Here's an image of a space shuttle sonic boom.
Next up, windmills in the sky could provide more efficient wind power than ground-based ones. I love the idea. Here's the advocates' website. The idea reminds me of that Gorillaz video I posted about. :)
That totally ripped up plane was an A-10 "Warthog" that nonethless landed safely during the Second Gulf War. You can bet your ass one of them fancy new fly-by-wire babies would be a molten heap by now. Capt. Kim Campbell lost all hydraulics and had to fly the plane mechanically. Once she was out of the combat zone, she had to decide whether to eject or to try landing. According to Campbell, her checklist said to "attempt manual inversion landings only under ideal conditions." I wouldn't call this ideal conditions, myself. :P Manual inversion A-10 landings were attempted three times in the first Gulf War, and one of the pilots crashed and died. She succeeded.
That's an old story, but I kept meaning to blog it because it contains two of my favorite things: solidly built machinery and impressive women. :)
The last picture is a jet-powered "birdman suit" flight. Here's a better picture of the leg-mounted jet engines, and here's a video of the event.
Comments (3)
btw, the captain is a hottie
A-10s are probably the toughest planes out there, they're made to land on glide power too
Posted by badx | January 10, 2006
As a windmill engineer, I want to point out a bunch of potential problems with the flying windmill. First of all, the tether is going to be a very difficult problem. It needs to be extremely strong to counteract pull of the aerodynamic drag, since the drag will be proportional to the amount of power generated. The tether also needs to support the weight of whatever is conducting the power. Even if the power is transmitted at very high voltage in order to keep the current low, the weight of the wire will add up quickly. Maybe carbon nanotubes will be the solution... someday.
Second, maintenance will be a problem. The maintenance intervals on helicopters are frighteningly frequent, and the maintenance intervals on wind turbines aren't a whole lot better. This is a proof-of-concept; a senior design project. It will probably work, but it will take many iterations before the design will last long enough to be economically viable.
The inventor makes a good point that the winds near the ground are slower and unreliable than high-altitude winds. Also, the lack of a tower gives the system more flexibility in gusts, so the blades will be less stressed and can therefore be lighter.
Posted by Steve Rose | January 16, 2006
Yay! I have a comment on my blog that starts with the phrase, "As a windmill engineer, ..."
:D
Posted by ToastyKen | January 18, 2006