I was reading the comments, on the Gizmodo post, about the engine start video (at the bottom). A lot of people didn’t really realize the significance of this, so I said I would write a short blurb about it.

Most turbine (not turbo-prop) aircraft start their engines from bleed air from the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) mounted in the tail of the plane. This unit makes electricity to power aircraft systems, and bleed air is used for air conditioning and engine starts. Usually once the engines are started, or in some cases once airborne, the APU is shut down for the remainder of the flight. At that point the engine bleed air (for air conditioning, anti-ice, and God forbid engine restarts) and generators (electrical systems) are used for the remainder of the flight.

The problem with bleed air is that is HOT, damn hot, around 800C on some aircraft. You have to route that air to the air conditioning systems (usually at the belly), and to the wings for anti-ice. In the process of routing it your taking a risk that one of the ducts could leak, or rupture, which could cause a fire very quickly. Not only is there threat of fire, but the air is taken from the compression cycle, so you’re taking power from the engines.

So to counteract this Boeing designed a lot of electrical systems, where bleed air is normally used. They not only moved to electrical engine starts, and air conditioning, but even the brakes are electrically actuated, instead of hydraulically powered. In theory it is a lot of increased safety by engineering new systems. The problem with new systems is working out the bugs, and getting them certified. Ideally this will increase the reliability over the long run. The starters in the engine alone are supposed to increase 300% in the number of cycles it can perform.

Here is the original Gizmodo post:

Remember the Boeing 787 Dreamliner? You know, the eternally-delayed wonderplane? Well, rejoice because it has started the engines in a huge puff of smoke. All on its own, which is a first according to Boing:

The occasion marks the first all-electric start of a commercial jetliner engine on a twin-aisle commercial jetliner; the engines had been started electronically in test facilities earlier.

OK, Boeing, if you say so, I believe you. They used the Auxiliary Power System to power the start of its two Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.

(Via Gizmodo, and Boeing)

My name is Zac, and I have an addiction. Call them UAVs, The Predator, or the X-45, either way, I LOVE drones. And that pic above is one of the sexiest things I have ever seen! This one is a close second. Sure they are making a big deal out of them in the media killing a few people that maybe they shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I am actually not all about killing random people, what really impresses me is how they are flown from thousands of miles away.

Wired has a good article on how the CIA is sharing the feed to Pakistani security forces. CBS even has some video showing a little bit of the control systems, and how well the surveillance on them works.

Sure I would love to strap into a fighter jet, pull 4G’s, and “yank and bank.” But the next best thing in my opinion is flying one of these guys around trying to maintain the element of surprise while keeping visual contact on an element. Not to mention you could do all of this while ordering pizza delivery, and drinking a slurpy, lets see the F-16 guys do that!

(Via CBS, Wired)

I’d like to take this opportunity to say pork is one of the best tasting meats in existence.  Just the mention of pig makes my mouth water.  In fact for lunch, I’m going to eat some baby back ribs wrapped in bacon, sprinkled with pulled pork.  Take that Swine Flu! Nom, nom, nom….

The current H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic headlines read like those flashing through the intro sequence of a post-apocalyptical movie. Now you can see the cases spreading in real time—as the WHO declares them—in Google Maps.

In case you have not been paying attention to the news during the last few days, there’s a pandemia going on. A spike of infections of the H1N1 Swine Flu—a mutation of a pork virus that jumped from pigs to humans—happened in the city of Mexico (103 dead already) and it is quickly spreading through the world now, thanks to airline connections.

Reading the map is very simple: We are all going to dieThe pink markers are suspect, the purple markers are confirmed, and deaths don’t have a black dot in the marker. The yellow markers are negative, but I don’t see any.

Have fun watching. While you can.

Here is the direct link to the Google Map

(Via Gizmodo.)

This picture by alt1040 pretty much sums up what I posted last week about Google. Of course the victory even looks to be shorter lived now that Judge Nordstrom had some serious conflict of interests. Chris Matyszczyk over at CNET has a story with some pretty good quotes from our favorite judge.

Judge Nordstrom declared: “Every time I take a case, I evaluate if I consider myself having a conflict of interest. In this case I didn’t find to have one.”

I know there must be some of you out there who are asking the question: “How hard did you look?” I find myself asking the question: “How hard is your head?”
Judge Norstrom must have known that this would be a fairly notable case. His name would waft through the newspapers. His views would be scrutinized for their fairness.

So isn’t it a little odd for him to say, as it perhaps seems to some: “You know, I thought really hard about whether my membership of the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for Industrial Legal Protection might influence my impeccable judgment. But then I had a whiskey and thought to myself ‘hey, this is a juicy case’”?

But if Judge Norstrom was truly an impartial, brilliant, expert judge, might he have not offered the following quote: “This is a sensitive case. So before I agreed to hear it, I asked some of my fellow judges whether they considered that I would be in a position of conflicting interests. Two judges said absolutely not. While a third said he wasn’t quite so sure. I went with the majority.”

Something tells me this case is going to last forever. Lets see if the MPAA/RIAA and all those guys are stupid enough to try to bring Google into the mix.

(Via CNET, and Gizmodo)

I have to admit I have a fascination with the Predator series, the drones that is. Giz has coverage of the new C model, the Avenger:

These are the first images of the stealthy Predator C Avenger in flight. With a 66-foot wingspan, the latest and deadliest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle yet can fly for 20 hours powered by its jet engine.

Made by General Atomics (Taking Over The World Really Soon Now™), the Avenger uses a Pratt & Whitney Canada PW545B powerplant capable of delivering 400 knots (740km/h) at 60,000 feet. This is the same turbofan engine on the Cessna Citation XLS business jet.

Unlike the Citation, however, this angel of destruction can load 3,000 pounds of weapons in its fully internal bay. The bay is internal to match the rest of its stealthy design which—like the F-22 Raptor or the F-35 Lightning II—has no sharp angle differences between surfaces to reduce its radar signature.

Also like the F-35, this perfect flying machine can also carry a foward-looking infrared sensors adapted from the the Joint Strike Fighter. The cost of the robotic fighter is probably between ten dollars and a zillion gazillion euros, but it will make trips to enemy bases to deliver bombs and missiles for free.

It is probably pretty ironic that I am an actual pilot, yet all I want to do is play flight sim. You just don’t understand what a pain in the butt it is to go to the bathroom in this day and age. And don’t get me started on airplane food . . .

So if you happen to work for the military, and can bring me in to test fly one of these or any other drone, please leave a comment or email me. I am not saying I am going to sign up per say, but i would love to write a piece that I am sure would motivate some of the younger generation.

(Via Gizmodo, Aviation Week, Flight Global.)

Here is a story from Giz that doesn’t surprise me much at all. Turns out the same people that pirate music, also buy more of it. I can relate to this, i am not going to go out and buy a CD for $12-$15 to find out that there is only one decent song on the whole thing. Giz:

A study from the BI Norwegian School of Management has found that those who download free music from services like BitTorrent are also the biggest legitimate consumers of downloadable music.

In fact, among all 1,901 Norway-based study participants (all of whom were over the age of 15), it was found that those who downloaded ‘free’ music were 10x more likely to download pay music. In other words, music pirates are the music industry’s largest online consumers.

Note: ‘Free’ music obviously implies pirated music, but it also encompasses legitimate free music download services.

The findings also included that, in the 15-20 age range, 50% of participants had bought a CD in the last six months. So that trusty format isn’t dead quite yet.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Giz has this great Dilbert comic today that is so accurate it is scary. Haha, the wonderful world of rebates, maybe later today I will see if I can compile some stats into how many don’t get issued and how much a company saves. Or better yet I will have the wife do it, she is the one with a math degree!

Once again, Dilbert takes on and lampoons infamous gadget demons and memes so you don’t have to. Man, do I hate rebates. [Dilbert]

(Via Gizmodo.)

Photographer Marco Sitzia rocks the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III with a monstrous Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG lens. For reference, the Sigma weighs about 35 pounds. Hell yes.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Gizmodo > Loiter

I mean really is this a surprise to anyone?  This is the agency that forgot to convert meters to feet and smashed the first Mars lander right into the planet.  I will say that there are some really smart 13 year olds out there too, on behalf of NASA, now they just need to hire them.  So here is an AFP aritcle brought to us by Giz and /. about a 13 y/o that shows NASA how to do math, and turns out the chances of us getting killed by an asteroid are pretty decent.