Experimental and Hypothetical Aircraft

Posted by John Farrier in Science & Tech on July 14, 2009 at 8:42 am


X Planes is a photoblog of experimental, hypothetical, and outright imaginary aircraft throughout modern aviation history. The picture above is of a particular F-106:


On Feb 2nd, 1970, a Convair F-106 Delta Dagger was found in a snow-covered Montana field, pilot-less, landing gear up, and with the engine still running – the melting snow causing the aircraft to slowly move forward…

The pilot – Captain Gary Faust – had earlier ejected from the aircraft at 15,000 feet when it entered a flat spin. Amazingly, the un-piloted aircraft then recovered, to make a gentle “belly-up” landing…

Link via Instapundit

 
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Fly Powered Aircraft

Posted by Alex in Animal, Gadget, Pictures, Video Clips on July 3, 2009 at 12:47 am


Photo: Eric Long / Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

It goes without saying that the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has some of the neatest collection of planes in the world, but this one is particularly intriguing: fly-powered aircrafts built by famed aircraft modelered Frank Ehling in the 1970s.

The AirSpace Blog has more:

Designed and built by famed aircraft modeler Frank Ehling in the 1970s, they are the smallest flying models the Museum owns. But more unusual than their size is that they are powered by flies – yes, you heard right, houseflies, the insect. Constructed from balsa wood and red tissue paper, the one-fly design has a wingspan of two inches, and the two-fly version, which features a delta-wing design, is four inches wide. In both cases, contact cement was used to attach the live powerplant to the fuselage.

Link

If you’re skeptical, there’s a video clip of another fly-powered airplane, this time by inventor Thomas Fetterman (oh, you can also buy the kit from his website)

 
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Blue Angels Cockpit Cam

Posted by Ali S. in Video Clips on June 28, 2009 at 2:17 pm


[YouTube - Link]

I have always had a fascination with planes and fighter jets ever since my Dad used to take the family and I to the Dubai Airshow when I was really young where we got to watch some of the craziest and most talented pilots showing off their stuff. I remember once seeing the Blue Angels on display and they blew me away! Still to this day their stuff is top notch and gives me thrills to see them fly.

Lucky for us we get to see the view from one of their cockpits as they perform some hair raising maneuvers. I trust I won’t be the only one who gets goosebumps and a few butterflies in their stomachs as you get to see how amazingly close they get to each other and how in tune they are to each others positions. Mind you it’s almost 10 minutes of video!

* Also, if you are prone to motion sickness be careful watching this! Thank you SydneyClaire for reminding me to put a motion sickness warning!

** This is raw footage so the sound will be a little loud so please take care to drop the level just a bit after hitting play! Don’t want to hurt your ears! ;)

 
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