Litespeed

As used in the movie, Flight of the Phoenix.

What a beautiful aircraft. Such a loss of a wonderful machine

Unless it's built of special high temp epoxies resins and then post cured by a oven, the answer is ... No. Sadly you need a very high reflection level from infrared and UV to stop the resin softening with heat. A hot day and a +4G aircraft can become 1-2G and due to heat soak the spar will still be soft until at height for extended periods. It tends to be only the very expensive prepreg carbon machines from Europe which are oven baked that can take the lovely darker paint and not suffer. You can get away with some colour decals on the vertical sides or cowl but anything else is suspect. If Jabiru say No, then it's No. That also goes for the undersides of a wing, a dark underwing will soak heat esp from a hot concrete or worse tarmac surface. Is it possible to do a ultra high reflectivity silver? Probably but the risk is yours. I personally love shiny silver. If you want to go that way then test modules for heat transmission would be needed to see the effect of the paint. Not all paints are equal.

Careful Some skyhooks are better than others. Just ask Shirl and his chopper.

Great in concept, I have often watched Kestrels up close gliding on a cliff into the airstream to hunt. They can stay in the same spot gliding into the wind even with gusting. Even getting the idea to work at drone scales seems hard, advantages will greatly depend mission profile. Changing the shape of a wing in area will still require strong fast servos and be complex for mechanisms. Essentially you need to change the wing area to provide for a higher wing loading penetration into rough air. This for a bird means folding the wings in a not just changing angle of the wing but greatly reduces the area. A blended wing body with variable retractable or folding tips would seem the answer. Retractable would reduce drag but folding tips would be more stable. It's all going to be mission profile dependant. A drone can anything from a party killer for a tank hatch or a high speed winged missile.

This idea of been stuck til next year seems plausible but extreme. It was even on the BBC World service with interviews from expert insiders. The capsule is a nightmare design and full of questionable design and quality. More a upgraded 60s design with high tech. In typical Boeing style the fails are much more than stated. As per the 737 max, safety was a cost option, esp given it was a fixed price contract. The tests done in the capsule naturally included the ability to launch, dock , undock and safely land via parachute. All automatically via programs. As you would expect. Alas, the mods done for the crewed flight somehow involved those auto systems programs ability had been partially removed for expense/ stupidity, it may have been just a new version of programming for the crewed flights but it somehow is not able to fully Auto return. They are now rushing to try and reprogram for the capsule to be able to undock and fly home without crew for safety. So it's considered unsafe for uncrewed return, at this stage. Apparently they either -fix it for safe crewed flight return, which is seemingly a tough task in space with no spare parts and still programming problems are a thing. - get a lift in the next Dragon, which will need to leave two seats spare for the crew return. That means the Boeing capsule must Auto return or at least undock for the gate to be available for the next Dragon flight. Apparently they will even need new suits for the Boeing crew as they are not compatible with Dragon. It seems like the typical litany of fuckups Boeing style. At least NASA are on the job or Boeing would just hit the launch button and safety be damned. I do take many reports with a big dose of scepticism but it seems to have some legs given Boeing's track record on this program. Meanwhile NASA are very pissed and have to find a use for two unexpected long term guests which use valuable on board resources and a media disaster. From here on terra firma is seems a good laugh, but I am sure those Astronauts are not happy about getting in the capsule again.

The first two are good. The last is downright scary. Fortunately at this time that video is a fake and no such systems are currently available. My robotics engineering son and I discussed this exact thing over ten years ago and decided not to proceed as it would be evil and open to mass murder. But it is a indicator of the possible, esp in China where constant surveillance and face recognition is a thing. Fortunately for us, my son and I are not evil. He promised never to make killing machines and we are much safer. Sadly lots of smart bad people exist.

Because it's the driest place on earth, for available moisture. No moisture available to ice up from the pressure drop due to the Venturi effect. Where's the free 🍺

Bit of history. This guy is a Swedish 737 Captain.

It's called ETOPS. Which stands for.....Engine Turns Or Passengers Swim. 😶‍🌫️

The unsprung weight is a issue, but with development and the use of full electro magnetic suspension instead of normal strut/ spring plus suspension arms and current heavy hub/ disc, caliper setup etc it might come out not having a significantly higher number. It won't be for full sports cars but has quite a bit of potential. Various evolutions of the idea will take hold.

I am definitely on the pilots side. How deaf and blind would you have to be. It's not like the beaver is a quite aircraft in any way. Nor is it easy to miss it in your vision. As someone who lives on water, the master/captain/ imbecile driving that boat is incredibly lucky and completely without excuse. You are responsible for 360 degrees around you ,not just straight ahead. Just hope they were drunk and get charged appropriately. Poor pilot and passengers.

Definately water cooled, so smaller openings needed than air-cooled. It should be a great engine/ drive combo esp at the price. A dedicated water cooled engine and derated compared to potential power. At a converted mower engine price. Love it

That Aero marine engine looks a great idea. Pretty cheap and should prove reliable and sip fuel.

So how are the Jabiru prices going? Should be relatively far cheaper than the inflated imports.

Yes , I do remember. But as you said a Angle of attack indicator is essential, as is knowledge of the aircraft feel to get that seat of the pants ability. Remember this was a instruction flight and instruments were inoperable, so I deduce the AofA was also inoperable. I will assume an instruction flight means the pilot is either learning or getting current. Either way it should not happen. We should never encourage no instruments been operable and still taking off regardless, it's a very bad example for a instructor to allow. If the instructor said " the instruments work, but we will fly as if they fail in flight ( cover with post-it notes) and see how you fly using the your learned skills " that is different. I am not having a go at the pilot or glider flying but the attitude of the instructor and how that flows into the skills and attitudes of a training pilot.

Given its an instruction flight, how can you guys not think this is dodgy as fuck... Sure fly by the seat of pants works, but how many crashes are stall related? Most of them. The instructor is dodgy and I would never fly instrument free, esp in a aircraft you don't have heaps of hours on. Instrument failure in flight , sure fly by pants, but otherwise it's a dumb way to die. Sure it's a glider but gliders still follow physics and will kill real quick if you stall.

Did the stall warning operate? No instruments sounds bloody dodgy. Would you fly a powered aircraft with none operating? Sounds like a instructor seeking death, don't be anywhere near her.

At least the heater might work in the cabin up front. A bonus as you plummet from the sky because the pilot froze to death mid flight after suffering hypoxia. A 19,300 ft service ceiling?

That would really sick to be the pilot. All weather, night and day? Did the designer hate pilots?

Thanks for the info Skippy. I hope his family health improves, it can be a huge burden, I wish him and his family the best.

Just buy a quality open face helmet, no better protection and a fine field of view And never ever strap a camera to it. Not helmets are made the same. How much is your brain worth?

The ST 1100 are great tourers but very heavy. The V4 is a smoothy but very heavy to convert for a aircraft.

Wow, a HP 2 dirt squirt. A hyperbike for the road/dirt. Amazing machine and peerless. Pity you sold it.

Yep older riders are hugely at risk when returning to the bike world. It's not just rusty skills but the roads are far busier and the bikes are hugely different. 100 HP in the 80's was a superbike. A old CB750 was 70hp, came with a hinge in the middle and part time brakes. And we road them to suit. I used to have a 1975 CB 750 F1. Now a modern bike, even a "slow" BMW twin is 120hp and only 220 kg wet and has brakes and handling light years ahead of anything the old rider has experienced. A fast one is 180hp and less than 180kg, ie over 1:1 power ratio not the old 4:1 of the Rhonda the Honda. You can even get a BMW that is too light to race and must add ballast to make 165kg to compete. If you see a bike wreckers you will notice quite a lot of new hyperbikes with a dent in the top of the tank and broken screen. How? The silly bugger does a wheelie and flips the bike at speed- they rarely survive. A hyperbike can mono in most gears purely from more throttle. Many new bikes actually restrict full power in the lower gears to stop it flipping. The old Rhonda in a dream monoed in 1st, and only got the wheel up a little, not vertical. Mind you, a lot of the dead old riders are on cruisers ie. Harleys which come with bugger all cornering ability nor brakes. They are very easy to approach a corner too quickly and run wide as they run out of clearance and scrape. Another factor is dickheads who ride in close formations this means they can't easily see the proper corner line nor be on the correct position. Also they are too close to each other for even one to swerve around a pothole, hence they bring down the other riders with them. This is quite common and stupid in the extreme. In the USA such rides killed over 6 riders purely from one swerving. A recent one here killed one and disabled three riders. Maybe a compulsory rider course for anyone who registers a bike after not owing one for five years would be a good idea. For most returning riders it's like flying a Drifter years ago and jumping into a Turboprop with no training requirements or currency. I've road ridden for 38 years but know when I am rusty and practice my skills. Most forget anyone can ride fast in a strait line, but real skills are practicing very slow tight laps around witches cones- that generates real balance and control skills. If you can't do a very tight 180 turnaround in a car length, you need to improve your skills. Those skills are bike irrelevant, even a full dress Harley can do it if you have proper riding skills.