Transportation

Backpedaling, but in a good way…

Backpedaling, but in a good way…

MAKE subscriber Steve Hoefer sent us a link to this fascinating piece on retro-direct drives for bikes. Not really sure how practical it is, but the engineering is interesting. And, it’s probably a great way to work different leg muscles. What’s a retro-direct bike? At the beginning of the 20th century, although derailleurs and geared […]

Wanna fly a SR-71 Blackbird? RTFM.

Wanna fly a SR-71 Blackbird? RTFM.

It’s the awesomest spy plane ever — the SR-71 set speed and altitude records, flying 85,000 feet in the air with a speed of 2,000 mph. Less importantly from a military standpoint, it was super cool looking. Alas, all things must come to an end and the Blackbird was decommissioned in 1998. On the bright […]

Hand-built Cuban refugee boat

Hand-built Cuban refugee boat

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, from user huebner5000. He quotes an unnamed source:

This Cuban chug arrived Wednesday, December 16th, 2009. The chug held 17 Cubans who are now legal U.S. citizens. The chug, we were told, left Cuba at 5am December 14th and landed at Dry Tortugas at 2am December 16th.

It’s all made from scrap metal and junk. The hull, reportedly, is flattened corrugated roofing material. There’s one more picture here.