One of the things we talk about in the new issue of MAKE, in my “Remote Control State of the Art” piece, is foamies, R/C planes made out of foam building material, often carved from blueboard insulation foam. They have getting started info, videos of foamies in action, project articles, and they even sell plans […]
Shown above is a video of the Dragonfly DF1, an experimental aircraft under development by Swisscopter US. Instead of a traditional gasoline engine, the Dragonfly has peroxide-powered rocket engines on the tips of its main blades, with a mechanical take-off to drive the tail-rotor. Large tanks of high-test peroxide supposedly provide 50 minutes of flight at 40 mph.
According to a piece on GOOD: A New Zealand outfit called Martin Aircraft Company is going to start selling commercial jetpacks for about $75,000. They’re 200-horsepower dual-propeller packs that can “reach heights of up to 2,400 metres and top speeds of 60mph” and don’t require a pilot’s license. Look for pill food and robot butlers […]
It looks dangerous and is, reportedly, incredibly expensive, but there is no denying the near-maximal awesome factor of the Jetlev Flyer. Power comes from a four-stroke engine in a small “boat” which drags in the water behind/below the flying harness, and to which it is tethered by a big yellow hose that supplies high-pressure water and prevents the operator from exceeding a safe altitude. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]
Fra Fondi, of Hobby Media, writes: To celebrate the anime “Sora no Otoshimono,” which depicted hundreds of girl’s panties flying like birds, the Japanese company Questioners has produced a series of rubber-band powered Panty Ornithopters. On march 6th these flying pants will be liberated in the skyes of Akihabara during the model rocketry event “Sorafes” […]
While doing research for the next issue of MAKE, I discovered this small company, Centeye, right here in my own Northern, VA backyard. They’re developing vision chips for autonomous robotic aircraft. They have several videos on their site, showing various types of tests. Unfortunately, the videos are in WMV format only, and not on YouTube. […]
We’ve covered George Katz and his water rocket projects here in the past. In this recent video, he shows testing of a lightweight in-line parachute deployment rig, as well as some additional footage of the group’s most recent launch day. In-line Deployment Mechanism More: Awesome DIY water rockets with drop-away boosters In the Maker Shed: […]
