Absurd. Like seriously. Look at this fleet of Blue Angels fighter jet planes fly in a perfect pattern in a practice session. The flight pattern they were practicing, I’m assuming here, is called "Let’s get these flying metal beasts as close as possible so that one inch of a mistake will kill us all". I mean the wing of one plane is right on top of a the cockpit of the other. Nuts, these guys.
I have to admit when I first heard of drone selfies, I thought that actual drones were taking selfies of themselves.
That seemed a bit odd, but it made a lot more sense when I saw Amit Gupta’s drone selfie video. It simply blew my mind. The zoom out is quite amazing.
There are now a few more dronies popping up – so it’s almost sort of a thing now. The trick of a good dronie is to find a good location, because otherwise it just looks ordinary.
I like the overall look captured by the dronies as well. You can see so much detail when the drone zips away.
[via kottke]
Rodger Cleye made this awesome flying X-wing Fighter. Maybe it can shoot down some of those other drones in our skies. This 19 lb., five-foot-long X-Wing Fighter comes after Rodger already made a flying James Bond mannequin with a jet pack and the Marty McFly working hover-board.
This X-Wing is a tri-rotor design with three 100A ESCs, 1200W 1050KV motors, and 12″ rotors. It just needs an action figure in the cockpit. The frame is made from PVC to keep it as light as possible. The tri-rotor design gives it much better yaw control than quadrotors, but that means that sometimes it ends up on its nose.
Still, it is super impressive to see in action. Maybe he can make some TIE Fighter drones and a Death Star balloon and have a cool dogfight.
[via Hack A Day]
Unless you’re a first-time passenger who’s a little anxious about flying, you probably pay more attention to your phone than a flight attendant’s safety spiel. But since it really is important to pay attention, researchers from the University of Udine’s HCI Lab are developing smartphone and tablet apps that gamify in-flight safety info
Last year, Delta Air Lines canceled fewer flights than any other airline, scratching just 0.3 percent of its flights. That’s more than five times better than the industry average. It’s an obsession for Delta, an airline that once ranked near rock-bottom for cancellations, and as The Wall Street Journal explains, the company strives for zero-cancellation days in some very unorthodox ways.
     |
The pilot in this twisting and turning plane must be ridiculously disciplined, have palms that never sweat, a personality that never stresses and big brass ones because that’s what it takes to land a plane in such shit weather.
| |
There are all sorts of things you can do with a flying drone aircraft or quadcopter carrying a camera. You could do the obvious and chase your dog or cat around the house. You could have it follow your significant other around to make sure they’re not causing trouble.
One thing I would not have thought of doing with a camera-packing drone is send it into the caldera of an active volcano. I would expect the hot gas and flying molten lava to destroy the drone in short order. I would be wrong, at least in this instance. Recently, Shaun O’Callaghan’s DJI Phantom quadcopter drone carried a GoPro into an active volcano on Tanna Island in Vanuatu.
You can see in the video that lava and gas are flying everywhere and going all around the camera and drone. I can’t believe the thing survived, but Shaun says the drone says no harm came to it or the camera during filming.
[via DroneHire]
We probably should have seen this coming. At the Ivanpah solar power plant near Las Vegas, a massive glittering field of 170,000 garage door-sized mirrors reflects sunlight. And all those mirrors are making flying near Ivanpah not so fun—or safe.
| |
Videos of wingsuit flights are never not awesome but this one just might be the best. And it’s not because of the snow. Though the beautifully fresh powder helps. And it’s not because Dan Vicary, the flying man in the video, zips around for three miles. Though the astonishing views certainly don’t hurt. But it’s because when you’re watching the video, you realize that this is all being filmed by another flying man in a wingsuit. Someone is flying a few feet behind capturing every second of this flight.
| |
Want to pick up your date? Forget your car. Don’t send a taxi. Send two R/C helicopters to pick her up and really impress her.
HeliGraphix is a club of radio controlled helicopter hobbyists that perform crazy stunts and puts the videos online. Seen here, their latest project is HULC, which stands for Heavy Ultra Lifter Crane.
This is a demo to show just how powerful two heavy duty helicopters can be when working in tandem. The team says that it has completed the first successful human flight by R/C aircraft. The proof is right here. They did several flights, some of them lasted over 40 seconds.
It is pretty impressive to watch. Sorry guys, this technique won’t help you kidnap a girl. She has to grab on willingly.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
