From the sales pitch: "an executive could conceivably take off from the helipad of a country house outside London, fly in comfort to a meeting in Frankfurt in just 60 minutes, then fly on to Zurich, Milan and back home for early dinner" you can guess that these luxury choppers are going to cost quite the packet. Somewhere between a corporate helicopter (which is simpler in design) and a corporate jet (which is more complex.) So, tens of millions then, but you'll have to wait a bit as the aircraft isn't yet certified.

Plus, with all that rotating-engine tech aboard, they'll cost more to maintain than your average helicopter. And if you're a rich business type thinking of buying one, you'd better get your pilots well trained. Remember how tricky the V22 has been to develop?

[TheRegister via ]

In an interview with CNN, Captain Matt Dean noted that "Seeing bad guys on the screen and watching them possibly get dispatched, and then going down to the Taco Bell for lunch, it's kind of surreal." In fact, their entire workday is fairly normal with shifts that rotate around the clock to prevent fatigue. Seems pretty cushy...if blowing terrorists up doesn't make you lose your appetite for the cheesy gordita crunch, that is. [CNN]

As you can see, the eight-engine aircraft has four vertical rotors to lift its neutrally buoyant body, plus four directional propellers under each rotor to direct it. Boeing says that it will be very popular in the energy, mining, and logging industries. Their pitch to environmentalists is that the JHL-40 has a very reduced carbon footprint, and it doesn't require to disturb remote lands with roads or other destructive transport methods (that way, the aforementioned industries will be able to properly disturb remote lands only by mining and logging, as it should be.) [Boeing]

With that amount of bricks, and knowing how long my Falcon is taking, I'm not surprised that it took 600 hours for the entire team of professional Legoland model builders to assemble this beast. [Giz's Lego Trip]

The testing sequence lasted for a week, and was designed to "demonstrate the distribution, conversion, control and consumption of electric power on board the airplane. Completion also verifies the accuracy of the installation of systems on the first 787."

[Dreamliner in Gizmodo]

Passengers will be able to plug in and enjoy personal content on their own 15.4-inch television while their device charges. The first Apple-enabled aircraft is set to take off from Washington today, and there are plans to have these entertainment centers installed on all first and business class international flights within the next two years. [United via Crave via Electronic House]

In the demo video, a scale model F-18 manages to return safely to the earth despite the loss of over 60% of its wing. At this point, the DTALS system is being confined to UAVs and other unmanned aircraft, but it seems that it could be applicable to manned an commercial aircraft somewhere down the line. Hit the following link to see the full video. [Rockwell Collins and Business Wire]

Obviously, the X-Bomber will be much bigger, capable of delivery nuclear payloads, and more conventional bombs than the X-48B in the photo.

Really, these Pentagon people should talk with Steve Jobs. [DTI via Defense Tech]

This composite material is made of hollow fibers that are filled with an epoxy resin that will leak out if damaged. The researchers claim that this resin can return the structure to 80-90% of its original strength when dried. It is also colored so that ground crews have an easy visual on areas where repair is needed. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this technology is confined to minor damage, so any major cracks could still send you plummeting towards the Earth. Still, it would be a tremendous improvement that could result in lighter, more fuel-efficient aircraft down the road. And the best part is that we probably won't have to wait forever to see it implemented. Researchers believe that the self-healing technology could go commercial in as little as four years. [Press Release via Wired]

The landing-to-evacuation time could be as short as 45 seconds, which would be good news for battlefield casualties needing attention, and for medics who'd otherwise risk coming under fire when attending the conventional way. The patient pod could even include sensors and a comms system so that doctors could interact with the patient mid-flight.

The Fisher institute is planning on achieving initial test-flights in just 24 months, which sounds like a pretty aggressive schedule, though the first model may start off as a fairly simple UAV. The vehicle would have a 4-person payload and fly up to 10,000 feet, managing speeds of 150 kts. Does that sound like a safe operational envelope given what we know can happen to UAVs? [Fisher Institute via Danger room]

The audit also uncovered that the most significant of these lapses involved the DoD's handling of London-based weapons maker BAE Systems. According to the report, DSS failed to collect the company's internal audits—information that is crucial to determining potential weaknesses at the plant. The DSS responded saying that they have "a thorough and fundamentally sound facility inspection process which was only marginally diminished by the failure to systematically collect, analyze, and retain BAE's required reports" and that they have "taken action to resolve this shortcoming." However, a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing revealed that the DSS has been significantly understaffed for some time. Currently, around 750 people work for DSS and a rep claimed to be short staffed by "well over a hundred" persons.

So rest easy folks. Once again, you can be secure in the knowledge that our government has everything under control. UPDATE: BAE systems has responded to claims that their facility is not secure stating that "there is no basis whatsoever for that conclusion." [Wired]

It will apparently weigh in at 770 and 990 pounds for the single- and dual-seat versions, and Falx sees it having many applications, including as a police vehicle (visions of the hover cars from Bladerunner zipped through your head then didn't they?)

So why are we skeptical? Well, sure, the V-22 is a military vehicle and it's highly sophisticated—but it's been under development for over 20 years. Longer, if you include all the X-aircraft that preceded it. Two of the prototypes crashed, and two early production models crashed too. So can this small UK company really overcome the same tricky engineering obstacles faced by the V22, including that difficult transition between the hover and forward flight? We're not sure—it seems rather a lot of advanced engineering and control design. We'd love for it to be real, though. [Falx via Gizmag via Uberreview]

As for the AirJelly, this remote controlled device can glide through the air using a helium-filled ballonet, a central electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. Apparently, this design offers "fascinating possibilities for "lighter-than-air" aviation." I'm not sure about all of that, but I can at see how the technology behind the AquaJelly could have some practical application on complex underwater projects. Still, practical or not, these robots are pretty damn interesting to watch in action, as the videos below illustrate. Check out the press release for full details.

Bionic Learning Network
Inspired by nature

Nature never ceases to amaze us with its aesthetic beauty. It is no surprise therefore that nature's fascinating creatures also served as inspiration for the new projects of Festo's Bionic Learning Network. The structure and kinematics of AquaJelly and AirJelly are based on their biological model, the jellyfish. The test beds utilize cutting-edge technologies. AquaJelly, for example, is a man-made autonomous jelly fish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. Festo's YoYo product illustrates that fully automatic control is possible with the aid of mechatronics - it also forms a bridge to the company's core competency, automation with air.

AquaJelly
AquaJelly is an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. AquaJelly consists of a translucent hemisphere and eight tentacles used for propulsion. At the centre of the AquaJelly is a watertight, laser-sintered pressure vessel. This comprises a central, electric drive, two lithium-ion-polymer batteries, the charge control device and the servo motors for the swashplate.

The structure of each tentacle uses the Fin Ray Effect® - a construction design derived from the functional anatomy of a fish fin. It moves with the aid of a peristaltic propulsion system, or wave-like contractions, based on the reaction thrust principle used by its biological precursor. The motion of the AquaJelly in three-dimensional environments is controlled by shifting its weight. Two servo motors integrated into the central pressure vessel actuate a swashplate. This swashplate controls a four-arm pendulum which can be steered in the four spatial directions. When a pendulum moves in a certain direction, the centre of gravity of the jellyfish changes in this direction.

AquaJelly is capable of independently controlling its own energy supply, by means of communication between the AquaJelly and a charging station. Whenever the AquaJelly comes to a charger located above the water basin, it is sucked towards it and provided with electricity.

For communication on the water surface, the AquaJelly can use the energy-conserving short-range radio standard ZigBee, which enables it to exchange status details with the charger and signal to other AquaJellies on the surface that the charger is occupied.

The main communication medium under water, however, is light. The AquaJelly has eleven infrared light-emitting diodes with which it can communicate over distances of up to approx. 80 cm. The pulsed infrared signals are sent from inside an almost spherical structure around the AquaJelly. On receiving a position signal from an approaching jellyfish, for example, the AquaJelly can start its evasion manoeuvre in plenty of time. In addition to environment sensors, the AquaJelly also has internal sensors which monitor its energy level, as well as a pressure sensor which allows it to gauge its depth in the basin to within a few millimetres.
Each jellyfish decides autonomously which action to carry out on the basis of its current condition. This central electric drive, combined with an adaptive mechanical system and intelligent autonomous electronics, opens up possible new applications for self-controlling systems. If a large number of AquaJellies were equipped with communicative abilities, these could act like a shoal with the behaviour pattern of a more highly developed system. If one applies this principle to automation, then numerous autonomous or semi-autonomous intelligent systems might be able to work together. In this way, large problems could be solved by small systems working together in harmony.

AirJelly
Air is the element of the AirJelly. Rather than swimming through water like the AquaJelly, it glides through the air with the aid of its central electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. The remote-controlled AirJelly is kept in the air by its helium-filled ballonet.

The AirJelly's only energy source are two lithium-ion-polymer batteries, to which the central electric drive is attached. This transmits its power to a bevel gear and then to eight spur gears, which drive the eight tentacles of the jellyfish via their respective cranks. The structure of each tentacle is based on the Fin Ray Effect®. Using a peristaltic movement to drive a balloon was previously unknown in the history of aviation. The AirJelly is the first indoor flying object to use such a peristaltic propulsion system. The jellyfish glides gently through the air thanks to this new drive concept based on the reaction thrust principle.

The AirJelly steers through three-dimensional environments by shifting its weight. Its two servo motors are located at the "North pole" of the jellyfish and controlled proportionally. If the pendulum moves in one direction, the AirJelly's centre of gravity shifts in this direction - the AirJelly is thus able to swim in any spatial direction. The propulsive force of the drive can be varied by moving the Fin Ray® tentacles more quickly or slowly.

Festo demonstrates with this exhibit that a central electric drive - combined with an intelligent mechanical system - can offer fascinating possibilities for "lighter-than-air" aviation. Festo aims to delight its customers with innovative, fascinating and intelligent solutions in both automation and didactics. It therefore offers a wide range of electric, pneumatic and hybrid drive systems, together with the respective sensors and control possibilities.

Jesús Díaz: How much time has Boeing invested in this project?
Francisco Escartí: We have been working in this project for approximately five years.

JD: What's the advantage of this system against traditional engines?
FE: First, this technology only has one byproduct: water. There's no CO2 contamination of any kind. The energy efficiency of these hydrogen cells is double the efficiency of combustion engines.

JD: How does this advantage translate into commercial aviation?
FE: It's difficult to project the energy savings in big aircrafts, but in small airplanes the fuel savings will be important.

The airplane cruised for 20 minutes at 62mph using only hydrogen cells. The bad news, however, is that this technology may never reach large passenger airplanes. At least, not as a main source of power:

According to Boeing researchers, PEM fuel cell technology potentially could power small manned and unmanned air vehicles. Over the longer term, solid oxide fuel cells could be applied to secondary power-generating systems, such as auxiliary power units for large commercial airplanes.

The good news is that Boeing Research & Technology Europe in Madrid—part of Boeing Phantom Works advanced R&D unit—will keep researching to see how much these cells can be pushed for commercial aviation. A sign that aircraft companies are working to make their planes more efficient because airlines are fighting in prices and, therefore, they need cheaper flights. The objective of Boeing and other companies is to get more efficient planes that use cheaper energy sources.

Meanwhile, while we wait for the hydrogen fuel cells to arrive, we can only hope that International Air Transport Association makes Spanish wine and Iberian ham a requirement for all classes in all airlines worldwide.

Boeing Successfully Flies Fuel Cell-Powered Airplane

MADRID, Spain, April 03, 2008 — Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced today that it has, for the first time in aviation history, flown a manned airplane powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

The recent milestone is the work of an engineering team at Boeing Research & Technology Europe (BR&TE) in Madrid, with assistance from industry partners in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"Boeing is actively working to develop new technologies for environmentally progressive aerospace products," said Francisco Escarti, BR&TE's managing director. "We are proud of our pioneering work during the past five years on the Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane project. It is a tangible example of how we are exploring future leaps in environmental performance, as well as a credit to the talents and innovative spirit of our team."

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that converts hydrogen directly into electricity and heat with none of the products of combustion such as carbon dioxide. Other than heat, water is its only exhaust.
A two-seat Dimona motor-glider with a 16.3 meter (53.5 foot) wingspan was used as the airframe. Built by Diamond Aircraft Industries of Austria, it was modified by BR&TE to include a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell/lithium-ion battery hybrid system to power an electric motor coupled to a conventional propeller.

Three test flights took place in February and March at the airfield in Ocaña, south of Madrid, operated by the Spanish company SENASA.

During the flights, the pilot of the experimental airplane climbed to an altitude of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above sea level using a combination of battery power and power generated by hydrogen fuel cells. Then, after reaching the cruise altitude and disconnecting the batteries, the pilot flew straight and level at a cruising speed of 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) for approximately 20 minutes on power solely generated by the fuel cells.

According to Boeing researchers, PEM fuel cell technology potentially could power small manned and unmanned air vehicles. Over the longer term, solid oxide fuel cells could be applied to secondary power-generating systems, such as auxiliary power units for large commercial airplanes. Boeing does not envision that fuel cells will ever provide primary power for large passenger airplanes, but the company will continue to investigate their potential, as well as other sustainable alternative fuel and energy sources that improve environmental performance.

BR&TE, part of the Boeing Phantom Works advanced R&D unit, has worked closely with Boeing Commercial Airplanes and a network of partners since 2003 to design, assemble and fly the experimental craft.

The group of companies, universities and institutions participating in this project includes:
Austria — Diamond Aircraft Industries
France — SAFT France
Germany — Gore and MT Propeller
Spain — Adventia, Aerlyper, Air Liquide Spain, Indra, Ingeniería de Instrumentación y Control (IIC), Inventia, SENASA, Swagelok, Técnicas Aeronauticas de Madrid (TAM), Tecnobit, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and the Regional Government of Madrid
United Kingdom — Intelligent Energy
United States — UQM Technologies.

The 10-minute video documents the perfect flight of Skyray 48, the Boeing-NASA prototype of what could be the future of commercial aviation. Thanks to its design, designs derived from the X-48B will have less power consumption and less emissions, while increasing carrying capacity and speed compared with current cargo and passenger aircraft.

The plane took off last year from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, in California, controlled from the ground by Boeing pilot Norm Howell. [NASA]

The British manufacturer Martin-Baker started work on ejection seats before the Germans and Swedes developed them, entering service during World War II. It was Martin-Baker, however, the company that perfected the downward-ejecting systems operated by a spring. Their first test happened in 1946, when a factory fitter ejected from a Gloster Meteor MkIII at 320mph and 8,000 feet over Oxfordshire.

The Mk. 5 seat was installed in the Grumman Cougar, as well as other classic fighter planes like the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, the F-8 Crusader, the Grumman A6 Intruder or the F11 Tiger.

Grumman Cougar

The Mk. 5 used an ejection gun mechanism, obviously not present in this restored seat which comes mounted on a stainless steel base.

And yes, your wife will love you if you get one. But only if you let her put some nice petit-point cushions on it. [Martin-Baker, WIkipedia, 1stdibs via Born Rich]

The aircraft charges from a power brick (not the controller, like Picoo Zs,) and a full battery will apparently give you around five to six minutes of flight. Its got proper three-axis control too, so you have forward and backward flight and yaw and roll. The IR remote has a range of 30 feet, and the model is designed to be robust enough to survive the impacts it'll incur as you learn to fly it (or at least, that I would cause as I learned to fly it!) This extra sophistication means it will cost around $160, and it's due for release imminently in the UK and apparently later in the spring over in the US. And I want one! [SnelFlight]

The increased speed and power comes from its dual Dual Rolls-Roice BR725 engines, which provide with 4.6% more thrust than its predecesor—the BR710—while being 33% quieter. It's not much better on the emissions front (sorry, Mr. Ex-Vicepresident): only 5% fewer NOx emissions and 10% less smoke.

The coolest thing about the Gulfstream 750, however, is the technology that goes in. The flight controls —with fly-by-wire and dual hydraulic backup controls—and their advanced vision system, which combines enhanced vision with synthetic 3D rendering (SV-PFD) to give you military-grade visual assistance.

The cockpit has a four large 14-inch displays, an LCD HUD II which provides with the enhanced vision you see above and the SV-PFD. The control of the multifunction displays is quite nice, with an analog pad built onto the pilot's joystick itself.

All state-of-the-art toys everywhere. The catch for the billionaires of this world? These technological wonders are not available today: the unveiled craft is a mock-up of the whole thing. The $58.5 million Gulfstream 650 won't be ready until 2012, which apparently will raise the total price for $65 million. Or, if you live in Europe, $101 million. [Gulfstream 650]

It sounds impressive, but with Boeing's ScanEagle having already proven itself, it won't be an easy sell. But if it ever came down to aesthetics, the Killer Bee would win hands down. It looks menacing, like some sort of underwater predator. A decision on the matter should be ready by June or July of this year with a rollout planned for 2001. [Popular Mechanics]

As with most lofty goals, there are major obstacles to contend with. First and foremost, the designers are going to have to figure out how to power such an aircraft over the course of these long missions. Oh, and it will have to do it while carrying a 1000 pound payload in the fearsome winds at a 60,000—90,000 feet. No problem right? As for the design, the Vulture will most likely draw on NASA designs like the one pictured above, but there is no definitive time table on when we might actually see a working craft. [Flight Global via CNET via DVICE]

Lim Kah Bin and Hu Yu's model was developed as a sideline to their research on artifical flapping wing technology and flies whilst thethered to a power supply, as you can see in the video—apparently the first recording of a cyclogyro in flight.

Other groups are working on similar cyclogyro devices, but the group at the National University in Singapore is considered to be leading the field. Their cyclogyro flyer is currently somewhat unstable, and requires the tether to keep it in place as well as for delivering power to its electric motors, but they are working on a tail rotor to help this.

Cyclogyro's flat blades are steerable, so potentially they can deliver thrust in any direction, enabling extraordinary manoeverability in flying machines. Though patented a century ago by a German inventor, they were impractical until modern materials and technology could combine light weight and high strength into the blades and control arms. Even now, materials and efficiency limits mean that they are unlikely to ever be strong enough to carry passengers, though ultra-manoeuverable UAVs might be one application. [New Scientist]

Jesús Díaz: How many pieces do your models use?
Ralph Savelsberg: I don't really keep track of how many parts I use for any particular model. I can really only guess. The smaller ones (the F-15, Su-27 and E-2C) probably use between 1,500 and 2,500 parts each. I wouldn't be able to narrow it down any more precisely without taking them apart and counting. The B-1B is a lot bigger and heavier and probably uses between 6,000 and 10,000 parts.

JD: How's your typical building process?
RS: There are quite a few builders who sit down and start building. I can't quite do things like that, or perhaps it doesn't actually lend itself very well to the subject. I use pictures and plans of the aircraft. 1/72 is a fairly common scale for model aircraft and it's comparatively easy to find proper drawings on that scale. My planes are 1/36 mainly because I can simply scale them up by a factor of two relative to the scale drawings.

JD: So you use drawings first?
RS: I usually make a number of drawings (the old-fashioned way with a pencil and paper) trying to figure out how to represent the aircrafts' general outlines, such as the shape of the wings, for instance, in LEGO parts. There is only a limited range of angles available in LEGO plates, so getting the angle of the leading or trailing edge of the wings right can be tricky. I used a pythagorean triple (3,4,5) to do the tailplane on the B-1B and used a combination of different angle plates to get the wing on the E-2C right. That's the sort of thing I really have to work out on paper.

I sometimes also make drawings of specific parts of a plane, such as the nose on the E-2C or it's radar dish. I find that simply putting parts together doesn't work as well for me as visualising the shape, thinking about how to build it in LEGO and then making a few drawings before I start to build. The Su-27 was almost completely designed on paper. The F-15 was a lot simpler somehow and came together without too much preparation.

[Flickr via Brothers Brick]

That could mean a "stretch" Airbus A380 could be adjusted to hold as many as 1000 passengers depending on the carrier. Airbus will begin developing the larger version after the standard plane reaches full production in 2010. Dubai-based Emirates Airline, the company's biggest client, has already shown interest, saying it would buy a new model when they become available. [Kansas via Luxist]

The solar cells on the wings will suck up power for a maximum seven to eight hours a day because of the angle of the sun. The pilot won't have to worry about clouds, though, because the plane will cruise at 42,000 feet. After sunset, the plane's designers hope batteries will power the plane through the night. They admit that battery technology isn't efficient enough now for this to work, but insist that it will be possible by 2011.

For now, they're planning to test-fly the prototype in 2009, with a smaller wingspan of 197 feet that flies for 36 hours at 27,000 feet. Will they make it? With $87.5 million backing up the project, who knows if they'll actually fly all the way around the world, but they'll probably have enough cash to at least mount an attempt. [Times UK, via Inhabitat]

The distinguished group of scientists who created the Pterosaur say it only used a quarter tank of fuel, anticipating more world records to be broken with this plane that has a range of 310 miles. Powered by the hydrogen fuel cell similar to the one inside the HyFish jet wing aircraft we told you about last April, the scientists are emboldened with this record-breaking performance, and say there are even more sophisticated fuel cell power plants for aircraft on the way. [Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies]