airplane

A solar-powered plane designed to fly both day and night has succeeded in its first attempt at a 24-hour voyage.

Taking off from its base in Switzerland, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA soared into the sky at 6:51 a.m. Wednesday local time (9:51 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday), intent on staying in the air nonstop for 24 hours by flying through the night powered purely by the solar energy captured during the day.

"24 hours and a successful flight through the night!" read a post on the Solar Impulse Twitter feed posted at around 9:38 p.m. PDT Wednesday. "This is a milestone in putting fossil fuels behind us."

The Solar Impulse site tracked the progress of the pilot, Andre Borschberg, and outlined the itinerary and hopes for the entire flight. The plan was that the Solar Impulse would slowly attain an altitude of nearly 28,000 feet with the sun's rays both powering the propeller plane and charging its batteries to prepare for the night flight.

As the sun started to sink too low to continue providing energy to the solar cells (about two hours before sunset), Borschberg planned to begin a slow descent, hitting an altitude of around 4,900 feet by 11 p.m. local time. The goal at that point was to continue flying throughout the night and until the next sunrise using only the captured energy stored in the plane's batteries. The question was whether Borschberg could coax the batteries to supply enough juice to keep him aloft all night before landing at dawn on Thursday.

"Goal achieved for SI. Historic moment. Jubilation here in Payerne, Switzerland!" read another tweet posted Thursday night on the Solar Impulse Twitter page. Solar Impulse is calling the flight the longest and highest flight completed by a solar plane.

The Solar Impulse team originally planned the first 24-hour flight for last week. But a technical glitch with the telemetry transmitter, which lets the ground crew monitor the flight, kept the plane grounded until the problem was resolved.

The public can follow the flight and aftermath via the site's dedicated page, its blog, and its Twitter feed.… Read more

Ever found yourself struggling to stabilize that mobile device for optimum in-flight entertainment? Toronto-based Interaxon says it may have an alternative in the form of thought-controlled in-flight games that let you keep your hands (and gadget stands) tucked away.

Yes, soon enough, you may be playing the likes of Mario Kart on your way from coast to coast--with brain power alone.

Interaxon's system measures brain waves through electroencephalography (EEG) technology, reacting to alpha waves associated with relaxation and beta waves linked to concentration. As users relax or focus their thoughts, the interface translates their brains' electrical activity into a control signal the computer can understand.

Earlier this year, visitors to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver got to test a similar Interaxon system for controlling displays at one of three light shows. At Niagara Falls, for example, they had 15 seconds to harness their brain waves to choose the color for each of seven lights illuminating Horseshoe Falls.

The in-flight system involves a headset, a display attached to the seat in front of the passenger, and games specifically designed for use at 35,000 feet. It was shown off last month at On the Wings of Innovation, a global aerospace symposium organized by the Ontario Aerospace Council and the Ontario government.

At the event, executives from companies like Boeing and Bombardier played with brain wave-controlled software including a meditation title that helps travelers relax and a golf game that helps users improve concentration, focus, and even their golf game. … Read more

Update (Monday, 5:56 p.m.): The three parts of the answer I was looking for are as follows. 1. It's a Boeing VC-137B. 2. It's located at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. 3. It is a notable plane because it was used to fly the hostages home to the United States from Iran in 1981. And that's why its nickname is "Freedom One." Amazingly, though I got dozens and dozens of responses--by far the most for any Picture of the Day challenge so far--just three people got all three parts … Read more

StealthBomber is a free, 2D arcade game in which you pilot a "stealth bomber" dropping bombs on a steady stream of tanks, trucks, and other vehicles.

You hold your device vertically (portrait, not landscape), with your bomber moving back and forth at the top of the screen and your enemies moving left to right on the bottom of the screen. You move horizontally using a touch-screen slider at the base of the screen (or just touch and drag anywhere to move), and you drop bombs with an adjacent button. A set number of enemies, all with varying speeds … Read more

Researchers at MIT say they have come up with designs for a new generation of commercial aircraft that could use as much as 70 percent less fuel than today's airliners.

As part of a $2.1 million NASA grant, the MIT-led team said that its designs for a so-called "N+3" airplane--meaning three generations beyond today's airplanes--could leverage new technologies like advanced airframe configurations and propulsion systems and could deliver the 70 percent fuel savings by around 2035.

In a release, Ed Greitzer, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at MIT, said that meeting NASA's criteria for new, highly-efficient aircraft designs would require a "radical change" from the current aviation paradigm. That's mainly because airplanes largely have the same design today as they've had for the last 50 years--an "easily recognizable 'tube and wing' structure of an aircraft's wings and fuselage."

But Greitzer's team crafted two designs that could upend the traditional airplane paradigm. One is a 180-passenger D "double bubble" series, which could eventually replace the Boeing 737 that is used for so much domestic travel; and the 350-passenger H "hybrid wing body" series, which could take the place of the popular Boeing 777 used for many international flights. … Read more

When the new kid on the block meets the grizzled old veteran, it can be a beautiful sight to see.

On May 8, in a promotional moment worthy of its setting, Boeing's newest airplane, the 787 Dreamliner, briefly met up in the skies over Washington State's Mount Rainier with the company's first-ever commercial production aircraft, the Model 40.

As seen in the image above, the rendezvous was a serious moment of old meets new. But for Boeing, the chance to put the two planes together in the sky was all about taking a quick moment from months … Read more

Every once in a while, something comes along that makes you wonder why no one thought of it sooner. BAE Systems' "Air Deck" does just that, with a balcony that folds right down off the rear of a private jet. The viewing platform, probably the first in aviation history, takes a mere five minutes to transform the back of the aircraft into either an extended living space or an elevated outdoor viewing deck.

U.K. luxury transport design consultancy firm Design Q came up with concept designs for BAE's Explorer One and Explorer Four Avro Business Jets … Read more

MiniSquadron Special Edition is the free sequel to the hit game Minisquadron, a 2D cartoony airplane dog-fighting game with excellent gameplay and a ton of new content. Just like the original, the control system consists of an onscreen joystick on the left and a fire button on the right. In the game, you'll need to battle through 12 waves of different types of airplanes to complete a round. Completing rounds unlocks new airplanes (there are 50 new planes to unlock), each of which will have unique weapons, varying flying speeds, and other perks that will help you in the … Read more

If you've been following tech news this week, you probably saw the story of how an Apple engineer accidentally left an iPhone 4G behind at a bar. The story has been written about all over the tech sites, so I'll let you read all the details they were able to uncover about the device from the linked story by Erica Ogg. But for a different take on what led up to the iPhone 4G being lost, check out this "shocking" video over at the Buzz Report...It's great having coworkers with a sense of humor.… Read more