Word: ultralights
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That's why I've been dying to try the new class of ultralight computers--most are less than an inch thick and weigh less than 3 lbs.--that began shipping to retail stores at year's end. These machines run on the slimmed-down operating system known as Windows CE--the same one used on personal digital assistants like the PalmPilot. While the machines are technically laptops, my editor at TIME, a brilliant phrase turner, has a better name for them: kneetops...
...thicker "beam" or frame produces more power and stability. "The extra length in the handle will give you something too," he notes, especially on the serve. (The higher up your serve starts, the better angle it has into the service box.) He's more dubious about the new ultralight titanium racquets. Although a lighter racquet is easier to maneuver, many players lose control when the thing collides with a heavy topspin shot...
...flying makes you queasy, you'll be relieved to know that Pathfinder--NASA's ultralight, solar-powered aircraft, that is, not the Mars lander of the same name--isn't taking passengers just yet. But according to a NASA briefing last week, the remote-controlled plane's high-altitude (71,500 ft.), low-speed (15 m.p.h.) flights are perfect for the kind of environmental research now being done by orbiting satellites. Pathfinder's flexible 99-ft. wings, glistening with $1 million worth of solar panels, have been tested only in sunny Hawaii. So the plane carries a backup battery system...
...temptation to blame the plane comes largely from a confusion between experimental aircraft and ultralight planes. Both became hugely popular in the mid-1980s after a series of product-liability lawsuits drove the makers of conventional small planes--Piper Cubs, Cessna 150s and other single-engine aircraft--to the brink of bankruptcy and, in some cases, over...
...more. Nearly 30,000 experimental and ultralight planes are currently plying the skies, with about 1,000 more joining them each year. There's a world of difference, though, between a homebuilt ultralight and a homebuilt experimental plane. Ultralights have to weigh less than 256 lbs. fully fueled and go no faster than about 63 m.p.h., and they can be flown only during daylight hours. You don't need a license to fly one, and you don't need an inspection to make sure it's safe. Many ultralights are elegant and airworthy; the plane featured in last year...