Claymores on a plane

I was a lot more impressed with this story before I learned that they meant landmines and not broadswords.

Scorpion personal helicopter

The Scorpion personal helicopter:  Strap yourself in, check you instruments, hit the Start button, pull back on the throttle and try not to look too embarrassed as the tiny rotors spin ineffectually and nothing at all happens.

Sounds like a metaphor for the Conservative/LibDem coalition.

Flying (passenger) wing

Northrop is considering the future of the B2 bomber converted to passenger service.

Not that they haven't had experience in this sort of thing before.

The Gondoliers

Paleo Future looks at crime-fighting gondolas.

Try not to think about telephone wires, trees or large birds.

Our co-pilot was a flask of coffee

Regular readers will know that I prefer to fly on small planes against those airborne cattle cars any day.  When I lived in Seattle, it was magic.  Whenever I had to go to Victoria, Canada I could just walk from my flat to the seaplane terminal at Lake Union, ask Janice at the desk if there was a seat going and I'd land literally outside my hotel a couple of hours later after swooping over the San Juan Islands watching whales.  Now I can do pretty much the same thing, but it means driving 15 miles into town to the municipal airstrip and remembering to pick up bread on the way home.

That being said, small plane travel can be a bit casual and the chocky biccy question does rear its head from time to time.

Caution: This is Eddie Izzard, so the language is a bit blue at times.

Airborne Metro

How to solve the problem of airport congestion?  By building giant nuclear-powered aeroplanes that can act as flying airports.

Unfortunately, that just imposes the problem of giant nuclear-powered aeroplane airport congestion.

Leduc 0.22

Pull the ejector seat release and get sucked straight into the intake.
Learn how the pigeons live.

I found this on Dark Roasted Blend, who'd posted it for the the joy of it.  You have to love the Leduc 0.22; not so much an aircraft as a ramjet with a cockpit stuck inside it.

The future of the B-52

Mention the "B-52" to most people and they'll think of either an '80s pop group, a bad hair style, or an ancient bomber that's a relic of the Cold War. The name conjures up a vintage warplane featured in grainy footage from the Cuban Missile Crisis, but what may surprise people is to learn that in the second decade of the 21st century, the B-52 fleet still plays a key role in America's nuclear deterrence and conventional warfare strategy. Now the US Defense Department is upgrading the venerable USAF B-52 heavy bomber to allow the sixty-year old aircraft to continue in active front-line service until the 2040s. Read More

Thunderbird 7

Strangely familiar

Yanko Design (the DREADCO of the design world) unveils its Archangel disaster relief airship.

This is what happens when you sit up all night drinking espresso and watching Gerry Anderson DVDs.

F-X: Ahead of or behind the curve?

Boeing unveils their concept for a sixth-generation fighter plane.  It looks exciting, but there aren't any orders and I'll be surprised if any turn up.  By the time this craft is ready for the prototype stage combat UAVs will have advanced to the point where manned fighters are more C&C platforms or very specialised mission craft.

My prediction is that the F-35 will be the last front-line fighter made by a Western power.

Where's Derek Meddings when you need him?

This 600-passenger plane operating out of an underground airport disappointed once I saw that the planes would taxi up the ramp and then take off under their own power.

Now, if they were shot up the ramp by steam catapult and then boosted into the air with JATO rockets, they'd have had something.

It seems impossible

This is one of the most spot-on predictions I've ever encountered–not because of the aeroplane-to-home radiotelephone, but because in 1942 it accurately predicts how much leg room there is in a modern aircraft.  The only way this chap could fit in that seat would be if his knees were jammed up against his chest.

Questions

The Telegraph has an article about the capabilities of the Typhoon fighter plane, which they refer to as a "one-crew" aircraft.

On a fairly obvious point, though, they are a bit remiss about telling you how big that one crew is.

Brain waves

Modern Mechanix looks at the time when aviation was new and aeroplanes were mutating like life forms invading a new ecological niche.

Something for the glove box

Have you recently purchased a secondhand XB-35 Flying Wing on ebay only to discover that the seller failed to include the instruction manual?

Look no further, for help is here.