Word: aircrafting
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When a cause of the Flight 587 crash is determined, it may underscore an unsettling truth about aviation safety: we sometimes don't know where aircraft problems lie until they cause an accident. If that's the case this time, one thing is almost certain. This probe, like others before, will yield improved safety guidelines...
While the Pentagon has been using drones as flying spies for years, it was less than 18 months ago that Jumper--then running the Air Force's Air Combat Command--first realized that his growing fleet of unmanned aircraft represented a missed opportunity. "It just clicked: that if we could put a small weapon on this thing, we could do the entire cycle--find a target, kill it and assess it--from the same vehicle," the Vietnam War pilot recalls. Jumper didn't actually engineer the missile-firing drone, but he oversaw and championed its development. Even more important...
Drones have some obvious advantages over manned aircraft: they don't put pilots' lives at risk, and they're relatively cheap. For the price of one F-22 ($180 million) you could buy 60 Predators. Today about a dozen Predators--which are flown by the CIA as well as the Air Force--are loitering in the skies over Afghanistan, largely invisible from the ground but able to spot objects 4-in. across from 16 miles away. Their prey is what the Pentagon calls "high-value mobile" targets--like SUVs suspected of ferrying bin Laden from one hiding place to another...
...Airport bound for the Dominican Republic, crashed in the residential borough of Queens. All 260 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus A300 were killed, along with five people on the ground. Investigators examining the flight recorders believe the pilot lost control after the jet twice hit turbulence from another aircraft. Inquiries are focusing on what made the plane?s tail fin and rudder apparently snap...
...miles at a cruising speed of 120 m.p.h. Unlike a helicopter, it has a gas turbine-powered propeller that drives the craft forward and provides airspeed to power two asymmetrical overhead blades. These 42-ft. blades rotate only when the wind rushes up through them. They give the aircraft lift, stability and improved safety; in case of engine failure, they continue to rotate and allow a safe, controlled descent. The other thing that makes the gyroplane different from a helicopter is the bottom line: running costs (about $160 per hr.) are almost halved. The gyroplane is in the final stages...