After a twin-engine, wide-bodied Boeing 777 took off from a Denver airport — carrying 231 passengers and 10 crew members — its right engine failed. It began dropping debris on several neighborhoods below, CNBC reports. America’s Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement saying it was “aware of reports of debris in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path,” CNBC adds, noting…
Tag: airplanes
Why Is America Getting a New $100 Billion Nuclear Weapon?
“America is building a new weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear missile the length of a bowling lane,” writes the contributing editor for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (in an article shared by Slashdot reader DanDrollette): It will be able to travel some 6,000 miles, carrying a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on…
How Toxic Fumes Seep Into the Air You Breathe on Planes
An anonymous reader shares an investigative report by LA Times: The plane had begun its descent into Boston. Inside the cockpit, the captain was slumped in his seat. Sitting beside him, copilot Eric Tellmann was starting to pass out. Tellmann managed to strap on his oxygen mask, then grabbed the captain’s arm and forced him to follow suit. Reviving slowly, the…
Chuck Yeager, Test Pilot Who Broke the Sound Barrier, Dies At 97
jowifi shares a report from NPR: One of the world’s most famous aviators has died: Chuck Yeager — best known as the first to break the sound barrier — has died at the age of 97. Yeager started from humble beginnings in Myra, W.Va., and many people didn’t really learn about him until decades after he broke the sound barrier –…
Boom Supersonic Hopes To Test-Fly Its Supersonic Plane In 2021
Colorado startup Boom Supersonic is planning to show off its XB-1 supersonic plane on October 7th, with flights planned for next year. Engadget reports: [Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl] describes himself as an Objectivist (a follower of the teachings of Ayn Rand) and previously worked for both Groupon and Amazon. He freely admits that, beyond his private pilots license, he does…
With Ultralight Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Electric Airplanes Could Finally Take Off
An anonymous reader shares a report from IEEE Spectrum, written by Mark Crittenden, head of battery development and integration at Oxis Energy: Electric aircraft are all the rage, with prototypes in development in every size from delivery drones to passenger aircraft. But the technology has yet to take off, and for one reason: lack of a suitable battery. For a large…
MLB Teams Explore Using Cameras To Detect Maskless Fans at Games
The baseball season has started with eerily empty stadiums, but some teams are exploring high-tech ways to verify that people in the stands are taking health precautions, a possible step toward bringing fans back. From a report: Several Major League Baseball teams have held talks with a California startup called Airspace Systems that develops technology to detect whether people are wearing…
China Ready To Target Apple, Qualcomm, Cisco and Boeing in Retaliation Against US’ Huawei Ban
An anonymous reader shares a report: China is ready to take a series of countermeasures against a US plan to block shipments of semiconductors to Chinese telecom firm Huawei, including putting US companies on an “unreliable entity list,” launching investigations and imposing restrictions on US companies such as Apple and suspending the purchase of Boeing airplanes, a source close to the…
The US Navy patented a device to make laser ‘ghost planes’ in mid-air
The US Navy is researching how to use lasers to form plasma into 2D or 3D infrared images of airplanes that can distract heat-seeking missiles Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241333-the-us-navy-patented-a-device-to-make-laser-ghost-planes-in-mid-air/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
America Proposes New Rules Requiring Drones to Broadcast Their Location Online
LetterRip (Slashdot reader #30,937) shares a report from Ars Technica:
More than 34,000 people have deluged the Federal Aviation Administration with comments over a proposed regulation that would require almost every drone in the sky to broadcast its location over the Internet at all times. The comments are overwhelmingly negative, with thousands of hobbyists warning that the rules would impose huge new…