Chad's News

In 1983, a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel at 40,000 feet. The pilots managed to glide it to a safe landing.

Link: http://www.teamdan.com/…
(via digg)

Link #2: http://en.wikipedia.org/…

Researchers for the Cambridge-MIT Institute’s ‘Silent’ Aircraft Initiative have developed a conceptual design for a “silent” aircraft, which will greatly alleviate airport noise. As an added bonus, the design will increase fuel efficiency by about 25%. Because the initiative has quite a few partners from the aircraft industry, I think we may actually see this plane developed at some point.

http://www.physorg.com/…

Details on how it works: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…
(via Neatormama)

Security researcher Christopher Soghoian, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, published a web application that would generate a realistic-looking Northwest Airlines boarding pass with information that you supply. He said it would probably be possible use the boarding pass to get past security, but that it most likely would not work for getting on the airplane itself. He also stated that he had never actually used the program to bypass security. The purpose was to expose a flaw in airport security and try to shame the TSA into doing something about it. Note that this flaw is not new and has previously been “exposed” multiple times—but Soghoian is the first one to openly publish a boarding pass generator on the web.

It turns out that what he did is illegal, and he got in trouble. First, a Congressman called for his arrest. Then he got a visit from the FBI, with an order to take down the site. Then he got another visit from the FBI, but this time they confiscated his computer equipment. As one slashdot user states in his signature: “Civil Disobedience, it’s not just a good idea, it’s illegal.”

Soghoian has a blog, slight paranoia, where posts the latest news about his situation. He’s also taking donations for his legal defense fund.

http://www.wired.com/…

http://www.consumerist.com/…

UPDATE: The charges have been dropped [link2] [link3] in this case. All is well.

UPDATE #2: Okay, all is not well. The Transportation Safety Administration has opened an investigation into the matter. They could levy a big fine, but not criminal charges.

This man traded 2 million frequent flier miles for an upcoming Virgin Galactic spaceflight in 2009.

http://www.upi.com/…
(via slashdot)

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).

http://www.wired.com/…
(via Engadget)

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.

http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

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.

http://money.cnn.com/…
(via Slashdot)

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.

http://www.youtube.com/…

This is pretty neat, although I don’t know the source of the video images (and can’t vouch for their authenticity).

http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/…

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 *****