A good pair of in-ear phones: It’s impossible to overstate how valuable these are. Not only do they sound better than your stock earbuds, they dull the chorus of engine sounds, snores, baby cries and not-as-subtle-as-your-seatmate-thinks bean farts nearly as well as those Bose noise-cancelling phones some airlines hand out in first class. Look for the sound-isolating ones.

An iPod Touch: Yeah, I know, another iPod recommendation. Seriously though, perfect travel gadget: Video and music (and podcasts, sweet podcasts!) are travel must-haves, and games are a massive bonus. But what about apps to keep you busy or productive? White noise machines to put you to sleep? Internet access on the off chance your plane has free Wi-Fi? They’re From $268 at the Apple Store.

Timbuk2 Commute 2.0: It’s a solid gear bag, with more than enough space for a laptop, DSLR, various accessories and a phone or two, and it’s TSA compliant, meaning you can leave your laptop halfway inside your bag through airport security for a slightly less terrible experience. A medium-sized one retails for about $US100.

Some juice: Almost every gadget charges by USB nowadays, a habit that the Duracell Instant Charger will happily oblige. It’s most useful as an emergency phone charger, though it’ll work for almost anything. Officeworks sells them for $35.98.

If your travelling giftee is a Man of the World, consider the Kensington International USB Adaptor ($59.95). Here’s the theory: said traveller can plug almost whatever he wants into almost any wall socket, and charge his Duracell portable battery at the same time. MAXIMUM ELECTRICITY!

A stupid neck doughnut pillow: Because they’re awesome and anybody who says they
aren’t hasn’t slept on an airline cushion for eight hours. Plus, they’re cheap and easily found in any shopping centre.

Tethering: It’s a bit nerdy, and you might have some reservations about fiddling with someone else’s phone so much, especially given how sensitive carriers can be to this kind of thing, but if your traveller is aware of the risks, tethering is a wonderful gift. And not just wired or Bluetooth tethering – I’m talking Wi-Fi tethering, MiFi style (and without the extra contract, which would be a terrible gift). For the iPhone, this means a jailbreak. For Android, rooting. For Palm, enabling homebrew. For Windows Mobile, well, it may just be an app download. It can save money and headaches in hotels or airports with paid Wi-Fi, and it’ll be endearingly nerdy. Free!

Those laptop privacy shields: People will think you’re looking at porn if you’re using one of these, no matter how nice your suit is. Avoid, unless your traveller actually wants to look at porn.

Methanol cell chargers: They’re too expensive to recommend now, and it’s difficult to explain to customs how exactly they aren’t a dangerous explosive device. Why don’t you carry a normal battery like a non-scary human? Hmm?

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favourite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We’ll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

Now, we can make light of this incident because all 117 passengers and crew walked away from the crash largely unharmed. The only real casualty was the captain’s ego, although I think he’s probably the talk of the terminal this morning. I mean come on – lava!

And check out this crazy quote from MSNBC:

The plane was flying from Kinshasa to Goma, and passengers had warned the crew that there were heavy clouds, Radio Okapi said.

Since when did passengers start doing in-flight risk assessments for the crew? [MSNBC via Geekologie]

This is the Shinshin ATD-X, the prototype of what could be Japan’s very own stealth fighter if they don’t get to buy Lockheed Martin F-22s. It’s very sleek, but I’m sad it doesn’t transform like a Varitech.

The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it’s not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling — it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say — and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]

That’s right, a passenger joyriding over South Africa with an experienced Silver Falcons air display team pilot steadied himself during an aerobatic manoeuvre by grabbing the ejection seat handle between his legs. Fortunately for him, ejection seats are fairly idiot proof — the chute opens automatically and he glided back to Earth unharmed. [Telegraph Image via Flickr]

This is Lockheed Martin’s Sabre Warrior, a next-generation plane that looks like something Batman and Darth Vader would fight over for. Instead, some good-turned-evil computer will get a fleet, as part of a plan to destroy us all. It’s impressive.

The Sabre Warrior drone is 14m long, with an 11m wingspan, capable of taking off with 13,600kg of load using a 10,000kg thrust afterburning turbofan engine. It has two modular payload sections, which can be changed by soldiers in the field. Each bay can handle one 900kg or two AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles or 10 smart bombs or sensors, or even fuel for extended range missions — even while this thing is air refuelable.

Its twin nose can also hold multiple sensors, which are interchangeable. And it is designed so there could be a version with a cockpit, so they can send man version as an on-the-scene controller, overlooking over the unmanned versions.

Ah Lockheed Martin’s SkunkWorks, always working on making all our nightmares real, you nutty engineers who don’t watch apocalyptical movies you. OK people, we may as well burn the office and run to the hills now. [Defense Tech]

When you transmit information through turbulence—motion in the atmosphere caused by turbulent cells or “wind”—it’s distorted just like the information coming from the light reflected off a distant, twinkling star to your eye. It’s fuzzy. You have to overcome that by using adaptive optics to rectify the distortion and get a better quality signal.

That’s what Dr David Hughes, from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, says. He claims that the technology has been tested successfully with both stationary and flying situations, which means that they can easily implement it in the battlefield, with not too much effort. [The Register]

Now, the FAA says the airlines need approval from the FAA’s hazardous materials division, and has asked them not to store spare lithium ion batteries for the readers on planes. A few airlines went through some special training to get the OK, but at least Delta and JetBlue don’t carry spares or charge the readers on board at all.

The current rate for gadgets exploding on planes is about one every four months, says a former NTSB dude. Which isn’t so bad, considering there are millions of flights happening in that time period. Still, I have the feeling this xkcd comic is going to stay funny for the reasons it’s funny now for like another year, max. [NYT]

Anthony began his obsession with Pan Am as a child when he and his parents frequently flew to Europe to visit family. Pan Am’s service seems decadent and almost silly today, when Southwest and JetBlue achieve success with a budget mentality, but to Anthony, Pan Am was the epitome of class and style.

Pan Am was once synonymous with international jet-setting, with upper-deck dining rooms and flight attendants decked out in crisp blue uniforms, high heels and white gloves. First-class travelers were served out of silver-plated martini pitchers. A parade of linen-covered food carts made its way down the aisle at dinnertime.

Anthony saved things like the cardboard linings on food trays, and recorded his trips with multiple rolls of film and extensive tape recordings of the radio selection on board. “This consumed my world,” said Tosh. As an adult, he works for United Airlines, and two years ago bought a home with an oversized garage in which he could build a faithful replica of Pan Am’s first-class cabin. The project has taken him, in total, 20 years.

Construction required multiple visits out to a spot in Death Valley where aeroplane carcasses are dumped, but the details of his project are unnervingly precise: The replica isn’t open to the public, but if you visit (Tosh hosts executive meetings sometimes, appropriately enough), you’ll be offered drink service and given a perfectly-crafted souvenir boarding pass designed to match those used by the airline in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He’s got authentic Pan Am swizzle sticks and glasses. The overhead compartments are original Pan Am construction. Hell, he’s even got sealed packages of salted almonds (we have no evidence regarding the taste of 30-year-old almonds, but they’re probably not for eating anyway).

The one concession he’s made to the modern age? A flat-screen TV in place of the old-school projection Pan Am used. Everything else (save the stewardesses) is either original Pan Am or a custom-made replica. He’s hoping to open his obsessive ode to Pan Am as a museum, but he seems perfectly content to just hang out in first class. [WSJ, images also WSJ]