Model Airplanes

INDIANAPOLIS — Jim Love has had an affinity for aircraft
since he was a boy.

Growing up on the farm, he and his father flew model
airplanes. Now Love, a farm business adviser at Beck’s Hybrids, is learning how
UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, can play a role in data collection on the farm.

“We have a long history of playing with model airplanes
at home, ever since my dad was a little kid,” he said. “When this whole issue of
being able to collect data with aircraft came into play, I became very
interested very quickly.

“As a hobbyist, I thought it would be interesting, and
on down the road it may be information we would want to gather so that … we have
a knowledge base to work off of to use these things to benefit farmers.”

Beck’s Hybrids decided, as an organization, to figure
out what platforms were available and successful, Love said.

The company is evaluating hardware and software to get
an idea of UAV capabilities.

“When it comes to drones, your imagination is really the
only limiting factor,” Love said. “There’s a whole lot of things we can do.
Search and rescue would be awesome. You could take a small airplane out of the
back of a van, lay out a grid … and find lost people or lost livestock.

“Agriculture is also a hot spot. The industry is all
ramped up to use aircraft.”

Slowing down the use of UAVs on farms is the lack of
regulation

Article source: http://agrinews-pubs.com/Content/News/MoneyNews/Article/Drones-help-farmers-keep-eye-on-crops-livestock/8/27/11764

Article source: http://www.gvnews.com/news/local/remote-control-enthusiasts-take-to-the-air/article_6c096558-8e08-11e4-b190-2fb833e5ab4f.html

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia has turned worse, with an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people disappearing today over stormy Indonesian waters.

There’s been no word on AirAsia Flight 8501’s fate despite several hours of searching by air and sea.

The plane vanished in airspace possibly thick with dense storm clouds, strong winds and lightning on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Searchers have had to fight against heavy rain.

At the Surabaya airport, shocked family members have been poring over the plane’s manifest, crying and embracing when they learned the news. Nearly all the passengers and crew are Indonesians, who are frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays.

AirAsia is based in Malaysia. The plane’s loss comes on top of the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine.

Indonesia’s search and rescue agency says the air search is to resume Monday morning, while some ships continue to comb the area overnight.

%@AP Links

112-a-16-(John Goglia (GOH’-lee-uh), aviation safety consultant, former member National Transportation Safety Board, in AP interview)-“our own operators”-Former National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia says U.S. aviation officials will be watching the missing AirAsia flight investigation closely to see if the aircraft model or engine played a role in the disappearance. (28 Dec 2014)

CUT *112 (12/28/14)££ 00:16 “our own operators”

110-a-16-(John Goglia (GOH’-lee-uh), aviation safety consultant, former member National Transportation Safety Board, in AP interview)-“of the airplanes”-Former National Transportation Safety

Article source: http://wivb.com/ap/airasia-jet-lost-in-stormy-weather-over-indonesia-with-162-aboard-3rd-malaysia-airline-shock/

Most commercial airplanes have an indestructible flight recorder, also called a “black box” — even though the casing is actually bright orange. Actually, there are two of them: One records information from the flight computers, and the second box records cockpit audio and other sounds inside the plane. In the event of a crash, investigators can recover the black boxes and find out exactly what happened.

Cars can have black boxes, too. In fact, it’s a good bet your current car has one already, and if it doesn’t your next new car certainly will. That’s why you should know exactly what that black box is recording, who can get that information and how you can stay in control of it.

A bit of history

Black boxes in cars aren’t a new idea. The practice started in 1994 with cars from Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet and Pontiac. The black boxes were meant to help manufacturers learn how their cars performed in crashes.

Since the early 2000s, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been collecting black box information to get a better picture of the circumstances surrounding car accidents. In 2013, 96% of every new car sold in the United States came with a black box, and as of Sept. 1, 2014, every new vehicle must have one installed.

Black box data has been used in a few high-profile investigations. In 2011, Massachusetts Lt.

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2014/12/26/keep-your-car-black-box-private/20609035/