The auto giant that has a renowned name in field of car design has come up with some thing sporty car hire spain. They have a concept design for a personal chopper that features a sports car like seating arrangement and has a glass body to provide an ultimate view. This luxurious design can revolutionize the way of flying a helicopter.
Fuel Cell Aircraft Technology Tested Successfully
A novel aircraft designed by European flight engineers has made it to the annals of history by taking the first flight with its engines powered with fuel cell aircraft technology. It was observed that the aircraft displayed zero CO2 emission during its entire flight period.
The aircraft, known as the Antares DLR-42 is the brainchild of four collaborating organizations, namely, DLR( German Aerospace Center), Lange Aviation, BASF Fuel Cells and Serenergy. One of the developers from DLR, Johann-Dietrich Woerner proudly stated that they had improved the performance functionalities considerably and increased the efficiency of the fuel cells to such an extent, that a piloted aircraft could easily take off powered by only fuel cells. He also reiterated the potential of fuel cell technology in aerospace and applied fields.
Electricity with Hydrogen
The fuel cell technology worked on the principle that transfers hydrogen into electricity. The Antares made use of this principle to take flight successfully. The process takes place with a simple reaction involving air and there is no involvement of combustion in this process. The developers claim that a fuel cell powered aircraft could cover distances as far as 465 miles and remain in the air for up to five hours. Water is the other product obtained during this reaction.
Fuel Cell Technology
Fuel cells using hydrogen have zero percent carbon dioxide emission if renewable resources are used. This is great news for environmentalists as there will be no carbon footprints left. It can now be considered as a serious alternative to other forms of energy systems. However, hydrogen fuel cell technology is still in its nascent stage and may take a while before becoming applicable to wide areas in the aerospace sector. One thing is clear- the stability is sound even if the hydrogen is carried in external pods. This was well proven by The Antares that flew up to 170 km per hour.
The next focus would be in improving the service life of the fuel cells along with their efficiency. Josef Kallio, project manager at Antares was confident that the hydrogen fuel cell technology would be one of the popular technologies to reckon with, in the near future.
Eurofighter Typhoon Fighter-Bomber
The Eurofighter Typhoon has clearly established itself as the world’s leading Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) or fighter-bomber, often triumphing over more stealth oriented bombers and fighters. The Typhoon is manufactured by an aviation consortium that goes by the name of Eurofighter led by the revered European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS). Introduced in 2003 after nearly 10 years of flight testing, the Typhoon has already found favor with the defense outfits of most leading nations, including Italy, Germany, Britain, and Austria.
The Typhoon’s state-of-the-art features
With cutting edge fly-by-wire features that prevent manual operations to exceed safety parameters, the Typhoon is also equipped with advanced and automatic air-to-air and air-to-surface threat monitoring systems. The Typhoon also incorporates one of the first speech recognition systems for non-critical cockpit functions which is validated and confirmed by visual and audio feedback. Armed with Sidewinders and AIM-132 missiles, the Typhoon can carry six of the Paveway series laser guided bombs. With a small radar signature and infra-red search and track features, the Typhoon manages to give conventional stealth fighters a run for their money.
A hot favorite with defense buyers
The Typhoon is most frequently compared to the Lockheed Martin’s F22 Raptor and the Rafale from Dassault of France. The F22 is now out of production, while the Rafale is nearly two decades old. Thus, it should not be a surprise that the Typhoon seems to show up on the shopping list of defense outfits from across the globe. Even though some nations have opted for the Rafale, the Typhoon clearly outranks it on every count. Many of the nations who have gone with Typhoon’s competitors are rumored to be renegotiating with Eurofighter too. With the Typhoon continuing to create records not only in sales, adoption and deployment, but also in endurance and fly-times, it is clear that the other players have something to worry about.
The Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion system also named as Sustain may come into existence in 2030. Roosevelt Lafontant, a former Marine lieutenant colonel now employed by the Schafer Corporation, a military-technology consulting firm working with the Marines, leads the effort. As we all know due to some political reasons it is not possible to fly in other nation’s air space that extend 50 miles from the Earth’s surface until a proper permission is granted. This big hurdle consumes a lot’s of time and makes it impossible for emergency troops to be transported at desired place instantaneously. Sustain is expected to insert troops any where on earth with in two hours and will not need any permission from other countries as a spacecraft would allow the U.S. to step over other countries and insert forces where they’re needed. The military labs are making efforts to explore new technologies necessary to make it happen, from hypersonic propulsion systems to new composite materials needed to make the vehicle lightweight yet strong. For more details of this project, you can visit the links provided. Via: popsci
This is a concept given by Jameson and his colleagues at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The team wants to design a Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) based on the shape of a maple seed that would form a one-bladed helicopter. The best part of the design is that it is compact and has minimum number of moving parts. The team has received a funding of $1.7 million from DARPA that looks the prototype as a useful surveillance device that could be carried out by the soldiers to provide them with critical information related to those places those are hard to reach for them. It’s a single blade two inches long, with a tiny rocket thruster at its tip, which sets the blade spinning like a pinwheel at 15,000 rpm to produce lift. The whole device will just weigh about a third of an ounce with battery, sensors, navigation and communication equipment on it. The biggest problem that the researchers are finding to complete the project is maintaining the small size of the device, as until now there is no rocket thruster appropriate for this device. The team is working hard and hopes to complete the project as soon as possible. If completed successfully the device will have a top speed of 33 feet per second, and the nono-copter would be able to hover in place for at least a minute. It could then release a payload and return to the operator. Via: airspacemag
Jetpacks are some thing that can give an adventurous flight experience but their is always a feeling of impending death. Earlier too some people had tried to test the feasibility of this device for a horizontal flight but have often ended up in some thing very unpleasant. Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy has become the first person to gain the altitude and maintain a stable horizontal flight with his jetpack equipped with aerodynamic carbon foldable wings. The device is kerosene powered. You can have look at the video of this thrilling ride. Via: engadget
Hypersonic space planes have made it possible to travel at astonishing speeds and made earth a small place to live. Astrox cooperation is working on design of a hypersonic plane that will be able to travel at a speed of 25mach therefore revolutionize the transportation industry. The greatest drawback of any engine that could perform at high speed is that it has a speed limit of Mach 10 and after that, it starts functioning. Therefore, the company has incorporated an inward-turning scramjet engine that has no moving parts. shaped like a rectangular funnel it allows the air to enter at 2,200 MPH and mixes the fuel in very less time. The fast combustion process and no moving parts give this engine an advantage over other mechanical engines. It has been tested at Mach 2 in a supersonic wind tunnel and efforts are still on to make it better. Once developed this plane will be Traveling as fast as Mach 25 with at least 30 minutes of space shuttle-like views while in orbit is the highlight of this plane. This means it will take just 2 hours to travel from one end of earth to another. This is amazing…! Via: blorge
Boeing Business Jet operators will soon have a new and healthy upgrade in their aircrafts. Rockwell Collins will be developing EVS or the Enhanced Vision Systems for Boeing. The aircrafts will be fitted with the new upgrade in 2008. EVS will allow the pilots to descend their aircrafts below the minimums using the high quality image that will be provided by the Head-up Guidance System and the Head-Down Displays. These displays will increase the situational awareness of the pilots in case of bad visibility such as in case of fog. Rockwell Collins has also teamed up with Max-Viz to complete the certification of EVS on the Boeing. The aircrafts that have to be upgraded to the new system will require an upgrade to the HGS 4000 and also an upgraded infrared camera. Via: gizmag
QSST or Quiet Supersonic Transport aircraft is the latest concept aircraft from Lockheed Martin that can reach supersonic speeds without those nerve shattering sonic booms. The company has been developing the concept since the last six years under a $25-million contract from Supersonic Aerospace International. The concept QSST will be a 12-passenger plane that would fly at between 47,000 and 57,000 feet with a range of 4,600 miles. The aircraft has been designed to fly at speeds of Mach 1.6 to 1.8. The best thing about the aircraft is that it will produce a sonic boom that’s only one hundredth the strength of the Mach 2 capable Concorde. When an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound it creates pressure waves in the air that collide with one another faster than they can dissipate. These colliding waves result in the sonic boom. QSST has advanced avionics that prevent these waves from colliding and hence the sonic boom is reduced. It has an inverted V tail that means the engines are mounted quite far from each other; this means that the pressure waves are kept more far from each other further preventing their collision. The company plans to develop the plane by 2011. Via: popsci
Guardian is a system deigned to safeguard a plane from any shoulder-fired missile fired towards it. Northrop Grumman’s Guardian is an anti-missile system that is designed to detect a missile launch and then direct a laser to the seeker system on the head of the missile and disrupt its guidance signals. The laser is not visible and is eye-safe. The ultimate goal of designing such a system is to protect passenger airliners from the terrorist attacks. The Guardian system appears as a pod with eye-like features attached to the belly of the FedEx MD-10, a freight version of what was originally the three-engine widebody DC-10 airliner. Though the system has succeeded in various teats conducted on its feasibility, still there are a number of problems that limit its use. The major problem that analysts listed was the high maintenance cost of $365 per flight that will bother all the airlines to use this system. The second major problem is concerning the performance of the system when used for several hours of flight. The DHS has already assigned a sum of $45 million to the company to improve the system and reduce the maintenance cost so that it may be possible to install this system in the all the 6,800 commercial U.S. airliners. During the current test phase, which concludes in March 2008, nine MD-10s equipped with the Guardian system will be in commercial service. Via: newsvine