hour) and a maximum altitude of roughly 17,000 feet (5,200 meters). The aircraft returned to Mojave for landing at 9:27 a.m. PDT (12:27 p.m. EDT; 1627 GMT).
The Stratolaunch aircraft, nicknamed “Roc,” is designed to carry rockets high into the atmosphere, providing a head start in altitude and velocity for satellites going into orbit around Earth.
Stratolaunch’s airplane has a wing span of 385 feet, or 117 meters, breaking the record for the widest wing span on an aircraft set by the Hughes’ propeller-driven H-4 Hercules, or “Spruce Goose,” flying boat, which made a single brief test flight in 1947. It also set the record for the most total thrust on an aircraft, according to Scaled Composites, the plane’s designer and manufacturer at Mojave.
The airplane is designated Scaled Model 351, and it’s powered by six Boeing 747 engines and measures 238 feet (73 meters) long and has a maximum takeoff weight of 650 tons (590 metric tons), according to information on Stratolaunch’s website.
Read our full story on Saturday’s flight for details on Stratolaunch’s plans.
Photos of the aircraft’s flight are posted below.
Article source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/04/13/photos-stratolaunchs-giant-airplane-flies-over-mojave/
The 737 MAX commercial planes grounded overseas in the wake of two deadly crashes within a five-month span are built in Washington state but have close ties to operations in South Carolina.
Boeing’s Propulsion South Carolina campus at Palmetto Commerce Park designs and builds both the nacelle inlets and nacelle fan cowls for engines used in the 737 MAX program.
Also, a GKN Aerospace plant in Orangeburg makes lip skins — the leading edge of an engine nacelle — for the single-aisle 737 MAX planes. The site also assembles winglets — the turned-up tip of a 737 MAX wing — for the program.
Investigators have not determined what caused Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board or a Lion Air flight that crashed after takeoff in October, killing all 189 passengers and crew. In both instances, pilots were flying a 737 MAX-8.
The cockpit of a 737 MAX-8 test plane. File/Brad Nettles/Staff
When Hurricane Florence struck North Carolina last fall, floodwaters swamped vast stretches of farmland and graphically demonstrated a threat this part of the country is particularly vulnerable to: massive volumes of animal waste overflowing into waterways.
North Carolina has one of the world’s largest concentrations of industrial pig farms, with more than 2,000 operations involving a total of about 10 million hogs. Most store manure in open-air pits called “lagoons,” and when these overflow they can contaminate waterways with pathogens, pharmaceuticals and nutrients that pose serious pollution and health risks. Environmental watchdogs are on the frontlines of monitoring such overflow events and tracking the damage, both in North Carolina and from other livestock and poultry farms around the country. But first they need to actually find the industrial farms—many of which are not legally required to make their locations publicly available. This forces would-be monitors to manually pick out farms from satellite and aerial imagery—a task that can take months (or, in the case of one state agency in Iowa, longer than three years) to complete.
But researchers at Stanford University have found a way to pinpoint these farms in a fraction of that time, by using machine learning to train a computer model to identify them. “We realized this was exactly the kind of place where we could leverage the really rapid advancements in computer vision,” says Stanford law professor Daniel Ho, who co-authored a new paper on the technique, published
Article source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/environment-watchdogs-harness-ai-to-track-overflowing-factory-farm-waste/
While the rain and bursts of hail came and went throughout the morning, the storms didn’t stop residents from going to Thin Line and Redbud Festival events Saturday.
Forecasts for severe weather led several events this weekend to be canceled, postponed or moved indoors. Although there was a lot of rain coming and going throughout the day, Denton County Emergency Services Director Jody Gonzalez said there was no significant damage.
“The only thing we’d be looking at now is road closures,” he said. “We’re not worried about river flooding. We’re checking usual areas for closures due to the amount of rain they’ve received.”
Denton received about 1.9 inches of rain by late afternoon Saturday.
There was hail in southern parts of Denton with the largest being the size of a half-dollar in The Colony, Gonzalez said.
There was a structure fire in Ponder, but Gonzalez said county officials didn’t know if it was weather-related.
A man runs through rain and hail Saturday outside St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Denton.
Article source: https://www.dentonrc.com/news/weather-gets-rough-but-fans-still-flock-to-festivals/article_f9badff8-7318-5b9b-9601-0fdf1d427028.html
Pilots and their model planes will be flying around Superstition Airpark this weekend as the Arizona Model Aviators and STEM+C host Taking Flight 2019.
The event April 13-14 will give the public a chance to see every aspect of the model aviation hobby, from model building to flight simulators to free-fly and combat flying.
Taking Flight “is for those who are really interested in getting a taste of what our R.C. hobby is as far as model planes and helicopters,” said Shannon Gallagher, the president of the Arizona Model Aviators.
Gallagher said the event will have something for everybody. Pilots and aviators can bring their models to fly and join races and activities with each other while newcomer pilots will have the opportunity to learn to fly the models with a device Gallagher calls a buddy box.
The buddy box is a dual-control system that gives new pilots complete control of the model plane, while allowing an experienced pilot to quickly take over if the newcomer falls into trouble so the plane won’t crash.
Another activity is a group building session in which kids and families can build their own model plane from styrofoam step-by-step together and actually fly it afterward.
“We’ll have aircraft people can buy for $35 and they can sit there and put the plane together. You just have to add your own radio control stuff, but you can have a ready-to-go plane,” Gallagher said.
Aside from the fun simulations and plane building, the event will Article source: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/our_community/model-plane-hobbyists-flying-into-mesa-park/article_71a0d8c8-5a1b-11e9-904a-1f548bc85f40.html
Star Wars designs decorate United Airline planes debuting this fall.
It may not be the Millennium Falcon, but United Airlines plans to debut planes with a Star Wars look this fall.
During Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, United Airlines said it will introduce special Star Wars-themed livery for its airplanes to promote the release of The Rise of Skywalker, the latest Star Wars movie.
The Star Wars livery will be on United’s fleet of Boeing 737-800 planes.
“The aircraft will be exploring the ‘domestic galaxy’ and will not be assigned a specific route, meaning customers across the US may have the opportunity to travel on this unique plane,” an United spokesperson told SFGate on Friday.
As part of the promotion, United is giving away two Article source: https://www.cnet.com/news/united-airlines-to-fly-star-wars-themed-planes-for-rise-of-skywalker/
