Wingsuiter Crashes Through Sign In Midair At 120 mph

Brass:

Wingsuiter Crashes Through Sign In Midair At 120 m.p.h.:

A FEARLESS daredevil flies through the air like a human missile and smashes through a target which is only two metres wide. Wing-suiter Sebastian Alvarez, 29, heroically jumped from a helicopter above the sprawling metropolis of his hometown, Santiago, Chile, in March this year. And despite travelling at around 124 mph, Alvarez hit the foam target – which was painted with the colours of the Chilean flag – with pinpoint accuracy.

Absolutely zero room for inaccuracy. I was free-fall parachute qualified as a young man, but this is waaaay beyond that. I would love to do this (but not this stunt!) but alas, I am both too old now and don't have the money anyway.

More videos of this guy here.

What I want for my birthday

I gotta get me one of these!



The design has been around since the 1970s. It is a kit; some owners build them themselves, others pay someone to do it who already knows how. I scanned message boards about the plane and saw that for some reason owners who built it themselves said that it took years to do so. Of course, that's part time and presumably they paid as they went. I assume that a full-time assembler who knew what he was doing would require mere weeks, maybe less.

The plane comes in both propeller and jet. More accurately, the owner decides what propulsion he wants and fits it, within limits of course. It seems that the two jet engines on this model (which I definitely would want) cost about $4,000 each, but what the heck. Commonly, the prop versions only have a few dozen horsepower combined, sometimes as few as 30. And they still cruise at 115 mph.

I learned to fly when I was only 21, but have not piloted an aircraft in many, many years. But jeepers, does this look great!

More here.

Update: One of this machine would be really nice, too.



More on this device:

What is it?
The Flyboard Air is an “independent propulsion unit,” Zapata says, with the ability to fly up to 10,000 feet high. A real-life hoverboard.

How does it work?
It is powered by four engines of 250 horsepower each. Similar to the original Flyboard, the flyer can control the direction of the board with their feet. However, A “logic system” is built into the Flyboard Air containing a series of algorithms to assist the flyer with stabilization. The flyer also wears a backpack full of kerosene, jet fuel, to give them ten minutes of flight time.

One thousand hp is only 200 less than the famous US Navy F4F Wildcat fighter of early World War 2, and 60 hp more than the Wildcat's chief enemy, the fabled Japanese Zero. With 1,000 hp aboard I can well believe the Flyboard will reach 10,000 feet, although with only 10 minutes or so of flight time I sure would not risk it! Also, its top speed of 100 kph (about 62 mph) is more than a vertical, unprotected pilot can withstand. The inventor, Franky Zapata, said he "hit the wall" of forward speed at 55 kph, or about 35 mph.

Fuel duration is of course set by throttle openings, so low altitude and slow speeds yield longer flights than gaining altitude and going fast, just like any other aircraft. Presently, though, the Flyboard Air is not on the market. Zapata says it takes at least 120 hours to learn to fly, which is a lot more than a private pilot's license! It is receiving some attention from the Defense Dept., though. There is also said to be a sit-down version in development.

My wife does not support me getting one.

Marine Corps suffers downsizing

Remember the Marrine Corps' now-defunded Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle?



In development, it was canceled in 2011, although prototype vehicles may still be found at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The Marines decided (translation: were ordered) to continue using their present, 1950s-vintage Amphibious Assault Vehicles for the foreseeable future. The far foreseeable future. Because there is nothing Marines have learned to do better than fight the next war with three-wars-ago equipment.

So what better idea would there be than to buy one Watercar for every four Marines and let 'em rip?

Niagara Falls as you have never seen it

Everyone knows about radio-controlled model aircraft. In the past few years a specialized type of RC aircraft has become increasingly popular. In the military they are called drones. Among hobbyists they are referred to as FPV, First Person View aircraft.

FPV craft have a video camera mounted in the "cockpit" of the model. It transmits live video back to the controller on the ground, who flies the craft using that flight view. The video can also usually be recorded for later playback.

With excellent HD cameras the result can be quite stunning, as here:



I have seen FPV systems more sophisticated that this. The most complex setup I have seen was a plane with the camera mounted on a gymbal with the video projected into a helmet the on-ground pilot wore, seeing the video in the facepiece before his eyes. When the pilot turned his head or looked up or down, the camera rotated accordingly. As you might imagine, this was a very expensive system.

There have been RC aircraft mounting cameras for a long time. But they usually are not considered FPV craft unless the video streams back to the ground station in real time. Some models on the market use your wifi network to stream and you can see the video on your tablet, tilting it to fly the aircraft. (Needless to say, flying these is a short-range proposition.)

FPV prices are dropping. Amazon has an FPV quadcopter (a very stable design) for $288. At lower prices, however, range will be limited (and so will quality, for that matter). Serious hobbyists hand build systems that can stream and be controlled to slant ranges of several thousand feet. This guy even tried to send his plane to the edge of space using a weather balloon, then glide the plane back down.



So this post is another under the "I gotta get me one of these" category.

But this is an even bigger "gotta."

Best German restaurant at Epcot

Well, it's the only one:

I ripped this shot off my son's FB page. He took it last night.

Many years ago when my family and I visited Epcot we had lunch here. Having lived in Germany from 1983-1986, my wife and I grew to enjoy German cuisine.

The restaurant was a buffet there. After we sat at our table an attractive, blonde young fraulein approached to ask what we wanted to drink. As you may know, the workers at Epcot's national areas are all from their respective countries. They enter the US on a work visa, work a year and then go home. Our Serviererin was therefore German and looked the part - German-style dress and all.

As she was bringing our beverages I still remembered enough German to tell her in the language that my wife and I had lived in her country from '83-'86. Her response was polite but perfunctory; she had doubtless heard hundreds of times from guests who told her they had visited German or had lived there.

"Where did you live?" she replied in English.

"We lived in a small farming town not far from Giessen called Dorf-Guell."

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide as saucers. "My brother plays soccer for Dorf-Guell!" she exclaimed.

Before long she was sitting down with us and we had a kind of "old home week" and we swapped reminiscences of the very small town and the local area. Finally, she had to get back to work, so we  said goodbye as she rose from the table.

"I am so glad to have met you!" she gushed. "It was so good to talk with someone from home!"

Of course, we were not from her home, but I knew what she meant and thought so, too.

What are the odds?

Why I was born a few years too late

Because I am too old now to do this:



I defy you to watch it only once.

Youth is wasted on the young . . .

HT: http://theborderlinesociopathicblogforboys.blogspot.com

Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish

Speaks for itself:



What is so impressive about this is how powerful the flying-human machines are. I hobby fly a Syma S033G radio-controlled helicopter, which is a fairly large machine as these go. It is extremely sensitive to the wind and even a gentle breeze makes it difficult to maintain headway. In stronger than a gentle breeze I simply don't try.

I am imagining the constant wind that must blow over the Hudson river and how well these machines perform nonetheless. Two things are sure: they are powerful and they ain't cheap.

HT: American Digest

Does your neighbor have a drone?

Worried about the local police getting military-type drones and cruising around looking invading your privacy?

Forget them! It's your neighbors you have to worry about!

Actually, I have wanted to get a video-linked, FPV remote aircraft for a long time. I learned to fly when I was young and single (and therefore had money) but I just can't afford it now. So this kind of setup would be the next best thing.

A year ago I got with some Christmas gift money a remote-control helicopter with a built-in video camera, 640 X480 resolution, not HD by any means. This is it, on Amazon:

I did quite a bit of flying with it until while landing it a sharp gust hit it when it was about two feet up and blew it into the ground at just the right angle to wreck it. Parts are practically unobtainable. It still is in pieces in my closet.

I would not recommend it, though. The video quality was pretty poor since the camera was basically a pinhole model. Also, the helicopter itself did not control well. It was built tough, though, as it had already survived crashes from much higher heights than the one that killed it. Here is the best example of video I got from it. The camera did not have audio but all a mike would have picked up is rotor noise, anyway.


So this year  replaced it with a camera-less RC model, the Syma S033G 3.5 Channel 700mm Large RC Helicopter Ready to Fly. Superficially the same as the other one, the Syma is actually a little larger and sturdier, with a full-metal frame and metal skids. With this photo from Amazon's page, you can see it is definitely not an indoor chopper unless your indoors happens to be a gymnasium:

 I have learned with both models that even though they are large the flying conditions need to be almost dead calm, especially since neither of the two seems to want to fly straight ahead easily even with the control rammed and held all the way forward (a common problem, it seems, from reading the message and hobby boards).

Once I master this new model, I intend to attach a small HD video camera to it. As of today, the leading candidate is the ContourROAM Waterproof HD 1080P. The main attractions of this model are that it is very lightweight and the lens rotates, meaning I do not have to mount the camera level on the copter, giving me many more placement options. We'll see how it goes. But someday I want to have an RC machine with a real-time video downlink. (I suspect it takes money, darn it.)

Put the plane on the ground!

Pilot drops some parachutists from free-fall altitude, points the plane straight down, levels off just above the treetops and then screams in for a landing a carrier pilot would blanch at.

Why fly like that? Maybe he was showing off for the camera, but more likely it is for the same reasons the pilots at the skydive center I used in college flew like that - well, okay, not really just like that! But they did drop down to land very quickly after we'd jumped.

The reason is that commercial skydive centers make money only when their customers make a jump. Empty, descending airplanes don't make money, only full, ascending planes do. The financial imperative is to make each flight's turnaround as short as possible.

But this seems a bit extreme!

National Geographic photo contest entry

I entered this photo in National Geographic's 2012 photo contest. The page is here. You can enter, too, but hurry since the deadline runs out at midnight Nov. 30. Entry page here.

Norway UFO videoed by accident?

This is a video taken by a Norwegian using a small camera mounted in front of a powered, remote-control glider, looking back toward the front of the glider. Pretty nice video.

But - just what is the object in the sky - upper right hand corner of the screen - between 1:43-44?

Having fun with gravity!

Play this at full screen!



HT: American Digest

PS - "Don's Version" in the grab does not refer to me, but to the poster on Youtube.

Sunset

Atlantic inlet at Wrightsville Beach, NC, July 11, sunset. Click for full size image.

A Parent's Life in Theater

My cell rings--ASHMUEL it displays.

He's part of a walk from Shiloh, the site of where the Tabernacle sat for some 400 years, to Jerusalem, the site of the three Temples. A couple of hundred stalwart souls are making the two day trek for Jerusalem Day. God-willing, they'll arrive at The Wall tomorrow at 1830.

"Yo, Shmuel! What's up?"

"Hi, Abba. Just wanted you to know that we're okay. A group of Arabs attacked us just north of Ofra; they started with the rocks and it got ugly. The IDF showed up. One of them got hit in the head."

"What's the situation, now?"

"No, no. We're okay. I just wanted to let you know."

"Okay, thanks, Shmuel."

"Sure, Abba."

"Oh, and Shmuel..."

"Yeah, Abba," he knows what's coming.

"Do me a favor: keep your head down and go with God."

What else to say to a six-foot-five 18 year old built like a cheetah?

"Aye, aye, SIR. Keeping the head down it is," he laughs as he rings off.

The latter is understood.

Back atcha, Glenn

If Glenn can do it, so can I: the view from my window this morning:

The gun run continues

President-elect Barack Obama has felt compelled to come out and say that firearm owners have nothing to fear from his administration.

As gun sales shoot up around the country, President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that gun-owning Americans do not need to rush out and stock up before he is sworn in next month.

"I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment," Obama said at a news conference. "Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven't indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word."

But National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said it's not Obama's words — but his legislative track record — that has gun-buyers flocking to the stores.

"Prior to his campaign for president, his record as a state legislator and as a U.S. Senator shows he voted for the most stringent forms of gun control, the most Draconian legislation, gun bans, ammunition bans and even an increase in federal excise taxes up to 500 percent for every gun and firearm sold," Arulanandam said.

Okay, fine. But fact is, gun sales are booming across the land. Stocking dealers have reported sales above last year's November at 80-90 percent more. Could makers and vendors be ready to return to this kind of advertising from yesteryear?

Image courtesy American Digest.

Don't know when this ad was printed, but it's been quite awhile. Note that all the prices are less than $100, even for the semi-auto, target pistol. In contrast, prices for Colt revolvers and pistols today run from the high hundreds to almost $2,000.

There are other choices than Colt, of course. Smith & Wesson and Beretta both make rimfire pistols selling in the $225 range. There is the venerable Ruger Mark series, now up to Mark III, priced at a couple dozen dollars more. Ruger's 22/45 series, a .22-caliber pistol intended to fit the hand and point the same as a .45-caliber model (hence, "22/45," get it?), sells from the mid-$250s and up (emphasis on the "up"). Sig Sauer's Mosquito, a .22-caliber semi, can be had for less than $300.

My wife and I examined all these choices before we decided on a Browning Buck Mark .22. I was surprised that she liked its fit and heft best because it is a fullsize pistol. I expected the smaller Sig would appeal more. She did like the feel of the Sig, but she said that the Browning felt better than the other models. I thought so, also. The Sig came in second. The Beretta Neos and the S&W 22A, both fairly new models, looked a lot better than they felt to the grip and heft. The Beretta was positively awkward in my hand and the S&W was not a lot better. I was surprised in both cases.

I have written that Montgomery County, Tenn., where I live, has a first-class, public range complex that includes trap, skeet, Olympic trap and ranges for high-power and rimfire rifles and pistols. I had planned for a long time to add a target pistol and a .22 rifle to my collection, but saw such a great deal for a SHOT Show Buck Mark with cocobolo specialized grips that I didn't wait. Mine arrived last week. Like most all .22 semis, it has a 10-round magazine. The Buck Mark is a single-action pistol, meaning that it has to be cocked manually to fire the first round. Then it will fire with each pull of the trigger until the mag is empty.



This is not a photo of my actual pistol, but a photo of an identical example that I found on the Internet. It's a better photo, actually, than the one on Browning's web site. This model is no longer in production, but SHOT Show specials usually become production items within a couple of years. Cocobolo, btw, is a Central American hardwood of the rosewood family.

I haven't fired it yet since the weather won't cooperate. When I do, I'll post a report.

End note: When I was a brand new second looey in Korea, more than 30 years ago (oh, my!), the troops still got paid in cash on payday. Army regulations required that the pay officer be armed with a pistol, still the venerable, .45 ACP M1911A1 in those days. He also had a soldier assigned as an armed guard, armed with an M16 rifle.

Not long before I arrived, a captain on my camp (kaserne for you Germany troops) paid his soldiers. Having no money left to gunfight over, he pulled his .45 from his holster, ejected the round in the chamber and dropped the magazine. Since the last step in clearing the .45 was to pull the trigger, he pointed it generally toward the ceiling and did so.

What was wrong with this picture?

Because he inverted the first two steps - he should have dropped the mag from the pistol first, then cycled the slide - there was a round in the chamber. When he pulled the trigger, that round fired. Tragically, the armed guard was standing in the way and was killed instantly.

I noted when I was pistol shopping that the Browning, like most other pistols I looked at, will not release the trigger if the magazine is not locked into place. This is a very good safety feature, especially for beginning pistoleers.

Nonetheless, remember: to clear a semi-auto pistol:

1. Drop the magazine first. Remove it completely from the gun.
2. Cycle the slide action completely to eject a round that may be loaded in the breach, then visually examine the breach to make sure the round ejected.
3. Release the slide.
4. Before pulling the trigger, make sure there is nothing in the way, including at very long distances, that you don't want to shoot.

A wise shooting instructor told me long ago, "Guns are safe only as long as you remember that they are dangerous."