Wearable Aviation

Ever had a dream where you flew without a craft?  You felt free and liberated.  You could go anywhere.  Well, that's been the dream of humans since history began.  What if you could capture that feeling?  Well, today there are several who are trying with some technology you wear.

 There's an ex-airline pilot by the name of Yves Rossy.  He calls himself  'Jetman' and his technology comprises of a set of wings and mini-turbofan engines.  With that he flies like a bird.  When he puts on the wings and engines, his body become part of the whole flying craft.  Leaning his body up down left right, is part of how he controls the flight.  He is like a bird.


Yves Rossy on TED



Martin Jetpack

Remember the Jetpack?   It's technically called the Rocket Belt.  It's used in various public events such as the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.  It inspires the mind and causes us to think how wonderful such a flight could be.  You just strap it on and you fly up and around buildings above the tree tops.  WOW!  Unfortunately it only lasts for less than a minute.  It is indeed rocket technology.  Now, there's a company out there taking the idea of the Rocket Belt and redesigning it for longer flights.  It's called the Martin Jetack.  It seems to work like the Rocket Belt, but its bigger and does not use rockets.  Instead, it uses an engine that powers two ducted fans.  The design is impressive.  I particularly like the control fins way down low in the path of the ducked fans' thrust.  It's absolutely amazing.  You should really check out their website here and see their progress.  Especially check out the videos.  I really get inspired and a tingle up my spine when I see this thing fly.  How could you not?  Ok, yes, jetpacking is a dream that many have dreamed for a long, long time.  Watch the Rocketeer and it has reference to the time period people dreamed of this.  It has some really good actors in there, especially Jennifer Connelly.  But I digressed.  Yeah, this flying free is really cool.  Now an off shoot of this is a water jetpack called the Jetlev-Flyer.  It makes jetpacking a water sport.  It's quite an ingenious and fun application of the jetpack tech.  I takes the same configuration as the Rocket Belt.  I've also seen a video of an adaptation of it that takes the configuration similar to that of Iron Man.  It has main thruster on the feet and stabilizing thrusters on the arms.  Really Cool!

ITN News



Now let's go high, really high.  In fact, let's go out of this world high, literally.  The EVA Suit (extra vehicular activity suit) is now commonly used outside of the ISS (international space station).  The NASA EVA suits come with a jetpack just incase astronauts and cosmonauts get unattached to the ISS.  This gives them the ability to cruise around in orbit.  Astronauts have often described EVA suits as your own personal space craft.  You have water, heating, cooling, oxygen, air pressure, and toilet capabilities.  Hey, those guys are in those things for 8 hours at a time you got to put the stuff somewhere. These things are truly amazing.  They allow you to experience space as much as possible without dying.  But when did they first test these things?  If you think it was during Apollo, your wrong.  If you think it was during Gemini, your wrong.  If you think it was during Mercury, your wrong.  Nope, it was before all of them that these things were tested.  One of the most extreme tests was done at the edges of space in Project Excelsior.  No, it was not a transwarp drive test run, like trekkies would like to believe.  Instead it was a test of the EVA suits by means of a balloon to the height of almost 103,000 feet.  The individual had to jump off the balloon at that altitude and parachute down.  GULP!  That's a huge height.  Scardicats need not apply.   The man of the hour was Col. Joe Kittenger.  WOW!  Pilots often say, 'Why jump out of a perfectly good craft?'  For years Kittenger remained the highest parachute jump by a man.  Now, that record is being challenged, and Kittenger is helping with the project.  The Project is called Red Bull Stratos.

Look Out Below

Red Bull Stratos is an ambitious project to not only break records but to test a new EVA suit.  I think it might be a suit for commercial astronauts though I have not read anything to that effect, I just have a hunch.  Just think, you get up in the morning, got to work, put on a suit and a helmet and gloves, climb into this godola that's attached to a balloon that takes you over 100,000 feet from tierra firma.  You get up, unhook and JUMP!  Oh man!  I can feel it, but what kind of crazy person you have to be to do that?  If your such a crazy person, more power to ya.  Ok, so they found someone to do this jump and his name is Felix Baumgartner.  This is an impressive guy in his own right without this feat.  I think the big jump will take him to new heights.  I can only imagine that more people would want to experience such a jump and perhaps a new space tourism market will be born.  This is really mind boggling.  You see Earth far below.  You see the curvature of the planet, above you is the black sky of space, and there is barely any air around you at all.  Your space suit is what is keeping you alive with oxygen.  Good thing it had some facilities built in it, cause you going to use those when you see the view.  Amazing.  Absolutely, amazing.

 

Well, how to you like that?  From fun to extremely dangerous, we've looked at some of today's or tomorrow's wearable aviation.  What would you give to try one right now?  I would do it in a heartbeat.  The I'll be reminded that I'm scared of heights.  The notion of putting on something that makes you superhuman like a super hero is amazing.  To experience freedom of movement from a extremely personal view is awe inspiring.  To make dreams into reality is what this tech is all about.  You can do it, but you have to know science and math to do it as well as having big dreams.  Cheers.

Flying Cars

Flying cars have been the fancy of many over the years.  This concept is to make flying vehicles road worthy and thus able to take home an put it in your garage, assuming you just don't store junk in the garage but actually use it for vehicles (yeah right).  Robert Fulton debuted the Airphibian in 1946, and Moulton Taylor improved on Fulton's design with the Aerocar in 1949.  It was just after the war and Americans were getting out on the road traveling, even in campers.  The Aerocar towed its wings, tail and propeller as a trailer behind the car portion.  This idea was reinvigorated for a short time in 1980's with the use of a Honda CRX by Taylor.  This was an attempt at taking a production car and adding a wing and tail kit that was towed and then put together to fly.  I loved this idea.  I was a teen in the 1980's and to compound the fantasy of driving and flying, the movie Back To The Future came out.  Its last scene had the star car lift and fly into the future.  The Airphibian and the Aerocar were aircraft that could be driven on the road.  A car weigh approximately 2000 lbs without wings.  A Cessna 350 weighs similar but with wings.  It would seem a difficult task to merge these two techs whichever way you cut it.  Well, now there is a new flying car effort underway.  Let's look at 3 promising examples that have actually flown in prototype.

Terrafugia is a company that created another roadable aircraft but this one has folding wings and only with a push of a button it transforms from a road vehicle to an air vehicle.  The Aerocar required some manual setup for the same conversion.  Yes, it looks like the love child of a small propeller plane and family size car.  Strange to look at and probably strange to drive too.  It's longer than a common car and taller with the wings folded.  I assume you need to drive it with the care for spaces as you do a truck.  On the Terrafugia website, the expected price is about $279,000.00.  YIKES! Getting a space ticket with Virgin Galactic is cheaper than that.  Don't scratch the paint.  On the plus side it could increase you commute range to work.

Maverick is an off road vehicle in more ways than one.  Sure, it's roadable, but some people want to go where there are no roads and want to cross over a gorge or a river valley with less difficulty.  If your such a person, then this vehicle is for you.  It uses parasail tech and a unique deployment system to chance from road machine to flying machine.  It's not all that fast in flight, just about 40 mph.  It is light and fast on the ground.  It's the only off road flying car I know about.  Maybe in the future there will be more.

PAL-V ONE is a European flying car.  Well, car might be stretching it.  It is enclosed, but it drives like a motorcycle by leaning into the curvy roads.  If you feel like its missing a wheel, don't.  It has 3 wheels, one in the front and two in the back.  It seats two, but in tandem.  It's flying technique is that of an autogyro.  What's an autogyro?  Well, it was the predecessor to the helicopter.  Its a rotary wing aircraft that has a pusher propeller and is a short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft.  It seems pretty nice and seems to be pretty cool.  It has some interesting fold up features with the propeller and the mast for the rotors.  Yet, it does require setup time for the change from road warrior to angel flight.  As a STOL craft, it doesn't require a full runway, but a short space to take off.  Modern autogyros have a powered rotation system to start the rotors and can literally jump in the air from a stand still and fly.  I don't see that capability here, yet it must have some powered rotation system otherwise you have to start the rotors by hand.  It's cool and good looking, but did the Dutch get it right?  Not many people are attracted to an autogyro, but I am.  I like the STOL feature, and the enclosed driving and flying experience.  You have to wonder what the maintenance expense would be like.  The autogyro setup is much less expensive to maintain than a helicopter, but that's not really saying much.  As a custom and unique vehicle I expect maintenance to be pricey.

There you have it, 3 very different flying cars to choose from: Terrafugia with a car-plane combo, Mavrick with a off road car-paraglider combo, or PAL-V with a enclosed trike-autogyro combo.  Whatever you choose there's one thing you should take notice of and that thing is power lines.  Yeah, well, you know.  Got to be safe and all that.  Being zapped by upteenthousand volts tens of feet in the air isn't that nice.  Our society just isn't set up for flying cars.  I mean each of these need a road license and a flight license.  Then the driver need a driving license and a pilot's license.  On the positive side the FAA is licensing these as Light Sport Aircraft.  So perhaps there is some wind in their wings after all.

A New Rotary Wing Class

In 2005 the Bell Boeing Osprey went into service with the United States Marine Corps.  It was the first operational tiltrotor aircraft.  No, it was not the first attempt at taking VTOL beyond the helicopter, but it is enjoying more success than some other concepts.  Now, some new concepts are in research that are made to give tiltrotor competition.  The ideas behind all these concepts are longer range and faster speeds while still allowing for vertical takeoffs and landings.  Let's look at a couple of older concepts and then look at the newer ones.


Tiltwing aircraft was tried in the late 1950's.  It was an interesting concept and it wettened the US, Canada, and Unite Kingdom's militaries on the idea of a VTOL transport that had longer range than helicopters.  The idea was that the main wing tilted from a horizontal position to a vertical position, thus also tilting the engines and propellers.  You could say that it was the predecessor of the tiltrotor.  I always liked this concept and thought that it had potential.  Apparently so did a lot of other folk.

The slowed rotor concept was also an interesting concept.  The idea was that a aircraft with a helicopter like rotors and wings and engines of a plane could take off vertically slow the rotor to reduce drag and increase range and speed for cruising and then land vertically.  Actually the concept employed techniques of the autogyro for going from lift from the rotor to lift from the main wing. Before and after the second world war, aircraft companies ventured in this concept.  The Fairey Rotodyne enjoyed some success, such as creating a world record in speed for the convertiplane (converting form helicoptery type to airplane type) category.  It even had buyers before it was cancelled.  McDonnell XV-1 was also an attempt at this concept.

Since the 80's Boeing has been trying its stopped rotor aircraft concept.  They now call it the Canard Rotor/Wing.  Like the slow rotor concept, the craft has wings, forward propulsion, and a main rotor.  In this case they stop the main rotor and use it as a wing for cruise flight.  The rotor is also used for vertical take offs and landings.  I remember that they had trials in the 80's using a unique aircraft.  The idea is tantalizing   You can imagine a military fighter aircraft taking off vertically and landing vertically but flying with great precision and acrobatics.  This concept promises to be less fuel intensive than the Harrier jump jet.  Right now Boeing is marketing it as an unmanned aerial vehicle, but it was fully intended to have a pilot form the beginning.

Now, let's look at some conventional concepts.

Jay Carter has a small company called Carter Aviation Technologies.  It's a aerospace research company that gives out licenses to production companies.  Remember how the slowed rotor aircraft concept had some issues?  Well it had a barrier.  You can think of it akin to the sound barrier.  This barrier is a little harder to grasp.  You see in theory if you slowed down the main rotor, it produces less drag.  It also produces less lift.  So you have the main wings to provide that lift provided your going fast  enough.  The problem is that in that transition the rotor blades become unstable and can cause the craft to loose control.  Jay Carter broke that barrier, and has a great document on this achievement in his website.  It's called Mu-1.  The result is that Carter Aviation Technologies has a slowed rotor aircraft design that is stable and works well.  This is an important breakthrough in aviation.  To think a small company solved a problem that big companies abandoned decades ago is a mighty feat.  Carter Aviation Technologies has made a prototype aircraft they are calling the PAV that seats 4 people.

Sikorsky developed what we know as the helicopter concept.  In this new effort for range and speed, they don't want to be outdone.  They developed a concept that is very different than tiltrotor or slowed rotor.  They call it Sikorsky X2.  It's interesting because it's a real helicopter.  It has counter rotating main rotor and a pusher propeller.  The idea is that the counter rotating main rotor will provide stability where a normal single rotor would not at high speeds.  They seem to have put in many technologies to create this concept.  I've read where they want to sell it to the Military to provide support for the MV-22 Osprey during operations.  You see conventional attack helicopters can't keep up with the Osprey in flight.  Generals seem to still be learning how to employ the tiltrotor in combat.  I fear that the X2 may use a lot of fuel, after all it's just using muscle to overcome obstacles.

There you have it.  A variation of technologies to make VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft faster and with longer range than the helicopter.  We will see what happens in the future.  Chances are that more than one concept will prevail.  Incidently, if you think that tiltrotor is only for the military, think again.  The Agustawestland AW609 is marketed for the business class aircraft.

Aviation in St Louis

St Louis is a relatively small metropolis compared to New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Fransisco.  Even so, it has boasted of strong financial institutions in the past and today still has a good foothold in the financial market.  It was financial investors in St Louis who lent her name to a plane that became legendary, the Spirit of St Louis (see Spirit of St Louis at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC).  Charles Lindburg flew this plane over the Atlantic Ocean non-stop for the first time and thus winning the Orteig Prize and opening up commercial aviation between the United States and Europe.  In fact, St Louis has some things to offer where it comes to aviation.

Aircraft manufacturing is headed by the Boeing Company.  They build F-18s and F15s.  This plant was the McDonnell plant back in the Apollo era and made the Mercury and Gemini capsules.  One of each is at the St Louis Science Center on display.

Lambert Airport provides commercial flights all over the country and surrounding countries.  Spirit of St Louis Airport sports charter plane companies as well as two flight schools (one for planes and one for helicopters).  It also has facilities for private aircraft.

Every year there is a hot air balloon race in Forest Park.  It features a night of 'balloon glow' which is when they inflate and light up the balloons for a 'breath taking view'.  The next day, the balloons take off to the skies and race.

Finally there is also an aeronautical school in the area.  St Louis Aeronautical Institute is part of the St Louis Community College.  It provides courses in manufacturing aircraft that go to an Associates Degree in Skilled Trade Industrial Occupations Technology.

One key note to say, the Ansari X Prize that gave the competition and prize money for the first commercial company to make a space ship that would go to space suborbitaly twice in two weeks and lead to the success of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and thereby Virgin Galactic, was based in the St Louis Science center at the time of the prize award in 2004.

Well, this should give you a good idea what is out there in the aeronautical world in St Louis Metropolitan Area.  Aeronautics is a big world.  If you choose an occupation in it, there's a good chance you will travel to other places.  St Louis has a history in aeronautics and it also has a present.  I wish it had a continued stake in the new commercial space race.