Flying Car

In 1989, I was in the cafeteria at Westfield State College and I overheard a couple of kids discussing the movie Back to the Future Part II. One of the lads remarked that he knew that the hover board used by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) actually existed. I remember thinking Yeah, right; just like Deloreans can fly and travel through time.

Flying cars have been focal points in some movies and television shows for more than 50 years

• 1961 - The Absent Minded Professor
• 1962 - 1988 - The Jetsons
• 1968 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

It’s not just fiction writers who have an affinity for aero vehicles. According to the Los Angeles Times, inventors and industrialist have attempted to devise a flying car.

• 1926 – Henry Ford produced an aircraft he named the "Model T of the Air," the Ford Flivver. The program was cancelled after test pilot Harry Brooks was killed in a Flivver crash.
• 1947 – Designer Henry Dreyfuss attached an aircraft engine onto a four-seat fiberglass car body for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. The program was cancelled after a fatal crash.
• 1971 – Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake combined a Cessna and a Ford Pinto. Unfortunately, this venture also failed. In 1973, both men were killed when the contraption crashed on takeoff.

It seemed as if a safe flying car was a fantasy. But, even fantasies can come true. By the end of 2012, you could be operating a flying car. Terrafugia, Inc based in Woburn, Massachusetts, developed the Transition® Roadable Aircraft and on their website Terrafugia, Inc states, “First customer delivery of a Transition® Roadable Aircraft is expected to occur in late 2012.”

The craft received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification and on March 1, 2012, the Transition® Roadable Aircraft made its debut at the New York International Auto Show. It made its first successful test flight on March 23, 2012.

If you have a Sport Pilot license, a valid driver's license and a mere $279,000.00 you could own a base model Transition® Roadable Aircraft and be flying or driving to work by the end of 2012.

Do you think you want to plunk down almost 300K for the opportunity to purchase a flying car?

A New Old Use for Lasers

Remember the 80s: big hair, mullets, questionable rock music, Reaganomics? I think my most enduring memory of the 80s was President Ronald Regan’s Berlin Wall speech on June 12, 1987, in which he exhorted Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had stood as a metaphor to the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union—democracy verses communism—from its construction in August, 1961 to its opening by East Germany in November, 1989 to its demolition by the end of 1990.

I think the fall of the Berlin Wall was symbolic of the fall of communism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). I’m not an historian but it is my belief that Ronald Reagan’s policies were the reason the USSR abandoned communism; he spent them into submission. He increased military expenditure to a level the USSR couldn’t match.

One lynchpin of Reagan’s policy included the military research for Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly referred to as the Star Wars defense. The idea was to create a blanket of lasers to shoot down enemy nuclear warhead missiles. I remember the idea’s viability had encountered a lot of skepticism. The suggestion that lasers could render a country impervious to another country’s most powerful weapons sounded like the stuff science fiction writers made up.

According to Technovelgy.com, the first use of a laser weapon in fiction is the heat ray from H.G. Wells, “War of the Worlds,” published in 1898. “Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire” (Web edition of The War of the Worlds, John Walker, 1995).

Lasers are more than staples of science fiction weaponry. They have become integral parts of American industry. My own company employed a laser to cut fiberglass cloth used in the production of aircraft hardware. The laser was quicker and produced a more uniform pattern than cutting with handheld shears.

SDI lasers may be closer than we think. In the event a meteor threatened earth, DVICE .com reports that engineers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing an idea that would allow humans to deflect that meteor. A series of solar powered, mini-lasers in orbit would vaporize bits of rock on the surface of an asteroid to generate tiny puffs of thrust. Enough puffs over enough time would start to alter the orbit of a meteor, and with enough lasers working together, it could be accomplished on short notice.

Even the most farfetched concepts might come to fruition if you dare to put it out there for someone to come up with an educated plan. Even Reagan was on to something back in 1987.

What do you think; couldn't lasers used to deflect space rocks also deflect missiles?

Star Trek Tech Comes to Life

In last week’s posting I reiterated my fondness for Star Trek (in case the picture of me between a Vulcan and a Starfleet officer wasn’t clue enough). Gene Roddenberry’s creation was prophetic in many ways. I know that Star Trek-like technology is in use today and has been covered ad nauseum but indulge my whimsy.

• The sliding door: In the 60s a door that opened as you approached it was not commonplace.
• The communicator: Flip open and talk. It’s a bit of a stretch but it certainly seems like a precursor to a flip phone.

Then there’s the tricorder: In Star Trek lore a tricorder is a handheld device used to gather and analyze information. There are two types of tricorder: the medical tricorder and the engineering tricorder.

When I was a kid, my friends and I made our own Star Trek props. One friend took six of his father’s LPs (long playing, 33 RPM records), painted them gold and used them as transporter pads. I was not nearly as inventive (plus, my father would not have been as understanding as my friend’s dad). My contribution was a block of wood tricorder, painted black with numbers and a screen drawn on it that fit in my hand.

We may not be close to a working transporter, but tricorders may be in our future.

According to Gizmag.com, Scanadu, a tech company based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is developing a medical tricorder that will be able to measure vital statistics such as blood pressure, pulmonary function, and body temperature.

DVICE reports that Peter Jansen, a postdoc in a lab for "Engineering Non-Traditional Sensors" at the University of Arizona, has developed (from scratch) a perfectly functional Star Trek-style Tricorder. It's a portable sensor system and can measure ambient temperature, humidity, air pressure, magnetic fields, surface temperatures, colors, ambient light level, ambient polarization, acceleration, direction and distance (ultrasonically). It also has a GPS receiver. Jansen has made the plans available so anyone can build it.



Wow! Now this is cool! Do you think there’s a functioning biobed on the horizon?

The Lost Script

I’m a fan of Star Trek, especially the original series, which aired from 1966 to 1969 on NBC.

Forty plus years ago, when I was in seventh or eighth grade, I read a book about the origins of the original Star Trek series. Sadly, I do not recall the name of the text nor do I remember the author’s moniker. I do remember it was a paperback with a dark cover. Some of the book’s details have stayed with me.

Here are a few things of interest that I recall:

· The US Navy was intrigued by the layout of the Enterprise’s bridge and its potential use aboard US warships.
· During filming of the show at Desilu Studios, the use of the bathroom was prohibited because the sound of the toilet flushing got picked up by microphones.
· Gene Roddenberry presented the Star Trek concept to CBS prior to NBC. Supposedly, after completing his pitch, CBS told him no thank you because they were planning a space show of their own, Lost in Space. Reportedly, Roddenberry became upset when CBS used some of his Star Trek ideas in Lost in Space.

Interestingly, CBS Studios, Inc owns the rights to the Star Trek franchise.

I found out that a new version of the 1960s series persists. Original episodes of Star Trek featuring Kirk, Spock, et al are available at phase2trek.com (Star Trek Phase II). The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 is played by amateur actors. Everything Star Trek is protected by copyright but CBS Studios, Inc allows the Star Trek Phase II site to exist because there is no profit derived from the material presented on the site.

Star Trek Phase II has some pedigree. Episodes have been written by the likes of Dorothy Fontana, a television writer since 1960 and former story editor for Star Trek. Some episodes have even featured appearances from original cast members.

But, CBS strikes. According to Thomas Vinciguerra of The New York Times, CBS squashed the use of a previously unused Star Trek script, “He Walked Among Us”, written by Norman Spinrad. Spinrad had donated his copy of the script to California State University, Fullerton.

The folks at Star Trek Phase II learned of the script and planned to run with it. CBS invoked their proprietary rights and squashed production of the script. J. Alec West of Star Trek Phase II wrote that, “Since Star Trek is a CBS/Paramount property, Phase II has agreed not to shoot it.”

Maybe CBS has plans for the script. Could it be used as the basis for a new Star Trek movie? I can only hope.
Does anyone want to see “He Walked Among Us” on the big screen?

California Flying

In the mid-70s the supersonic transport (SST) was thought to be the next great thing in aviation. It travelled at twice the speed of conventional aircraft shortening a trip from New York City to London from seven hours to something under three. It was not cheap. A flight could cost upwards of $10,000.

There were a couple variations of SST; one was built by the Russians (Tupolev Tu-144) and the other through a cooperative venture between the French and the British (Concorde). Both Russian and European planes could transport about 120 passengers.

According to airlinereporter.com, in the 1960s Boeing made an attempt, with a subsidy from the US government, to develop an SST that would have double passenger capacity of either Tupolev or Concorde. In early 1971, funding got cut and Boeing’s program was scrapped.

In 1973, noise generated by the SSTs spurred the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ban supersonic flight over land in the US by civil aircraft, severely curtailing travel lanes for the SSTs. The Tupolev program was shutdown in 1978, but the Concorde continued to fly until 2003.

However, there is a development which may give resurgence to large passenger transports via supersonic aircraft. ScienceDaily reports that Qiqi Wang, Rui Hu, and Antony Jameson have shown through a computer model that a modified biplane can, in fact, produce significantly less drag than a conventional single-wing aircraft at supersonic cruise speeds. In theory, less drag equates to less fuel consumption and it would produce less of a sonic boom.

Conceptual drawing of a supersonic biplane. (Credit: Christine Daniloff/MIT News based on an original drawing courtesy of Obayashi laboratory, Tohoku University)

Honestly, it’s the design of the airplane that peaked my interest most. It reminded me of a picture of my dad in the backseat of a biplane. The picture was taken sometime in the mid-1930s during flying lessons. It seems that before they were married, my parents took flying lessons in Burbank, California.

The name on the plane is California Flyers. I Googled California Flyers and all I could find was an all star cheerleading group. How disappointing, especially since my mom doesn’t really remember much about the organization.

I’d like to know more about the California Flyers of Burbank, California circa 1938. Does anyone have any information regarding this organization?