News items and other various tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share with his friends.
A woman got belligerent and physically violent on a JetBlue flight, causing it to be diverted so she could be de-planed and arrested. She claims that she was in an alcohol-induced blackout and doesn’t remember the incident.
Link: http://www.examiner.com/…
(via The Consumerist)
Let’s see… a long flight, a bored computer hacker. Yup, it’s going to happen.
Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Engadget)
Smokers rejoice! Starting Aug. 4th, you can take cigarette lighters on an airplane. According to the article, 22,000 lighters are currently confiscated each day by airport security officials.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
PayPal—it’s not just for eBay anymore.
Link: http://money.cnn.com/…
US and Australian scientists have successfully tested a scramjet, attaining a speed of Mach 10. This technology has the potential to revolutionize international travel, should it ever make it to commercial use. I’ve read about suborbital flights in a variety of science fiction novels, and it would be neat to see it become a reality.
We’ve all seen airplane contrails, but here’s what they look like up close. Wow.
Link: http://www.airliners.net/…
(via digg)
This site has some nifty flight tracking tools. I like how it combines weather radar with flight tracking, so you can see how the flights are diverted to miss storms. Try an airport code of “KDEN” for the Denver, CO area.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link: http://flightaware.com/
This site has some unique cell phone ringtones—they’re the alert/warning messages from the cockpits of various airplanes. My favorite is “Whoop! Whoop! Pull Up!”
Link: http://www.aviationringtones.com/
(via Neatorama)
Popular Mechanics got a sneak peek at the new Airbus A380—the largest passenger aircraft in the world. It’s so heavy that some airports will have to reinforce their runways and taxiways to handle the weight. There’s a short video that shows the inside of the plane, which is roomy enough to have a walk-up bar.
Link: http://www.popularmechanics.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Turns out that crossing the international date line will crash the on-board computers for the new F-22 stealth fighter plane. Oops…
Link: http://it.slashdot.org/…
This college student packed three flour-filled condoms in her luggage for a trip home. Unsurprisingly, she was detained, arrested, and held in jail for three weeks until tests determined it was only flour. Note that the linked article doesn’t give all of the information. Security officials did a field test that came back positive, so they did have cause to arrest her.
Anti-missile flares on military planes create really cool smoke “angels”. Also, here’s a video of the flares being set off.
Link: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/…
(via Nothing To Do With Arbroath)
Chad Cloman
Denver, CO USA
