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Home / News / Tags / flight
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These days, the radar-based air traffic network is very old and outdated, since it is a remnant of the one used in the Second World War. The way it is performed and applied causes a major waste of fuel, money and time, while also proving harmful for the environment because of the pollution generated by the unnecessar... |
10 October 2008
05:50 GMT |
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The recent discovery of the Microraptor gui species of dinosaur (translated as “Small thief” or “Small raider”) stands as further proof that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds. The fact that puzzled researchers was its being provided with two sets of wings, which is highly unusua... |
9 October 2008
10:00 GMT |
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Following the creation of DelFly I and II, researchers from TU Delft have now produced their tiniest Micro Air Vehicle to date, the DelFly Micro, weighing a mere three grams and capable of flying much in the same way as a dragonfly. The new MAV is flown by remote control, implies the help of a small camera and image ... |
24 July 2008
11:10 GMT |
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Man's desire to fly is known to have existed ever since the earliest recorded history. To fulfill his dream, man turned to nature and tried to copy the winged creatures, most of the times such attempts ending in disasters. We only have to look at today's flying machines to understand to that we have never r... |
7 July 2008
06:47 GMT |
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It's strange how strong the will to fly is in some of us who would do mostly anything to make our dreams come true. Just like this fellow American who, last Saturday, thought it was a good idea to tie 150 giant party balloons to a simple lawn chair and take to the skies. He was successful in his endeavor and, af... |
7 July 2008
02:50 GMT |
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You would think that with a reputation such as that of Tyrannosaurus rex even their youngsters would be at bay from predators. A new study now says that this was hardly the case, especially in the presence of flying reptiles such as Pterosaurs, a dinosaur living between 230 and 65 million years ago. Prior to the stu... |
29 May 2008
06:38 GMT |
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If the aircraft you're traveling in suddenly experiences some kind of damage while in mid flight, you're pretty much toast. Still, air travel is one of the safest means to get around. In theory airplanes could become even safer if they were built out of materials that regenerate themselves even while in fl... |
21 May 2008
04:48 GMT |
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Today, only bats, birds and insects can fly. But birds detain the most records of animal flight, from speed to height. Some traits in bird anatomy represent their secret.1. Feathers evolved first for ensuring a body insulation and maintaining homeothermy (constant body temperature). Feathers can also make a "camoufla... |
17 March 2008
10:14 GMT |
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There are bats whose diet relies on nectar. To feed on it, the bats have to hover like a bumblebee in front of the flower, while they extract the sweet juice with their long tongue. But current aerodynamic theories say bats are too large for this, but still do it. A new research published in the journal "Science" and... |
29 February 2008
02:49 GMT |
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Only three groups of animals really fly today: insects, birds and bats. Flight requires the use of organs called wings, but their structure and functioning differ enormously from one group to another. Anyhow, all flying animals are heavier than the air and only the wings movement and the use of air currents keep them... |
27 February 2008
09:37 GMT |
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The evolution of bats is still a mystery, as the fragile flying mammals have left few fossils behind. A new study published in the journal "Nature" describes the oldest bat ever and what the fossil has revealed: bats first flew, and after that they developed echolocation. "This new bat [fossil] is clearly a flying an... |
14 February 2008
02:38 GMT |
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Besides birds and bats, the only true flying vertebrates ever were a group of reptiles contemporaneous to dinosaurs, called pterosaurs. They were the first flying vertebrates (appeared 215 million years ago) that had wings make of skin similar to those of bats, but sustained only by one finger. Pterosaurs had the bod... |
12 February 2008
02:46 GMT |
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The flying lemurs of southeastern Asia are the best gliders amongst mammals. They have a patagium (skin membrane like in the bat's wings) that is as large as geometrically possible and can glide as far as 70 m (235 ft) with minimal loss of height, and the maximal glides can be 130 m (433 ft) long, as much as two... |
8 February 2008
04:53 GMT |
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Two things first: 1. Wow! 2. Finally... what took it so long? It looks like the zeppelin commercial flight will shortly resume with the Manned Cloud airship, which will basically be a flying hotel. The French manufacturing company Massaud argues that, when finished, the airship will be able to carry 40 passengers on ... |
4 February 2008
04:12 GMT |
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1. In the depths of the caves, where current airs, temperature and humidity are practically constant, bats seem to know exactly when it's time to go hunting. In fact, when atmospheric pressure decreases (before a rainfall), the insects gather at low altitude and are easier to be preyed. The atmospheric pressure ... |
2 February 2008
07:19 GMT |
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Birds are the only living dinosaurs, and the transition from hatchling to adult appears to be like a transition from flightless dinosaurs to flying dinosaurs. A new research published in "Nature" reveals how young birds must control the wing angles in order to achieve flying.The team led by Kenneth Dial of the Univer... |
25 January 2008
03:14 GMT |
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65 % of the bird species migrate. Some species make very short displacements during winter, like the Finnish rooks which spend the winter in Northern Germany, displacing themselves with just 50 km (30 mi) daily.The longest migration made by any bird is that effectuated by the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), which ne... |
20 December 2007
09:38 GMT |
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You know the drill: every time you get in an airplane, you must stop using your cell-phone. For a while, there have been rumors about the possibilities of allowing the passengers to use their handsets during flights. With the changes that AirFrance made, their passengers will be able to send text messages and e-mails... |
20 December 2007
09:22 GMT |
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The holidays always come with a lot of visiting, either you're doing it or you're on the receiving end of it. Either way, it's always good to know at all times the status of the means of transport you might be opting to use and if you're not going by Greyhound, you're probably thinking of air... |
19 December 2007
03:30 GMT |
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How can this be? Inflight email service and instant messaging? Free? What has the world come to? Are there no more terrorist threats out there? Just imagine the way a conversation would go via Yahoo!'s IM between any random Arab terrorist (I'm not racially profiling, it's just that this is how they ar... |
7 December 2007
05:01 GMT |
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Swifts are amongst the fastest birds, and even if they resemble swallows, they are in fact related to hummingbirds. A swift weighs a few tens of grams, but with its sickle shaped wings they can reach 160 km (100 mi) per hour. Swifts are the birds the term aerial suits best as they catch food (insects), eat, drink, co... |
1 December 2007
07:06 GMT |
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Mammals and birds may be the most complex organisms, but insects have won the evolution race. There are about 900,000 described species, and scientists evaluate their real number from 2 to 10 million species. Calculating the total number of insects on the globe, researchers found it overpasses by 200 billion times th... |
15 November 2007
16:09 GMT |
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Butterflies are renowned usually for their beauty. But amongst the 750 species of butterfly encountered in US and Canada, this is the most known worldwide, due to its amazing migration records. The black and orange beauty bears the name of monarch butterfly because the first English settlers of America associated it ... |
14 November 2007
14:11 GMT |
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Bird flight has fascinated humans since ever. And by over 150 years, with the discovery of the oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, a vivid debate divides scientists into two camps: those who say birds evolved from ground-dwelling ancestors and developed flight by taking off from the ground and those saying that birds evolved... |
8 November 2007
07:11 GMT |
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1.Hummingbirds are found only in Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego (in the southern tip of South America). Half of the hummingbird species (160) live in the Amazon forest. The northernmost species is the rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), the only species that reaches Alaska. The southernmost species is ... |
23 October 2007
14:06 GMT |
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In fairy tales, the characters turn into flies and get everywhere they want, listening to what's cooking behind any door. Now, when you say 'there are bugs in this room', you automatically send a message with double meaning, one of which is related to the new-generation devices. Lately, increasingly mo... |
18 October 2007
13:06 GMT |
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This is many people's dream: traveling comfortably by plane, but paying for a very cheap ticket (just 9 to 139 Euro / $ 12-195). The low cost companies have developed a lot lately, taking advantage of our desire to arrive fast and safe to whatever location in the world. You almost pay for an plane ticket as much... |
28 September 2007
13:41 GMT |
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Without a map or GPS, we are completely lost in the middle of nowhere. But many species, such as the mole rat, birds, fish, amphibian, have a magnetic compass. Bats have it too, and a new research shows how these mammals can feel the polarity of a magnetic field, detecting the difference between north and south. This... |
24 September 2007
06:49 GMT |
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It has a wingspan of 60 feet (18 meters), it weighs only 66 pounds (30 kilograms) and is launched by hand; but this aircraft has delivered a new world record for ultralight unmanned flight."The Zephyr High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) stayed aloft for 54 hours during a recent test flight at N... |
14 September 2007
06:12 GMT |
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This monster is much bigger that any helicopter ever built: the Soviet Mil V-12 was a doubled version of Mi-6 fitted with greater fixed-wing airlift of An-22 and Il-76. It used a double set of Mi-6 dynamics: two sets of Mi-6 engines, gearboxes and lifting rotors side-by-side, with small overlap. Rotor rpm decreased t... |
6 September 2007
09:41 GMT |
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The skies during the dinosaur era were not dominated by birds, like it happens in our times, but by huge prehistoric hairy flying reptiles called pterosaurs. Many of them were fish-eaters and are often pictured as skimming along the surface of water while flying with their mouths open, fishing the way modern skimmers... |
24 July 2007
06:15 GMT |
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The top speed for airplanes could be limited by physical rules of aerodynamics, but the birds' flight is much more complex, breaking those rules. Many think that the fastest speeds at which the smallest insects and the largest aircraft can fly are strongly connected to their weight and their wingspan. A team led... |
17 July 2007
04:32 GMT |
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There are three groups of living animals that we associate with the flight: birds, bats and insects. But there are also other groups of animals that can manage to take off and "defeat" gravitation on shorter or longer bursts. They are generally called gliders. Here are classical examples. 1. There are over 52 specie... |
16 June 2007
07:16 GMT |
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Have you ever imagined a plane flapping its wings in the bat style?The flexible flight of the bats, so different from the rigid wing beat of the birds, could be a model for new versatile aircrafts.A Swedish research resembles a previous American one, in trying to set up the details of the sophisticated bat flight in ... |
11 May 2007
02:51 GMT |
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This is particularly difficult for human pilots master formation flight: it takes years of practicing. But for migratory birds that's piece of cake. 65 % of the birds species do migrate. The way birds migrate varies a lot: some will do it alone (like the cuckoo), others in pairs, while others in large flocks. T... |
23 April 2007
09:19 GMT |
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YouTube recently released a new contest for all the 18 to 22-year-old users, allowing them to win a free flight with AirTran Airways by posting a video on the page. Because the company is now looking for a new cheer, it signed a deal with YouTube and released a contest to bring even more video content to the page. Al... |
13 April 2007
09:49 GMT |
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People enjoy flying. This pleasure comes like a shout since the antiquity, with the myth of Daedalus. And ballooning brings you closer to a real sensation of hovering. But do not think that humans are the only wingless beings able to fly. Spiders too enjoy ballooning and thousands of flying spiders can flood a terrai... |
13 April 2007
07:17 GMT |
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Boomerangs were the world's first heavier than air flying machines. Though when you say boomerang you think of Australian Aborigines, who have used both boomerangs and hunting sticks for many thousands of years, research has shown that ancient tribes in Europe used special throwing axes. Also, in ancient Egypt,... |
6 April 2007
10:56 GMT |
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A marathon is like a warm-up exercise for some animal species. Their endurance capacities can amaze, like they would be driven by engines. Now, a new record for endurance has been tracked in four bar-tailed godwits for a non-stop flight of over 10,000km (6,000 mi) from New Zealand to the Yellow Sea (eastern China).Th... |
5 April 2007
07:05 GMT |
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Scientists have recently discovered a lizard shockingly similar to current flying dragons roaming the air during the dinosaur era. Exactly like in the flying dragons, the ancient arboreal lizard presents a wing-like membrane stretched across elongated ribs. Named Xianglong zhaoi, the gliding lizard lived during the E... |
20 March 2007
05:39 GMT |
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65 % of the bird species migrate. The ancients, like Aristotle for example, thought that during the winter birds go inside the mud of the bottom of the swamps or in caves, where they pass the winter, and reemerge in the spring. In the 13th century, the German emperor Frederick the Second, passionate hunter, was the f... |
6 March 2007
03:25 GMT |
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Google Earth is surely one of the most popular downloadable applications provided by Google that represents the main offline solution to view maps and other imagery captured directly from the satellites. The product is updated periodically, maybe a little too often, because the search giant is announcing new features... |
2 March 2007
10:05 GMT |
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