The Future of Aviation!!

NASA recently awarded grants for the development of the future airliners. 3 firms were chosen. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman. The designs are all somewhat radical, but it does give us a glimpse of what the designers are thinking. The aim is to cut fuel use and emissions in half and areas impacted by noise by 83 percent with an aircraft that has the speed and range of modern long-haul jets (85 percent of the speed of sound, 7,000 miles) and payload (50,000 to 100,000 pounds) of a large single-aisle jet, such as a Boeing 757. Date of service introduction is planned for 2025. I think we may need to add a decade or two onto that before the design of the current jets are moved out.

First is the Boeing.

From the look of this my first reaction is what is going on at Boeing??? The design is obviously all about function rather than form. The looks of the plane are secondary to what it can do. I see this as more of a freighter, but then I wonder how do you load the freight into the middle. Obviously this is a design exercise so the idea is efficiency. The option of 2 or 3 engines and turbojets and turbofans is interesting on the same platform. Methinks I'll take a pass on this one and hope that Boeing concentrates its efforts on military if they go forward with this design.

Next we have the offering from Lockheed Martin.


At first look it appears to have one enormous engine, but that's just an optical illusion i believe. It looks like the second engine is obscured by the fuselage. The other net thing appears to be a box tail connecting both sides of the wing to the tail of the plane. I like the somewhat conventional style of the plane and think that most people will as well. Engine noise should be low in the front half of the plane and I'd guess the range would be fantastic.

Finally we have the version presented by Northrop Grumman.

I really like the V-tails on this as they remind me of the F22 Raptor. The twin fuselages though are downright bizarre. There does not appear to be and way to move from one to the other. The flight deck is separated as well which from a safety perspective eliminates the threat of a crew takeover by a hijacker, but also prevents the passenger from getting their buh-bye from the pilot. Also the engines are right by the pilots. Lots of noise for them as well as the first class cabin(s). It reminds me of the Virgin Galactic transport plane and the Boeing offering is the Spaceship One. You don't think...????? Nah.

Intensity

The hockey season is moving along with so many games and practices that sometimes I forget what day it is. Both kids are playing at higher levels than ever and are excelling. Frudoch is leading the Columbus Capitals in goals, shots, hits, scoring and assists despite playing less than half the minutes of the other forwards on the team. He was just switched from center to right wing so he is having to get used to having his back to the goal now and fighting off the defenseman. Just look at the intensity in this photo taken against Stongsville a couple weeks ago.


Poppy has been playing as a defenseman almost exclusively and her teams record stands at 6-1 which is great considering last year her team was 0-14-1 after the regular season. She also mad the Columbus North Stars select team and they have decided to play at the AA level in order to improve every player and really challenge the kids. Their travel schedule is really going to be hectic come January and February. They have played one game and steamrolled the opponents easily. These kids are going to be good.
As a parent I'm very proud of my kids although i'm getting worn out with hockey 6 days/nights a week from September to March.....

Goodbye to the F-111 Aardvark

Back in May I blogged about the upcoming final retirement of the last in service General Dynamics F-111 of the RAAF. Well that time has come for the beast some 46 years after the first prototype first flew. I won't rehash everything I wrote back then, but that day is now almost here. On Dec 2, 2010 the F-111 will be retired and for fan's of this massive strike plane its a sad day. These beasts were operated by the US Air Force in a few variants, including long-range strike, and with the EF-111 Raven variant, electronic warfare. In USAF service F-111s participated in the Vietnam War, the US attack on Libya in 1986, and Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. They were retired in 1997 by the USAF and lived another 13 years in the sky in Australia until now. The last former USAF F-111G was retired in 2007 by the RAAF.

As noted in the previous blog these will be replaced by FA-18F's built by Boeing and fitted for various roles until the real replacement for the F-111 arrives in the form of the F-35 JSF. The FA-18's are holding the door open and will do an excellent job in their multi role capacity. In fact the FA-18's have less range and are slower than the F-111 although they are much more efficient to operate and have modern communications equipment which transmits data seamlessly between airborne platforms. Perhaps more than any other deficiency, it is this shortcoming which has pushed the RAAF to retire the type even before its original replacement is ready to be fielded.

But to any airplane or airshow fan the most missed aspect of the F-111 is the dump and burn......

How Cool is That Map?

One of the coolest things about having a blog is knowing that people from virtually anywhere in the world can read what you write. Over the years I've read hundreds, perhaps thousands of blog's and blog posts from around the world. Many by just clicking the random "next" at the top o the Blogger page. People post for a myriad of reasons. It doesn't really matter how or why. For some it's for therapeutic reasons. For others its for work. It just matters that we do. In college I wrote quite a bit. I started college fearing the term paper and almost any composition. By the end I wanted it all to be written. I was not an English major, but I learned a ton from taking classes that were in essence foreign to me. I took an East Asian Language and Literature class and a Art History class that to this day I can remember everything we did. All my other classes are gone in a blur. Those two classes were different. They challenged me to open up my horizons and to look beyond what was around me and comfortable. I probably did not fully appreciate it at the time, but I certainly do now. In any case I picked up writing an fortunately for me I have a sister who is a writer and with almost every paper I wrote I used this new at the time thing called the internet to email her the papers where she wold comment and correct obvious errors and help me develop a writing style. This style of writing led to one of my professors sending my work to a local newspaper where she attempted to get me a job as a writer covering music and the arts. Two things I knew little about at the time beyond what I was picking up in that Art History class. Fortunately for me I did not pursue that job as I get bored dong the same things all the time. I need variety in my life. It why my interests are varied and over the history of this blog I think you can get a good snapshot of that. One thing is for certain however. I like to go fast.
If you stop by this page leave me a note. I know you're coming. I see it on the map. Go ahead and click on it. I'd really like to see visitors from Russia and Alaska. Greenland and Iceland. Madagascar and Nicaragua. Anywhere and everywhere. Its what makes a blog page so great. Thanks!

The Yuck

Yeah I've had it for over 3 weeks. I feel like death warmed over. That awful sore throat with the stuffy head and Headache. The stuff that comes out of your lungs in that nasty color. The body ache and general malaise. Yes I have them all and it won't go away. I'm probably on the fed watch list for pseudophedrine after all I've purchased. Please make it go away. This is what I get for hanging around all the kids on the travel hockey team and taking an active role this year. The 2 hour trips to Cleveland every weekend are already beginning to get old. WHAT WAS I THINKING????????????? Oh well he leads the team in all categories-shots, goals, hits, points. Everything but playing time. He's getting less than the other 2 centers on the team , yet still the numbers are good. 10 goals after 11 games and he's averaging 6 hits per game. Great fun to watch, but at this point i'd rather feel 100%.

Top Gear USA...Can it Live up to The Real Top Gear?

I'm a fan of the BBC program Top Gear. In fact my whole family watches including my kids who are now 10 and 12 and my wife who...shall we say does not watch much television devoted to automobiles. My kids have watched for more than 5 years and while at times the content is a bit inappropriate for them I think it flies over their heads. For years the only way to catch the show was in clip form on youtube or 'pirate' web sites that were quickly shut down. Thankfully BBC America started showing it several years ago here in the USA. I have always disliked the fact that we were several YEARS behind in what we were able to see here, but hey at least we had it. A couple years ago I discovered sites on the web devoted to web streaming and of course Top Gear was one of the shows that always had a stream. I finally was able to see complete episodes of all the years and frankly Top Gear has come a long long way. The hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May have a way of interacting that is so seamless that you know at some level they don't actually have to act like they dislike each other. Sure they get along, but May is so weird that at times I can't stand to listen to him. Then there is The Stig. Will we have a version on TGU? I'm sure in some way we will, but to outright copy the original show will be...unoriginal? The producers have branched out with Top Gear Australia and now we finally see the oft promised Top Gear USA. I'll admit I don't like the idea of it. Not one bit. However, filming has begun and the first 'clip' has hit the web and for this 2 minutes it looks how should I say this....watchable. So my advice is if you really like Top Gear as I do you might want to check it out.

Now if we could get Speed Channel to bring back episode of England's "other" car show First Gear then my car fix would be complete.

Michael J Fox was not always Marty McFly....

I'm sure many of you know that Michael J Fox was not the original choice to play Marty McFly in Back To The Future. Eric Stolz was the original choice and he actually shot for 5 weeks. However the footage has never been seen outside of the studio. As the 25th anniversary approaches for BTTF a new DVD release is planned (big surprise) and in the extras is some of that footage. You could go out and buy the DVD or just watch it here...
Beware that this is kinda freaky. Stolz really does look alot like Fox in this clip. Hollywood....

The Inside Job; Movie Trailers on HDNet

I'm not a big "indie" movie fan, but over the past few years with the help of HDNet and their 3 movie preview shows Nothing But Trailers, The Ultimate Trailer Show, and Trailerama I've seen quite a few trailers for small films that have for about 2 minutes captured my attention. While its rare that I will go to the theater itself and see a movie I have tracked down several of these films on DVD and also HBO/Shotime/Starz/The Movie Channel/Cinemax/Sundance and enjoyed them greatly. The trailer above is for a film called The Inside Job and I saw the trailer on HDNet (of course). The film opens this week in New York and next week in Los Angeles. While its doubtful it will come to good ole Columbus there is a great chance I'll catch it on DVD. From the trailer it looks good and while I am not going to get into a political discussion here the subject matter is interesting. The one caution I have is the media is a large part of the problem in our country and now we are to believe that the answers come from a film produced and distributed by a media conglomerate.... Perhaps a discussion for another day.

One sad point is last week on The Ultimate Trailer show the host, Robert Wilonsky announced that he is moving along. This saddens me as despite his obvious difference in political agendas from mine I trusted his film choices. While he repeatedly pointed out he had a face for print journalism and not TV, he managed to capture my attention for several years and I will miss his suggestions. High Definition TV was in its infancy when he came to the first full time HD channel and filled a niche with several hosting gigs. While so many people complain about the trailers at the start of a film he developed a television show dedicated to clips--2 minutes at a time. In fact HDNet now has 3 shows.... While I never met him I considered him a friend. I even sent a few emails for suggestions of old trailers and a few of them even showed up. Thanks Robert!