Model Airplanes

Article source: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20151206/NEWS02/151209359

LE BOURGET — The St.-Denis area has an image problem.

St.-Denis is the northern suburb where one of the planners of the Paris terrorist attacks died in a police raid. Another attacker lived nearby, in Drancy; yet another rented a flat in neighboring Bobigny. A little further to the east is Clichy-sous-Bois, where riots started in 2005.

These suburbs are all part of Seine-St.-Denis, a tiny, densely populated administrative area northeast of Paris that is known for its leftist politics, its large immigrant population and, now, its links to extremist violence. (It is often referred to as the 93, after the first two digits of its postal codes.) The local annual income here is 16,000 euros, about $17,500, compared with the national average of 22,000 euros, or about $24,100. The unemployment rate is 13 percent, compared to the national average of around 10 percent.

Seine-St.-Denis is also home to Le Bourget, the suburb where the United Nations climate conference is being held. Local officials had hoped that the climate conference, also known as COP 21, would give its 40,000 visitors a more balanced sense of the area, and help it shed its rough image.

But with a national state of emergency still in effect, the Parc des Expositions, the convention center where the talks are being held, has become a tightly guarded fortress.

Shuttle buses take the throngs of negotiators, activists, scientists and journalists here directly to and from the nearby Métro and suburban train stations. Another

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks/business-leaders-set-ambitious-new-goals

Personal electric VTOL (vertical take off and landing) commuting may not be far off, thanks to accelerating improvements in battery technology. Joby Aviation has put forward an incredible two-seater plane concept that uses 12 tilting electric propellers to provide multirotor-style balanced VTOL capabilities. Once it reaches cruising speeds, these rotors fold away into aerodynamic bullet shapes, and the aircraft can reach speeds of up to 200 mph (322 km/h) and ranges of up to 200 miles using four additional cruise-optimized props on the backs of the wings and tail fins.

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• Article source: http://www.gizmag.com/joby-s2-tilt-rotor-vtol-multirotor-aircraft-concept/40662/

Hal Gottfried of Olathe is a 42-year-old telephone communications engineer with a salt-and-pepper beard and a love for an activity that’s catching fire nationwide:

Flying drones.

“I like to go out as often as I can,” said Gottfried, sitting at his dining room table with his collection of 15 drones, or UAVs — unmanned aerial vehicles.

His four-propeller drones range from indoor models not much bigger than a dragonfly to a $1,200 DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ Quadcopter that can soar to altitudes of 800 feet or more, all while taking high-definition video of everything it sees.

Expect lots of people to be joining Gottfried in sending aircraft into our increasingly crowded skies. Some 400,000 recreational drones, generally priced between $50 and $1,600, are expected to fly off retailers’ shelves this holiday season. For the year, the Consumer Technology Association estimates that about 700,000 will be sold, up 30 percent from last year.

One problem:

You might have to forget about actually flying one outside your home. Forget about flying it over the trees and rooftops of your cul-de-sac, over your kids’ soccer games or perhaps even at the local park.

Drone pilots face restrictions to fly

Drone enthusiast Hal Gottfried of Olathe talks about the challenges and restrictions being faced by operators of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or sUVAs today. He also demonstrates AirMap, an app to help drone operators fly safely and legally.

And if you were one of the

Article source: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/technology/article48196290.html

Denbigh High School Aviation Academy’s wind tunnel is about to get a major lift.

The magnet program announced Thursday night at an open house for interested students that it has secured a $58,000 grant from Alcoa Foundation to upgrade the current tunnel. Right now, it occupies the space of a classroom at the campus at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

The money will be used to purchase equipment that will help the more than 300 students in the academy better understand what happens to planes in flight. A helium bubble generator will show how force and pressure affect an airplane model, while cameras and computer screens will let students view what’s happening inside the tunnel.

Money from the grant also will fund materials to build models, and lesson plans will be reworked to integrate the new capabilities.

“It’s going to be exciting,” said junior Cameron Jones. “We get to build bigger models, test higher wind speeds. It’ll be fun.”

Junior Jasmine Lewis agreed.

“It means we get more opportunities, and I think more jobs or colleges will like to look into us to see what we’re doing and actually want to have us work with them,”

Article source: http://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nws-aviation-academy-20151203-story.html