Model Airplanes

Triumph Group Inc. rose the most in seven years after naming Daniel J. Crowley as chief executive officer, ending a search since April for a new leader for the aerospace parts producer. 

Crowley, who was president of two Raytheon Co. business units and a former Lockheed Martin Corp. executive, was chosen after an “extensive search” by the board, Triumph said in a statement Tuesday. Crowley, 52, replaces Richard Ill, the founder of Triumph who came out of retirement to take over the company after Jeffry Frisby resigned in April.

“Mr. Crowley brings significant strategic and operational experience to Triumph in the aerospace and defense industry, amassed over a 32-year career,” the company said.

Investors cheered Frisby’s departure in April, driving up the shares 8.5 percent the day of the announcement. Analysts had said that Frisby was more of a dealmaker while the Berwyn, Pennsylvania-based company, best known for producing hulls for Boeing Co.’s 747 jumbo jets, needed a leader to focus on execution and transition to a new factory.

Triumph climbed 19 percent to $40.98 at the close in New York, the biggest one-day jump since October 2008. The gain trimmed this year’s decline to 39 percent.

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-29/triumph-group-jumps-most-in-seven-years-after-appointing-new-ceo

The future of driving is here—and it has been for decades.

In October, Tesla unveiled “Autopilot,” a new driving mode that the electric car maker, headed by enigmatic billionaire Elon Musk, promises to relieve “drivers of the most tedious and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel.” These include parallel parking, dynamic cruise control, and even passing slower cars on the highway. While the features require the driver to keep their hands on the wheel, Musk says, “Tesla Autopilot functions like the systems that airplane pilots use when conditions are clear.”

While “Autopilot” might be seem like a huge step in displacing human drivers, it’s not unexpected. The great thing about the feature is that it highlights the advantages of Tesla’s update management system, by which the company can add features, improve gas economy, and even fix mechanical issues through the same technology your smartphone uses to install a new iOS. But given the history and trajectory of the automobile market, the introduction of Autopilot shouldn’t be a surprise: Drivers have been taking a back seat to the technology that drives them for far longer than we’ve been talking about it.

When Google first began road-testing driverless cars in 2012, it felt like the coming of a future promised to us by films like Total Recall and Minority Report, in which cars don’t even need you. In Minority Report, driverless vehicles can even maneuver on vertical streets, as if propelled on a giant, gravity-defying conveyor belt. The road to fully autonomous cars, however, started long before Google was ever

Article source: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/15378/history-self-driving-cars/

Wichita drone operators can share the sky with other aircraft after they register with the Federal Aviation Administration.

But the Air Capital of the World’s numerous airports and landing strips mean they’ll more than likely have to phone it in first.

Under federal guidelines, you’re supposed to avoid flying a drone within five miles of an airport unless you contact the airport directly.

Almost the entire Wichita metropolitan area falls that close to some sort of airport or heliport, private or public, according to Air Map, a resource for drone operators. Multiple areas fall within the zones of more than one airport or heliport.

‘Very dangerous area’

The rising popularity of drones has outpaced the regulations for unmanned aircraft. Several high-profile close calls between drones and commercial jets have raised civil aviation safety concerns.

The FAA now requires the registration of recreational drones that weigh between 0.55 and 55 pounds before they are flown outside.

Drone pilots must register by Feb. 19 and be able to provide that registration, either on a printout or on an electronic device, when they fly their drones.

“For reasons of safety, they have to become aware of the other aircraft in the sky,” said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory.

Flight in certain airspace brings additional safety guidelines.

“Well, preferably they should stay away, because five miles within an airport is where planes are ascending and descending,” Cory said. “That’s a very dangerous area.

“(But) if they must fly, they must notify air

Article source: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article52879980.html

HELENA — When Ron Pecarina woke up on Saturday, July 19, 2014, he couldn’t move his right leg.

His wife, Lori Bigwood-Pecarina, pulled the car out of the garage, and Pecarina crawled to it — it was the only way he could move. They went to the emergency room at St. Peter’s Hospital, where doctors did a number of tests to see why Ron’s leg wasn’t functioning.

After a few hours, an emergency room doctor came into Pecarina’s room and said, “We’re flying you out of here.”

Doctors couldn’t determine what was wrong, and Pecarina’s condition was deteriorating. He could no longer use his left leg to scoot himself and needed to get to a bigger hospital with a neurologist.

The doctor told him: “You have a choice, Great Falls or Missoula, and you have to choose now. The ambulance is waiting for you; you have to decide.”

The husband and wife picked Missoula. But they didn’t get to choose the company that flew him there, which was Summit Air Ambulance.

Summit is a standalone service that doesn’t contract with any insurance networks. A few months after Pecarina came home from Missoula, in the midst of extensive physical therapy, he and Bigwood-Pecarina got a $35,000 bill for their flight.

Their situation is one more and more Montanans have found themselves in over the last few years as air ambulances that don’t contract with insurance companies have moved into the state. Over the last few years, more than 20 people and families have come to the auditor’s office

Article source: http://mtstandard.com/news/local/editor-s-picks-tailings-in-pit-new-lt-gov-handyman/collection_fda124e6-d766-5a69-83b8-3c1964a01ddc.html

Just a couple of years ago “Luxury in Motion” featured Miami architect Luiz de Basto’s Voyage, a concept speedboat inspired by Aston Martin’s Vantage, Rapide, DBS and Virage. He designed it mainly to keep his mind fine-tuned, and he never meant for it to go into production.

In April 2015, though, a whole series of Aston Martin-inspired powerboats were announced with the intention of producing them, and, currently its first model, the 37-foot “7 Series” AM37, is about to come on the market with two versions. It arrives on the heels of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre, which has all kinds of amazing vehicles, including the bespoke Aston Martin DB10 (it’s bulletproof and has a rear-facing flamethrower), Jaguars, Range Rovers, a vintage Rolls-Royce, Chuck Aaron’s MBB Bo105 helicopter, an Aerospatiale SA 365 N2 Dauphin 2 helicopter, and a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander airplane, as well as a center-console-style boat that looks to be military or special forces, and a London police speedboat.

In spring, Dutch boat builders Quintessence Yachts, with Aston Martin, presented renderings at Aston Martin’s Gaydon headquarters, announcing that the speedboat would be presented last September — but it wasn’t.

“The production process is about to be completed, then we’ll have tests on water,” Chiara Cassinerio from Quintessence Yachts press office said via email. “We’re working on details, and we’re producing a speedboat that is even more impressive than (shown in previous) renderings. Actually, we preferred to favor quality and design and the AM37 that will be unveiled will be the

Article source: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/business/calling-james-bond-anticipation-high-for-aston-mar/npt9s/

No one would call Airplane 2: The Sequel one of the great film follow-ups of all time. But that 1982 comedy does contain one smart, pointed sight gag, in which a movie poster shows a doleful, decrepit prizefighter unable even to lift his own gloves. The title? Rocky XXXVIII.

It’s a knockout joke, but it didn’t get the future quite right. Here we are, 34 years later, and a new Rocky is indeed upon us, though it is the seventh rather than the 38th. Its poster depicts not an old-timer, but a strapping young African-American boxer (Michael B Jordan) accompanied by an older trainer (Rocky himself, Sylvester Stallone). This is Creed, in which the former champ coaches the son of Apollo Creed, his opponent from the early Rocky movies. It’s a terrific picture that happens to encapsulate a new kind of film-making model: the sequel that is also a remake and a reboot.

Until now those categories have been fairly distinct from one another. Creed blends them together. It is a grittier, modern-day makeover of the series, which had long ago begun to invite ridicule. It slots sequentially into the ongoing Rocky narrative. And it also reproduces, blow-for-blow, the shape of the 1976 original. If it imitates exactly its predecessor’s success, it will be looking at an armful of Oscars this year.

That sort of supersize franchising will appeal to the widest possible audience, from older cinemagoers drawn by pure nostalgia to the younger crowd who might not

Article source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/03/rise-of-the-reboots-creed-ghostbusters-rocky