At London's Heathrow, which moves more international passengers than any other airport, the fuel jockeys of the Aircraft Service International Group oversee refueling. Filling an Airbus A380 can take two hours, at a rate of about 3,800 litres per minute. So much flow can generate static, which can create a deadly spark (jet fuel is kerosene-based, and much more flammable than gasoline). But the hose is semiconductive to prevent such a conflagration. Add too much fuel, and the extra weight renders the craft less efficient; too little can be disastrous. And placing the wrong amounts of fuel in the various tanks can throw the craft off-balance.
The biggest attraction at this year's New York International Auto Show isn't an automobile at all. Technically, it's a "roadable aircraft." Sometimes it's called a street-legal airplane. Whatever you call it, Terrafugia's Transition is a vehicle that lives in between strict definitions. And at an otherwise unremarkable showcase of the latest model year automobiles and newest concept cars, the Transition is the star of the show.
Arturo Valdenegro, 12-year-old Tucson resident, made paper aviators everywhere look minuscule by comparison last week. In the skies over the Sonora desert in Arizona, the Pima Air & Space Museum launched the biggest paper aeroplane ever constructed - a paper airplane based on Valdenegro's design - into the sky, accelerating it to speeds topping 160 kilometres per hour before it came crashing down (as paper aeroplanes do).
Jarno Smeets has been working for several months on his Human Bird Wings project - assembling long nylon wings powered by outrunner motors, rigging up a complicated Android + Arduino + Wii arm-waving control system - and now - according to the breathtaking video he's just published - they work! Man can fly!
The ability of mankind to construct more and more incredible feats of engineering should never cease to amaze. Take this latest example, for instance. Now, sure, it's a paper airplane. We know. But to be honest, sometimes those things can be even more fiddly to make than the real thing. Occasionally they won't even go at all, let alone travel this world-record 69 metre distance.
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