News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
New technology for supersonic jets makes them much quieter, and we may actually see them in use over the continental United States. Maybe in another few decades they’ll be in common use (we can only hope).
This Israeli F-15 pilot was in a mid-air collision that tore off his plane’s right wing. Yet he managed to recover from the crash and safely land.
Northrop has developed a system that uses lasers to shoot down rockets, missiles, mortars, etc., generating a virtual shield over an area 10km in diameter. They expect to sell quite a few of them to airports and other vulnerable installations.
UPDATE: Apparently the Northrop system is still a prototype (link) and is not ready for deployment. It could really be useful in Israel right about now.
I was in a negative-g dive once and watched a pair of headphones bounce off the cockpit ceiling, but this is pretty amazing. The barrel roll with the iced tea is at the end of the video clip.
This is pretty neat, although I don’t know the source of the video images (and can’t vouch for their authenticity).
This is definitely the stuff of science fiction:
Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
***** Begin Obligatory Star Wars Rant *****
The article mentions the comparison to Star Wars, but it’s completely obvious that the weapons in Star Wars are not lasers—most likely they’re some sort of plasma. First, they’re visible, which lasers are not unless there’s dust in the air. Second you can see them move, which is definitely not the 186,000 miles/second speed of light. Third, they combine and change direction (think Death Star #1), while real light beams simply pass through each other and continue moving in the same direction as before.
***** End Obligatory Star Wars Rant *****
