Category Archives: Transportation

The Martin Jetpack and Its Design Tradeoffs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLccl_NWDQE] Here’s the technical information. It uses a piston engine to spin two smallish propellers. At first look it seems inefficient: the propellers are so small (diameter 1.7 ft so radius is 0.26 m) so the air mass flow is low … Continue reading

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Long Endurance UAV Design

Karoliina has some thoughts on plane design, looking at High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAV:s as inspiration for high L/D craft, to ultimately cruise at fast speed with little power. I disagree somewhat, and I’m sketching out why, below. Probably … Continue reading

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Finally, Quieter Helicopters

The fenestron already improved helicopter noise problems a lot (less tail rotor and main rotor interference) but this new blade tip they’re working with at Eurocopter seems like a great advance! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBS1NRsYuF8&feature=player_embedded] If the power levels / flight situations are … Continue reading

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Industrial Climate Software

I just updated the blog title and again just watched the page and the blurb. It’s when we start working together that the real healing takes place, … It’s when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood. It’s … Continue reading

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Ridiculous Laws, Part n of Infinity

It seems the US is getting onto private aviation bashing. No trailerable aircraft to airports or automobile gasoline for the engines. The former could be seen to be motivated by trying to prevent building bombs into aircraft, the latter is … Continue reading

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Chevy Volt

Jay Leno testing one briefly. It’s a plugin series hybrid, the gasoline engine doesn’t “help” the acceleration like in the parallel hybrid cars produced so far, and it’s supposed to come out in 2010. But a 1.4 liter gasoline engine … Continue reading

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Astrospies and Other Nova Documentaries Online

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2K6HHUbUe0&feature=player_embedded] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mVR4F7tfY&feature=player_embedded] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kNszWU7hTw&feature=player_embedded] Merry Christmas everyone!

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Be Careful When Starting Large Projects

Photos of a certain large Soviet ground effect vehicle.

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Burnelli Report on Fox

http://vimeo.com/6382632 An old video. The Burnelli “lifting body with wings” style transport and passenger planes might have been good. Too bad it’s pretty hard to pressurize compared to tube hulls that were just introduced when Burnelli aircraft were proposed. I … Continue reading

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Dual Propellant Expander

Or what you are going to call it, an unrealized proposal from Aerojet around 1984. PDF Found on NTRS. The idea was to have two turbopumps (like on SSME), but instead operate on the expander cycle. Two heat exchangers, two … Continue reading

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