CW: Ends in despair.
French aviation pioneer Alphonse Pénaud designed this, with engineer Paul Gauchot, as an aeroplane that could land on water or on land. That was quite an ambition in … Read the rest “Science Art: Pénaud’s first sketch of an amphibian aeroplane, 1873”
This looks like a heraldic emblem to me, but it’s not. It’s also not merely an abstract diagram of circular forces, though that’s a little closer. It’s a schematic… Read the rest “Science Art: Scheme of quadrocopter impellent (X and H configuration), by Ulrich Heither”
Endgadget (yes, I know) enthuses over the Toyota-backed SkyDrive flying car, tested with a pilot at a Toyota facility:
… Read the rest “Flying taxi by Toyota”The SD-03 is billed as the smallest electric VTOL (vertical take-off
Click to embiggen
This illustration, by Erik Nitsche and Roslyn Welcher, is from a book by CBF Macauley that claims to be “the first complete work ever dedicated to the subject of helicopters.”… Read the rest “Science Art: From The Helicopters Are Coming, 1944.”
NASA, for a while, was looking at different ways an aircraft’s body could be used to generate lift, rather than having wings sort of stuck on the fuselage after the… Read the rest “Science Art: Hybrid Wing Body, NASA, 2013”
This airship is a kind of ancestor of the blimp or dirigible, designed by 19th-century American artist and inventor Rufus Porter, who’s perhaps best remembered today not for his … Read the rest “Science Art: Rufus Porter’s “Travelling Balloon,” later renamed the “aeroport,” from Mechanics magazine, Nov. 8, 1834”
This might be the greatest contribution gardening ever made to space travel.
In the middle of World War II, engineers were trying to figure out how to make pressurized suits… Read the rest “Science Art: The Goodrich XH-5 Tomato-Worm Suit”
Popular Science introduces us to “The Plimp,” a vehicle that hopes to be a nearly unsinkable aircraft:
… Read the rest “Half-blimp, half-plane flying machine built with safety in mind.”With a rigid, winged body held underneath a massive helium-containing
The European Space Agency has a way with names. This is in their image library as “Engine.”
The description offers little more detail: The ducted fan engine… Read the rest “Science Art: Engine, by ESA”
Click to embiggen
“Internal view of a Pratt & Whitney J58 afterburner and exhaust nozzle.”
Found on Wikimedia Commons.
This might look like a jet plane’s engine, but it’s really a thing to test jet planes – supersonic ones. It’s a really big fan (with wooden blades!)… Read the rest “Science Art: 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel, 1990”
Popular Science looks at the the backyard engineering that goes into an effective homemade military drone:
… Read the rest “So ISIS is using homemade drones. Here’s how they work.”To better understand ISIS drones, I spoke with an investigator at Conflict Armament
This is an image from this NASA eBook on high-flying fashions:
… Read the rest “Science Art: Dressing for Altitude, NASA.”Although space suits, which differ from pressure suits in subtle, but important ways, have been well covered
Reuters tells the story behind the one-time spy airship entering civilian service as “the flying bum”:
… Read the rest “The world’s most embarrassingly shaped airship is debuting in England.”The Airlander 10, known in Britain as ‘the flying bum’
CityMetric takes a look at why the zeppelins went down in the end… and how one new system might bring them back
Today, the Van Wagner group, an airship organisation, estimates that … Read the rest “Again, airships. With a little difference.”
Copyright © 2026 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes
Click to embiggen
