Model Airplanes

Have you ever looked up high into the sky and spotted the tiny speck of a jet sailing off to the horizon? Have you ever wondered where that plane came from or where it is headed? Now you can find out in seconds with today’s Cool Site.

This site is amazing. The home page is a world map with thousands of little yellow marks. Each one of those yellow dots represents an airplane in flight at that moment.

In some of the busier parts of the world, there are so many flights that the dots overlap and completely cover the area. Zoom in for a closer look and you’ll see individual planes each zooming through the air on the way to their final destination.

If you scroll around the map a little, like I spent 30 minutes doing, you can see planes in flight over the Indian Ocean, or soaring by the Swiss Alps. Not only does it show you where these planes are currently, you can click on them to find out even more.

Article source: http://www.komando.com/cool-sites/308916/see-what-aircraft-are-flying-anywhere-in-the-world/all

• Number 10: ministers who oppose second runway will have to abide by ministerial code once government has made a decision – or resign

• The moment of truth is dawning for Cameron on Heathrow

• Airport expansion: what next for Heathrow and Gatwick – the options explained in 90 seconds

• The heart says Gatwick, the head says Heathrow

17:41

Here is a round-up of the day’s exciting events:

• The Airports Commission published its long-awaited report into increasing the UK’s airport capacity, with a “clear and unanimous” recommendation for a third runway at Heathrow

• The Commision favours Heathrow, largely on economic grounds, but added that certain conditions must be met for it to go ahead

• These include: a ban on night flights, greater compensation for residents, controls on air quality and a guarantee that a fourth runway would not be built.

Building a third runway would cost £17.6bn, boost the British economy by £147bn over 60 years, create 70,000 jobs by 2050, and add 40 destinations from Heathrow

It will involve the demolition of thousands of homes and most likely the village of Harmondsworth.

A third runway at Heathrow will cost more, affect more people and lead to greater noise and air pollution than extending Gatwick, but the Commission says the economic benefits of developing the west London hub outweigh the drawbacks.

Article source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/11709288/Heathrow-third-runway-wins-over-Gatwick-live.html

We are always striving to cover the many amazing uses of 3D printing technology. In doing so, we have a tendency to report on the successful flights of various 3D printed drones and other UAVs. 3D printing is a technology that will eventually allow just about anyone to create their own unique aerial vehicles. While the technology is there today, and many individuals have had plenty of success in creating these aircraft, we must also realize that success is usually preceded by failure.

For one freelance mechanical engineer, named Erwin Touwen, 3D printing is a technology that he has recently become quite fond of. In his spare time he designs model airplanes and then 3D prints them on his Leapfrog Creatr Duo 3D printer. He admits that he doesn’t exactly have experience within the field of aircraft design, yet he still set out to attempt and create a working, flying, 3D printed UAV.

“I wanted to get back into the RC model plane hobby after 20 years, but I did not want to build a plane out of balsa wood, nor did I just want to buy a ready to fly model from the store,” Touwen tells 3DPrint.com. “Online I did find a few project[s] that build a model airplane, but none of these models had an integrated fpv camera, and most of them where printed on industrial printers. So I took the challenge to the design a model aircraft that could be printed

Article source: http://3dprint.com/77609/3d-printed-uav-crashes/

Article source: http://www.cnet.com/videos/bartesian-machine-like-keurig-but-for-alcohol-tomorrow-daily-201/

The appeal of private air travel is hard to ignore: easy-to-reach airports, quiet terminals, no lines or long waits, reliable departure times, a peaceful flight. Traditionally, such privilege came at a steep price. You either had to charter your own aircraft with a broker or invest in a fractional ownership plan.

With the advent of by-the-hour programs like the Marquis Jet Card from NetJets, prices have come down a bit in recent years, though paying $5,000 an hour (or more) for a private plane is still relatively common. But several upstart companies are now allowing travelers to book single seats rather than entire planes—finally making this form of travel relatively affordable for people who don’t count themselves among the mogul and movie-star set.

The most innovative of these companies are those offering all-you-can-fly club memberships within a specific region. The model is relatively simple: a flat-rate monthly fee provides access to a fleet of planes operating between a group of cities at fixed departure times; you get guaranteed reservations for a certain number of flights and space-available ones for the rest of the month. Though these clubs focus primarily on frequent business travelers plying a limited but high-demand network of routes, they are starting to broaden their appeal by adding leisure destinations and sometimes offering guest passes and discounted memberships for families.

California-based Surf Air, currently king of the space, pioneered the club model in 2013 with daily charter flights between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. By this fall, it will offer members

Article source: http://fortune.com/2015/07/02/private-jet-cost-cheaper/

Conducted by Dominic Smith

When did you start developing for flight simulators and what
got you interested in it?

I first started using flight simulators way back when FSFW95 was
mainstream. I used it quite extensively but not for any developing.
I then left flight simulation for some time, and only came back to it
last year when I decided to give X-Plane 10 a go. As good as X-Plane
10 is, an area of the simulator that I wasn’t impressed with was the
absence of famous landmarks. One of the great things about flight
simulation is that you can go to parts of the world (virtually) you
might never get a chance to visit, to see famous landmarks and
sights. The absence of these in X-Plane really disappointed me so I
set about trying to change that. I started first with one of the
most famous bridges in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge. After
modeling the bridge and importing it to X-Plane, I decided that I
should build on the area. I added more buildings to San Francisco, a
photographic underlay and then finally the airport. The end result
I’m pleased to say was a vast improvement on what was there before.
Not only was it an improvement, but the whole experience was
immensely satisfying. The reason being that, I had to learn
everything from scratch. This included modeling the

Article source: http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?15939-Interview-With-Justin-Kissling/view/1