We knew the F-22 has a mysterious problem that causes breathing problems in pilots. Well, the plot is now thickening. It seems that ground crews are having hypoxia-like symptoms too and, of course, we don’t have a clue about what’s causing this.
Dammit science. For all the good you do, you can be a real Debbie Downer sometimes. We like it when you cure diseases and invent awesome new materials like silicene, but when you take away the mighty roar of a jet fighter, that’s when you’ve gone too far.
As problematic as the F-35 Lightning II has been so far, this aeroplane can look mighty amazing. Look at this F-35B going all afterburny in a flight test at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. That transonic flow looks great. [Lockheed Martin]
Boeing’s Sonic Cruiser began its life almost a decade ago. At the end, its super-awesome supersonic design was replaced by the 787 Dreamliner’s super-boring super-quiet and super-efficient blueprint, which started construction in 2007. Many thought the project was cancelled, but apparently a secret team of Boeing engineers is still working on it.
This isn’t exactly a grand gesture of confidence: some of the US Air Force’s airmen, the world’s most elite, want nothing to do with the Air Force’s “elite” new fighter. Why? Because the only people it’s threatening are its own pilots.
When a plane crashes in an accident, there’s no shortage of photos and video of the wreckage, while footage of the actual impact is rare. So to appease our morbid curiosity of what really happens when a large airliner crashes, the Discovery Channel deliberately downed a 727 in the desert for an upcoming show.
A company called Vertical Power has created a GPS-based co-pilot for smaller private planes that’s constantly worried about the worst-case-scenario when flying. But that’s a good thing, since in the event of an emergency like an engine failure, it already knows the nearest and safest place to land.
Air companies and crews insist that using mobile phones can interfere with commercial aeroplane instrumentation. This is complete bulls**t. We have talked about this in the past and we even gave you advice about how to avoid their stupidity. This video is the definitive roundup on why this is dumb, dumb, dumb. DUMB.
