MarsBlog.net

MarsBlog.net

News and Commentary on Space

MarsBlog.net RSS Feed
 
 
 
 

Archive for July 9th, 2006

Massive Columbine

I intended to do another “Why I Like Living in Colorado” photoessay last week, after my latest attempt to climb Mt. Massive, but I got distracted with other things and in the end didn’t really have a lot of pictures to work with…plenty of good pictures, but they all sorta look alike. So, here’s one of the gazillion columbines that were in bloom last weekend, before the monsoon arrived:


And here’s one of the nice but repetetive shots of the view from the trail:


Those dark clouds moving in were what forced us to abort shortly after this was taken. And none too soon, as we ended up jogging the last mile or so back to the car, with lightning overhead and rain starting to fall.

Share

Flapping Wings

I don’t know how useful this is, but it’s certainly cool: Aviation history is made by ‘flapper’

Yesterday Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream, seeing his manned mechanical flapping-wing airplane, or ornithopter, fly ? a dream first imagined by Leonardo da Vinci…

The flapper, as it’s affectionately known, sustained flight over about a third of a kilometre for 14 seconds at about 10:20 a.m. before being hit by a crosswind and almost flipping over, damaging the nose and front wheel on the runway at Downsview Park.

But the flight was long enough to prove DeLaurier’s mechanical flapping-wing design for a manned, jet-boosted aircraft works. The successful test flight was longer than the first powered flight by aviation pioneers the Wright brothers in December 1903 that lasted 12 seconds over a windswept beach in North Carolina. Beating that record was enough for DeLaurier.

“It is a perfect day,” he said after the flight. “If I have the big one now, I’ll die happy.”

It’s unlikely we’ll see commercial passenger ornithopters, but it would be fun to see this technology pass into the hobbyist realm…imagine the spectacle of a fleet (flock?) of home-built ornithopters at a weekend fly-in.

Share

Buy Our Book!

Buy Kindle version
Buy Nook version

A young girl sets out to prove herself by resolving a long-forgotten mystery. But when she gets close to the truth, what she thought was a harmless adventure becomes a threat to the future of the independent commercial settlements on Mars.

 

July 2006
M T W T F S S
« Jun   Aug »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Blogroll

Archives