A bald eagle would make a pretty impressive pet. Thugs, thieves, salesmen and other low-lifes wouldn’t dare go near your home if the threat of a swooping, vengeful bird of prey was ever-present. On the other hand, you probably wouldn’t dare go near your home if a bald eagle had claimed it as its patch. What you need to protect your home from bad guys and real bald eagles is, of course, a 9 1/2 Foot Remote Controlled Bald Eagle.

Powered by a gimble engine and propeller, this thing actually flies. Actually, no, it doesn’t just fly; it swoops, soars, loops and hovers. Its nylon / polyester wings span 9 1/2 feet, which is twice as long as two short humans. For a remote controlled bird, that’s long. And to a verminous seagull or unwanted visitor at your home…that’s scary.

The supplied transmitter allows you to control the eagle up to 100 feet away, and the eagle’s rechargeable battery gives you 8 minutes of flight time. That’s probably ample time for anyone to be terrorised by an eagle, but don’t fret if it’s not enough for you: it fully recharges in just 20 minutes.

Become the master of an eagle for $499.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer.

Spaceport America, the world’s first (purpose-built) commercial spaceport broke ground recently in New Mexico and thanks to design winners Foster and Partners, we have some concept images representing just what the giant 110,000 square foot facility may look like. The project is expected to cost $200m and if all goes according to plan, is expected to host the first commercial space flight by 2011.

With a massive 4000 square foot public viewing gallery and a runway 10,000 feet long and 200 feet wide, Spaceport America will be home to the Virgin Galactic commercial space flight service. Through improved operating efficiency for the company and competitors, the spaceport may eventually help reduce the (currently $200,000) ticket price enough for us all to enjoy a bit of space tourism.

To be mostly buried in New Mexico’s desert sand, the building itself is designed with the environment in mind – featuring everything from cooling earth tubes, to solar energy and wastewater recycling. It is expected to be completed in 18 months.

Sources:
Spaceport America (Press Release) and Foster and Partners
Via: Gizmag

If you’re just itching to get your feet off the ground, but haven’t the patience or the money for a personal flying car, there is another option. Thanks to the Martin Jetpack, you could be soaring through the skies (a la Jet Man) as soon as late 2009 for no more than the cost of a luxury car (video below).

Capable of speeds of up to 63mph, the Martin Jetpack will get you around 30 minutes of flying time from just 5 US gallons of premium gasoline and the best bit, you don’t even need a pilots license to fly one (though the company will provide some training).

I can tell you – if I had a lazy $100K, I’d sooner jump at buying one of these than some pricey ‘leccy car.

Sources:
Martin Jetpack via LikeCool

Remember Terrafugia’s Transition Flying Car we saw back in December? Well, today the company let us all in on details about a successful first test flight that took place earlier this month. The achievement brings our dreams of a production flying car that much closer to reality, even if the $194,000 price tag prevents most of us from ever owning one.

The official first flight took place at Plattsburgh International Airport on March 5th 2009 and was accompanied by a more traditional chase aircraft (image below). The two-seater is able to fly 450 miles at a speed of 115MPH and runs on regular unleaded, that can be topped up at any gas station.

When on the road, the craft uses a front-wheel-drive system which can achieve and maintain highway speeds. When in the air, the craft relies on a propeller mounted on the rear for propulsion. The whole transformation process from car to plane, or vise versa, takes a single pilot less than 30 seconds, making it a extremely flexible machine indeed.

For those who can afford to own one of these amazing roadable aircraft, you can still place a deposit of $10,000 at Terrafugia’s site.

I wonder how the Moller SkyCar is getting on?

Source:
Jalopnik (w/Press Release)

Here’s a novel concept that manages to merge old tech with new, in a very exciting and beneficial way. Called the Cargonaut, it is essentially a flying robotic servant that will courier everything from letters, to luggage, to groceries across town for you to help lighten your load.

Designed by Matthias Schmiedbauer, the Cargonaut seems to be a modern take on the old courier pigeon method of message delivery. This high-tech version would naturally be more powerful to allow for heavier payloads like parcels to be hauled across town and if widely adopted, could possibly work out cheaper than using traditional mail services. Think about how much a stamp costs nowadays! If you owned one of these, how much do you think a bit of ‘leccy would set you back?

Of course, this little rotor-tailed aviator could do much more than mere mail delivery, potentially helping to free up room on subways around the world, as people transport luggage through the air instead. Now, if only you could use it to transport children, it would get rid of all those huge strollers on the Underground.

It seems like a grand idea and could be used as a tentative step forward towards flying cars. Hey, maybe we could repurpose all our old, unused chimneys as delivery chutes. Now that would be a future I’d like to see.

Sources:
Coroflot via AutoMotto

An innovative, reusable spaceplane called the Skylon is set to hit the skies within 10 years, aiming to make payload delivery and perhaps even passenger space travel easier and more affordable. The rocket-plane would take-off and land on a traditional runway and use a combination of on-board hydrogen and oxygen taken from the atmosphere to provide thrust.

The project is led by a company called Reaction Engines Limited (REL) in a joint public/private program recently bolstered by a £900K | €1M | $1.3M award by the European Space Agency (ESA). The spaceplane will depend on a unique air-breathing engine called SABRE, that will reduce the weight and running cost of the spacecraft by using atmospheric oxygen in the combustion process.

The Skylon will incorporate a breakthrough heat exchanger pre-cooler, able to cool extremely hot (<1000C/1832F at Mach 5) intake gases to around minus 130C (202F) in a lightning fast 1/100th of a second. The air is then compressed and forced into the rocket combustion chamber where it is mixed with hydrogen, burnt at 3000C (5432F) and expelled with great force through the back.

This is an incredible project that may even lead to rapid intercontinental flights if the numbers are right. It could jeopardize costly space elevator projects too and I must say, would be a very stylish way to get to your space hotel.

If you’re interested in the engineering side of things, be sure to check out the excellent SABRE engine walk-through video at Space.co.uk.

Sources:
Reaction Engines and BBC and University of Bristol

Terrafugia have announced that they will start making deliveries of their “Transition” roadable plane as early as late next year for $194,000 (£127,000). The Transition will be first to market, ahead of the impressive Moller M400 Skycar which won’t be available until around 2015. Both vehicles will require a pilots license to fly, however.

Terrafugia’s Transition is classed as a Light-Sport Airplane and uses a folding-wing design instead of hovering thrusters. This makes take-offs a little less spontaneous as it requires a short runway to get airborne. The 19-foot-long fuselage/chassis is powered by a 100HP Rotax 912S Four-Stroke engine, will have a cruise speed of 115mph (185km/h) and a range of 460 miles (740km).

Gross take-off weight is 1,320lbs (600kg) and on the ground you can expect to achieve highway speeds, though the fuel economy might not be great with the drag from the folded wing.

The craft will run on regular unleaded, which can be obtained whilst in driving mode through any gas station. It is not designed to be a car replacement, though you’d certainly get some attention if you did use it as such.

Check out the videos below for a walkthrough of the Transition. The first is more current, shot in October by the Boston Sunday Globe while the second provides more details, shot back in July by AVweb from AirVenture 2008.

Sources:
Terrafugia and Daily Mail

The Skycar is an interesting personal aviation project under development by Calfornian company, Moller International. Their flying car is much more than just a concept or even a base prototype like the one we saw on ebay recently. Testing is already underway (video below) and FAA approved models are expected to be available to the public before 2015.

Apparently the company already has over 100 reservations for the $500,000 SkyCar which will be capable of a top speed of 375mph and get you 750 miles. The Skycar runs on ethanol rather than costly aviation fuel making it, as they claim, cheaper to run than a Land Rover or Porsche.

The plane, which can also drive on the road at up to 35mph, will use eight Wankel rotary engines instead of jet engines – in order to keep the cost down. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of this project will be one of Moller’s aims – to make the flying car foolproof so that ordinary drivers can fly it.

The craft’s eight engines enable a safe landing should one, or even a few of the engines be struck by mechanical problems, or even failure. The Skycar would also come, as you’d expect, with parachutes should you need to eject. Engineers are working on cabin pressurization so the craft can soar to 30,000ft. Now that would be a rush.

Sources:
Moller Skycar and DailyMail
Via: New Launches

Could this be the shape of things to come for Heliplane design? This unique, single fixed-wing craft is called the Challis Heliplane and is capable of flying faster than Jet Man at over 300mph. At this stage the aircraft is only a small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), but it is a working model for a safe, high-speed, full-scale Heliplane that would be suitable for both civilian and military use, due to its ability to make emergency power-off landings.

The Challis Heliplane is capable of vertical takeoffs and landings much like a traditional helicopter, but when engaged in forward flight, the front propeller mostly takes over, providing 80 percent of the thrust. In this mode, the rotors continue to provide some lift, aided by the single wing on the body and on the tail. This design has an advantage over Tiltrotor type craft in that if engine failure occurred, the craft could make a safe emergency landing in much the same manner as a traditional helicopter.

The aircraft was designed to challenge the Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey but could even take on the blazing Sikorsky X2 which claims a top speed of 288mph. Check out the video below to see the thing go, plus the company has an interesting Challis Heliplane vs Regular Helicopter animated demonstration on their site.

Sources:
Challis Heliplane and YouTube

Ian Poll, head of the UK Government-funded Omega Project which aims to reduce environmental damage from aviation, is pushing for research to help convert the aviation industry from carbon-based fuels to nuclear-energy.

According to The Times, Poll is looking for a solution that will allow flying to continue in perpetuity, but with zero impact on the environment…and that includes crashes. Nuclear reactors could be the solution he’s looking for, but reactor-powered planes could cause a far-reaching catastrophe if they were to crash or explode.

Poll mentions that the reactors could be jettisoned on parachutes should an aircraft be in trouble, which is a good solution under normal circumstances. Should a reactor-equipped aircraft be hijacked for a 9/11 style attack, however, an entire city could be completely devastated with just one plane.

The idea for a nuclear powered plane was first pursued in the 1950s by both the US and the Soviet Union. They were trying to create bombers that could remain permanently in the sky, watching over their targets like submarines, battleships and aircraft carriers can do at sea today.

In one test, the US put an operating reactor onboard a converted, lead-lined B-36 bomber (above) to test if the crew could be safely shielded from the radiation. These programs dried up in the early 1960s after the advent of the intercontinental ballistic missile made the idea redundant.

Poll recognizes that it would take a very long time to convince the public of the need to fly on nuclear-powered craft and that it would be a huge challenge to convince people that they are safely shielded from radiation. While we’re waiting, hopefully alternative fuels will have a chance to…um…take off. My bets are on renewable and carbon-neutral algae.

Sources:
Times Online via Danger Room