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You Asked: How does a helicopter move forward? — E. K., Mechanicsville, Va. Marshall Brain Answers: The basic idea that lets a helicopter hover in the air is easy to understand. Basically you take a pair of airplane-like wings and spin them. The spinning motion causes the wings to slice through the air at high [...]
There is a huge uproar right now about the new full body scanners being deployed in airports around the United States. There are people loudly claiming that the TSA is handcuffing them to chairs for refusing to be scanned… TSA agents yelled at her, handcuffed her to a chair, ripped up her ticket… …and TSA [...]
So you are looking for a new hobby and you want to try radio-controlled airplanes. You can either buy a full pre-built kit that includes the plane, servos, radio, etc. in a package that is pretty much ready to go with minor assembly. Or you can build it yourself. Here is how to take the [...]
World Record #153 – The fastest remote-controlled airplanes
by Marshall Brain | November 15, 2010
There are two ways to reach 400 MPH with a radio-controlled airplane. One is to put a small, powerful jet engine on it: The engine is a JetCat P160, as shown here: JetCat P160 This engine weighs only 3.1 pounds but produces 36 pounds of thrust. It burns about a half a liter of fuel [...]
How Terrorist Bombs Work – Parcel bombs, truck bombs and suicide bombs
by Marshall Brain | November 2, 2010
Over the weekend we discovered that terrorist bombs were headed for the United States. Mailed from Yemen and disguised to look like ordinary packages, these bombs could have brought down their respective airplanes, or they could have exploded at their intended destinations. This is just the latest in a string of terrorist bombing attempts that [...]
Which would you rather be driving at your local lake or beach – a Jetski, or one of these: This is the Bavar-2 flying boat, which Iran has equipped with cameras and machine guns to patrol its coastal areas. The best thing about it is its minimalist design. If you look at the photo on [...]
Just about any kid likes playing with paper airplanes. And as soon as you make a good one and fly it a couple of times, you want more height. You try standing on a chair and throwing it. You try the landing on the stairs. You might throw it out your bedroom window. If you live in a city, you might throw one off a balcony or rooftop on a calm day and watch it go.
If you take this desire to its logical extreme…
Stuff that makes you go Hmmm #22 – The airplane modeled after a Mayan Figurine
by Marshall Brain | September 30, 2010
Archeologists have found these strange little figurines in Mayan sites that look a lot like miniature airplanes. So what would happen if you tried to build and fly a plane, using one of the figurines as a model? This video shows the result of such experimentation…
Really? Airline seats are going to get smaller?
by Amanda Arnold | September 24, 2010
Here’s a good way to make 98 people really uncomfortable on a flight: Have them stand.
OK, OK; they wouldn’t exactly stand. But they wouldn’t exactly sit, either. Airline seat manufacturer Aviointerior’s newly launched SkyRider line features “stand-up seats” with just a 23-inch pitch.
Crazy Aircraft #69 – A human powered ornithopter takes to the air
by Marshall Brain | September 23, 2010
The idea of an ornithopter – a machine that flies by flapping its wings like a bird – has been around for a loooong time. And people have had a lot of success building small, bird-sized versions. Like this…
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