What you see above could help you to escape from big traffic jams in the future. It’s a plug-In hybrid flying car from Terrafugia, the makers of the Transition car-airplane. It will be called the TF-X and the team is currently conducting a feasibility study for the carplane (or whatever you want to call it).

Not many details are currently available for the TF-X, which will improve on the Transition’s basic design. Terrafugia is only saying that it’s a four seater, and will feature fly-by-wire controls and “the state-of-the-art in intelligent systems”. It will also be capable of Vertical Take-Off and Landing like a helicopter. And of course you can drive it like a car, although it’s expected to be more like an airplane than automobile.

The TF-X is not going to come out of its animated land anytime soon. The Transition itself is not expected to hit production this year. And of course you will need big pockets if you are planning to fly around in either of them. The Transition’s price tag is $279,000. That’s if they ever become a real product, which is a really big IF.

Check out the video below followed by a gallery showing computer-generated images of the TF-X.

[Source]

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Kenneth Huff and his team have been researching and building prototypes of their helicopter for a while now. Their aim is to claim the Sikorsky prize of $250,000 for the “first successful controlled flight of a human-powered helicopter”, but funding is their problem.

What Huff and his team have been doing for the past two years was improving rotor efficiency and they claim that they have developed one of the most efficient rotors out there. Due to a lack of funds they are unable to build a final version of their helicopter. Huff then turned to Kickstarter.

Currently, they have managed just $379 of the $20,000 goal with 6 days to go. If you are willing to help them various rewards including framed posters, a 48-page book or a brass S1223 airfoil cutout are waiting for you. If you have a giant heart and a big wallet, a pledge of $10,000 or more will get you a fully functional, full-scale replica of the final product.

Check out the video to know more about their research and leave your thoughts below. Do you want your own human powered helicopter?

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Designed by Prox Dynamics of Norway, the Black Hornet is four inches long, one inch tall, and weighs 16 grams. There’s a tiny camera mounted on board that can send pictures and videos back to a handheld receiver up to a kilometre away, allowing soldiers to gain information about an area without having to directly risk the lives and safety of soldiers that would otherwise be tasked with that mission.

It helps that the Black Hornet is incredibly tiny and flies nearly silently, navigating its way around buildings to see if there is any danger. It can only fly at a maximum of 10 meters per second and the battery pack only lasts about 25 minutes, but that should be enough for some basic recon. It can act as an R/C helicopter or it can act as an autonomous drone based on GPS.

Yes, it’s expensive, but that’s military-spec tech for you. It’s ruggedized to handle the harsh conditions of the battlefield, including extreme heat and wind. The UK Military of Defense has placed an order for 160 units, totalling 20 million GBP. That works out to about $31.3 million or about $195,000 each.

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The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) uses a Skywalker X-8 FPV Flying Wing for its frame and it has been equipped with a Qauntum RTR Bomb System. The release mechanism doesn’t drop bombs, though, as the mailing tube-style canister is used to hold your precious Mexican-inspired wrap of a meal. After entering the destination, the restaurant can send the Burrito Bomber on its way and it will navigate on its own with an ArduPilot control system. This uses waypoints to ensure the drone is heading the right way, but they can use manual controls via the on-board video camera too.

When the Burrito Bomber arrives at its destinations, it drops the burrito with a parachute. And that’s it. You get your lunch, the UAV returns back to home base, and you don’t have to deal with the pizza delivery guy that’s late because of gridiron traffic.

[Source]

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Being a father isn’t easy. You want to be with your kids and keep them safe, but you need to know when to give them a little freedom and trust. Then there is also the matter of getting your daily dose of gadgets and hunter drones. It’s a tricky balance!

This was the dilemma Paul Wallich faced with his son, but rather than remain overly protective and personally walk him to the bus each morning, he chose the altogether more awesome option of building a quadcopter drone to track his son to ensure he kept out of trouble.

The full details of the quadcopter can be seen over at IEEE Spectrum, but basically the drone has been designed to lock on to a GPS tracker hidden in his son’s backpack. The drone then follows his son for a set distance ensuring he is safe before returning back to base.

Not only a great concept for keeping your kids safe, but also an excellent way to improve your child’s imagination, who can now walk to school pretending they are being chased by Terminator style robotic drones.

[ Source ]

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Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy completed their first steam launch catapult with the X-47B pilot-less aircraft. The same catapult system is what will help this aircraft take off from aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean.

After watching the video (below), it seems like the ground controllers were very happy with the successful launch. In addition, for a pilot-less aircraft,  the X-47B took off and landed flawlessly.

Take a look:

Un-manned aircraft and drones have become very popular in the military. Now that they can successfully take-off and land with the aid of slingshots, the sky (and ocean) is the limit for drones.

The X-47B has a wingspan of 62 feet, is only 10 feet tall,and weighs 14,000 lb (6,350 kg). The X-47B also has a cruising speed of 0.45 mach (342 mph), a range of just under 4,000 kilometers, and a service ceiling of 40,000ft.

The X-47B will make its first sea trials aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. Sometime in 2013, the U.S. Navy plans to catapult and recover the prototype aboard aircraft carriers.

[ Source ]

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Do you remember in the Matrix movie when the crew was getting chased down by those flying squid-like sentinels? Do you remember how they said their only weapon against their mechanized foes was an EMP, or an electromagnetic pulse? Well, now Boeing has developed a missile with electronic-killing EMP-like capabilities, knocking out computers and electronics as it flies overhead.

The good news is that the microwave pulses being blasted out from the missle are non-lethal, so it’s really just the computers and other electronic equipment that it’s killing. Boeing calls it the CHAMP, which stands for Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile (I’m not really sure where the P fits into that). Considering how everything relies on electricity and electronics, knocking out the defense systems and computers of your enemies can be positively crippling.

“In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,” said Keith Coleman, program manager on CHAMP for Boeing Phantom Works. In the real world test, the CHAMP was able to not only knock out banks of PCs, but even the cameras that were being used to record the test. “We took out everything, it was fantastic.”

[Source via Boeing]

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The University of Miami has begun working on quite a unique concept plane. This aircraft actually goes supersonic with 90 degrees rotation. The project hopes to deliver a top speed of about Mach 2.0 (around 1500 MPH)- this means it would allow passengers to travel from the East to West Coast in about two hours! The craft concept can even hold up to seventy people.

The aircraft would be able to take off in under 2,500 feet and easily rotate to go into a supersonic configuration- with log drag and no sonic boom.

What really makes the craft unique is that its rotation system allows it to turn its nose and tail into wings while traveling at high speeds. The design is very odd, to say the least, but it could essentially prove to really speed up the time of travel if it works out.

While this is just a concept, it does have a pretty big backer- NASA. While NASA isn’t involved in building the craft, it recently provided $100,00 for wind tunnel testing and plans to pledge up to another $500,000 in the near future to help the project move further along.

A flight across the US in such a small amount of time is more than impressive, and essentially would massively cut down travel distance globally. What do you think of the concept aircraft?

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It’s called the Aerofex hover vehicle and it’s very much a real thing. It may not be quite as sleek and compact as its science fiction counterpart, but it is able to travel while flying a few inches off the ground. It does this by using a pair of ducted rotors, generating vertical lift. The interesting thing is that the design for this hover vehicle dates back to the 1960s, but it was abandoned due to stability issues. Aerofex fixed this with two knee-level control bars, relying on the pilot’s natural sense of balance to lean from side to side.

The advantage of being above the ground is obvious enough. If you have wheels, you need to have roads. If you’re going off-road, you need suitable tires and you could easily get stuck. By hovering inches above the ground, this vehicle is able to travel just about anywhere, regardless of the quality of existence of roads. The manned version has already been tested at up to 15 feet in the air and at speeds of up to 30 mph. It can probably go higher and faster, but they’ve limited themselves for safety reasons.

Unfortunately, Aerofex has no immediate ambitions to build and sell a commercially-available manned version. Instead, they’re looking at unmanned drones for agricultural, industrial and military applications. I guess we’ll have to find another way to get around Endor for now.

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Yates took to the air above the Mojave Desert, reaching a speed of 202.6mph during his 16 minute flight. The Long-ESA electric plane is based on the Long-EZ by Burt Rutan, except this version is electric. Butan had previously designed several aircraft, including the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne, a reusable, suborbital spaceship. The 202.6mph flight shatters the previous record of 175mph, set by Hugues Duval in the Cri Cri airplane.

But Yates isn’t satisfied. This was his first ever flight in a full electric plane and he recognizes that the Long-ESA can go even faster. I’m sure he and his team will be taking to the skies again very soon, breaking his own record over and over again.

[Source]

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