The Cockpit Voice Recorder Controversy

January 31, 2024 by Lewin Day 74 Comments

Every time there’s a plane crash or other aviation safety incident, we often hear talk of the famous “black box”. Of course, anyone these days will tell you that they’re not black, but orange, for visibility’s sake. Plus, there’s often not one black box, but two! There’s a Flight Data Recorder (FDR), charged with recording aircraft telemetry, and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), designed to record what’s going on in the cabin.

It sounds straightforward enough, but the cockpit voice recorder has actually become the subject of some controversy in recent times. Let’s talk about the basics of these important safety devices, and why they’re the subject of some debate at the present time.

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Ground-Effect Vehicle To Carry Passengers Around Hawaii

January 27, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 29 Comments

Although Hawaii used to have a ferry service to access the various islands in the archipelago, due to environmental and political issues, air travel is now the only way to island-hop. Various companies have tried to fill this transportation gap, but have all been stymied for one reason or another. The latest to attempt to solve this problem is a unique one, however. The Hawaii Seaglider Initiative is currently testing a ground-effect vehicle for inter-island passenger service that hopes to use the unique characteristics of this type of aircraft to reduce costs and limit environmental concerns.

The Seaglider, with backing from the Hawaii state government and various corporate interests like Hawaiian Airlines, is actually an amalgamation of three different types of vehicle. It’s capable of operating like a normal, hulled boat at low speeds but has a hydrofoil for operating at higher speeds. Beyond that, its wings give it enough lift to leave the water but stay in ground-effect flight, flying low to the water to reduce drag and improve lift when compared to an aircraft flying out of the ground effect. The efficiency gains from this type of flight are enough that the Seaglider can use electric motors and batteries to make the trips from island to island.

While the ferry is not yet in service, flight testing of the vehicle is scheduled for this year. Ground-effect vehicles of this type do have a large number of obstacles to overcome, whether they’re huge military vehicles like the Ekranoplanes of the Soviet Union or even small remote-controlled crafts, including difficulty with rough seas and having to operate in a harsh salt water environment.

Daily Inspections Keep Your Spitfire In Tip-Top Shape

October 18, 2023 by Richard Baguley 22 Comments

What ho, chaps? Look, we know this is a bally nuisance and all, but those desk jockeys at HQ want us all to watch this film about daily insepction of your Spitfire. No Vera and no Greta in this one, more’s the pity, but it is jolly important. We all know that our Spitfires are complicated buckets of bolts, but those kites won’t stay in the air if we don’t maintain them. Yes, the boring stuff, like purging the fuel system of water and refueling outside of the hanger. And, yes, Captain Molesworth, that means putting out that cigar while the tech boys are topping off your tank. Now shut up and watch the film we’ve placed below the break, what?

All right, all right, wake up at the back there. I heard you snoring, Peason. The bally Germans could hear you snoring. I know that wasn’t Errol Flynn, but this stuff is damned essential. You may be pilots, but you all rely on those people you just saw. Your lives depend on the riggers, armorers, instrument repairers, and others. While you are out carousing, these men are taking your plane apart and ensuring the engine is running smoother than the legs of the barmaid at the Dog & Duck. Every time one of you chaps calls Bingo Fuel, you get home because some chap checked your fuel gauge was accurate. Every time one of you glances at the Rate of Climb indicator to judge an intercept, you are relying on the chap who tested and zeroed it while you were snoring in your bunk, sleeping off last nights debauch. So, don’t forget that you are part of a team. You may be full of dauntless spirit up there, but you won’t get anywhere without those chaps on the ground.

Now, let’s talk about tonight’s mission…

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Next-Gen Autopilot Puts A Robot At The Controls

August 25, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 19 Comments

While the concept of automotive “autopilots” are still in their infancy, pretty much any aircraft larger than an ultralight will have some mechanism to at least hold a fixed course and altitude. Typically the autopilot system is built into the airplane’s controls, but this new system replaces the pilot themselves in a manner reminiscent of the movie Airplane.

The robot pilot, known as PIBOT, uses both AI and robotics technology to fly the airplane without altering the aircraft. Unlike a normal autopilot system, this one can be fed the aircraft’s manuals in natural language, understand them, and use that information to fly the airplane. That includes operating any of the aircraft’s cockpit controls, not just the control column and pedal assembly. Supposedly, the autopilot can handle everything from takeoff to landing, and operate capably during heavy turbulence.

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) research team that built the machine hopes that it will pave the way for more advanced autopilot systems, and although this one has only been tested in simulators so far it shows enormous promise, and even has certain capabilities that go far beyond human pilots’ abilities including the ability to remember a much wider variety of charts. The team also hopes to eventually migrate the technology to the land, especially military vehicles, although we’ve seen how challenging that can be already.

24 Hours Of Le Airplanes

September 27, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 22 Comments

There’s no more famous road endurance race than the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where teams compete to see how far they can drive in a single 24-hour window. The race presents unique challenges not found in other types of racing. While RC airplanes may not have a similar race, [Daniel] a.k.a. [rctestflight] created a similar challenge for himself by attempting to fly an RC airplane non-stop for as long as he could, and a whole host of interesting situations cropped up before and during flight.

In order for an RC plane to fly for an entire day, it essentially needs to be solar powered. A large amount of strategy goes into a design of this sort. For one, the wing shape needs to be efficient in flight but not reduce the amount of area available for solar panels. For another, the start time of the flight needs to be balanced against the position of the sun in the sky. With these variables more or less fixed, [Daniel] began his flight.

It started off well enough, with the plane in an autonomous “return to home” mode which allowed it to continually circle overhead without direct human control. But after taking a break to fly it in FPV mode, [Daniel] noticed that the voltage on his battery was extremely high. It turned out that the solar charge controller wasn’t operating as expected and was shunting a large amount of solar energy directly into the battery. He landed and immediately removed the “spicy pillow” to avoid any sort of nonlinear event. With a new battery in the plane he began the flight again.

Even after all of that, [Daniel] still had some issues stemming from the aerodynamic nature of this plane specifically. There were some issues with wind, and with the flight controller not recognizing the correct “home” position, but all in all it seems like a fun day of flying a plane. If your idea of “fun” is sitting around and occasionally looking up for eight and a half hours. For more of [Daniel]’s long-term autonomous piloting, be sure to take a look at his solar tugboat as well.

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World’s Biggest Foam RC Plane Takes To The Skies, But Only Barely!

July 18, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 17 Comments

What do you do when you have a whole warehouse sized facility and an industrial sized CNC foam cutter? Clearly, the only choice is to build giant RC aircraft, and that’s exactly what the folks at [FliteTest] teamed up with the illustrious [Peter Sripol] to accomplish. Did it work? Yes. Did it work well? We’ll let you be the judge after taking a gander at the video below the break.

[Peter Sripol], known for building manned ultralight electric aircraft from foam, was roped in as the designer of the aircraft. A very light EPS foam is used to cut out the flying surfaces, while a denser green foam board is sourced from the local home building store to construct the fuselage.

The build is anything but ordinary, and kids are involved in the construction, although the video doesn’t elaborate on it very much. You can see evidence of their excitement in the graffiti on the wings and fuselage- surely a huge success on that front! As for flying? Four large motors provide locomotion, and it’s barely enough to keep the beast flying. A mishap with the Center of Gravity demands a last minute design change which renders the rudder almost useless. But, it does fly, and it is a great step toward the next iteration. Just like every good hack!

If you want to see a manned foam electric aircraft, check out [Peter Sripol]’s DIY Electric Ultralight MK4.

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Abandoned Airplane Takes Off Again As Luxury RV

December 4, 2021 by Kristina Panos 30 Comments

You remember how you wanted to combine everything as a kid? Like lions and tigers into ligers and so on? Well, some kids dream of transportation hybrids. For eighty-year-old [Gino Lucci], now an Air Force retiree, that dream involved a recreational vehicle that combined an airplane fuselage and a delivery truck.

There it was, rusting in a field outside Rolla, Missouri — the vintage plane that would start [Gino Lucci] on the path to fulfilling this dream. This project began when [Gino]’s son spotted the body of a 1943 Douglas R4D military transport aircraft.

Over the next year, [Gino] and his sons painstakingly fused the fuselage to the chassis of an International DuraStar 4400 medium-duty truck. We love how they went about it. [Gino] and the boys just kept putting the two together and cutting away the fuselage in stages until they got it right. After making it roadworthy, it took another two years to work out the kinks.

The Fabulous Flamingo is 38 feet (11.6 meters) long and stands 12.5 feet (3.81 meters) tall. But the best metric is the width. It’s unspecified, but is apparently half an inch (1.27 cm) under the definition of what is street legal in Michigan. They used the plane’s engine cowlings as fenders and got the mirrors off of a ’70s Ford pickup. Floor it past the break and check it out.

This build cost about $20,000 USD all told. If you’ve got that kind of money, you could instead stuff a powerful engine into a tiny plane to get your kicks.

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