Tag: Transportation

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse starts last flight of global odyssey

Image: Solar Impulse rollout
The Solar Impulse plane rolls out of its Cairo hangar for its flight to Abu Dhabi. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

The Swiss-built Solar Impulse 2 airplane rose into the skies over Cairo, Egypt, tonight to finish off its 16-month, 22,000-mile, fuel-free journey around the world.

The 17th and final leg of the odyssey began at 1:29 a.m. Sunday local time (4:29 p.m. PT Saturday). If the itinerary proceeds according to plan, the solar-powered plane should arrive about 48 hours later in Abu Dhabi, where Solar Impulse started out in March of last year.

This last flight had to be postponed for a week because the winds were too strong, and because the pilot – Swiss psychiatrist-adventurer Bertrand Piccard – wasn’t feeling well enough to take on the grueling flight. Tonight, Piccard said such setbacks just came with the territory.

“This is an adventure,” Piccard told reporters before takeoff at Cairo International Airport. “It’s not a business plan, it’s an adventure.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Elon Musk unveils new Tesla master plan

Image: Tesla and Powerwall
Tesla’s lines of business include the Model S electric sedan as well as the Powerwall home battery system, seen at left. (Credit: Tesla)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has just shared his once-secret master plan for the electric-car company, which he now casts as a solar power and energy storage company as well. Here is the plan, as summarized by Musk in a post on the Tesla site.

  • Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage
  • Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments
  • Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning
  • Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it

The expansion of Tesla’s product line will include “heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport,” Musk says in the post. “Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla and should be ready for unveiling next year. We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.”

– Story by Todd Bishop and Alan Boyle

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Boeing centennial blends the old and the new

Image: Boeing employees
Boeing employees Teresa Felix and Laurie Staples check out the windows at an exhibit at Seattle’s Museum of Flight during the company’s centennial festivities. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)

The Boeing Company pulled out all the stops today to celebrate its 100th birthday – from the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, to the “Boeing 100” flag flying atop Seattle’s space needle, to the old and new Boeing airplanes lined up at the Museum of Flight.

But it was the old and new people in the company’s extended family who provided some of the most touching highlights at today’s kickoff for the centennial weekend.

June Boeing, the 90-year-old widow of William Boeing Jr. and the daughter-in-law of company founder William Boeing, reminisced about her husband after receiving a gift of the company’s original incorporation papers, filed in Seattle on July 15, 1916.

“I always thought I was his first love. And soon after we were married, I found out I wasn’t,” she said. “The Boeing Company was his first love.”

Another moment came when Mawut Mayen, one of the “lost boys of Sudan” who grew up to become a manager with the 777 program, recounted how Boeing helped him find a happy ending to his refugee story. “I have a great future ahead of me,” he said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Ford works on virtual drivers for future cars

Image: Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous car
Ford is testing Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles at night. (Credit: Ford)

The car of the future may well be controlled by a certified virtual driver that relies on the cloud for guidance, ranging from directions to software security updates.

Those are some of the concepts laid out today by Jim Buczkowski, director of electrical and electronics systems at Ford Research and Innovation, during a Seattle Chamber of Commerce breakfast. And tech companies in the Seattle area are playing a role in turning those concepts into reality.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

FAA funding measure boosts airport security

Image: Canine team
A bomb-sniffing dog and its security team from the Transportation Safety Administration keep watch at Washington Dulles International Airport. (Credit: TSA)

The U.S. Senate today gave final congressional approval to a measure that authorizes funding for the Federal Aviation Administration through September 2017 – and also changes procedures for airport security and emergency drone operations.

“It’s a little more than a 14-month extension, but don’t let that fool you, because it is going to put into permanent law bolstering security at our airports in order to help better protect us,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said on the Senate floor.

Bolstering airport security was a high priority for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., one of the bill’s sponsors. She said the measure would help head off soft-target airport attacks like the ones that hit Brussels and Istanbul earlier this year.

“By passing this bill, we’re doubling the number of terrorist deterrent teams at U.S. airports and ground transportation hubs,” Cantwell said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Alaska wins OK to fly Seattle-L.A.-Havana route

Image: Cuban and U.S. flags
A woman in Miami flies Cuban and U.S. flags. (Credit: U.S. State Dept.)

The U.S. Department of Transportation today gave its tentative go-ahead for Alaska Airlines to fly between Los Angeles and Havana, the capital of Cuba, with extended service between L.A. and Seattle, the airline’s hometown.

Alaska said the Cuba-bound flights would be operated with a Boeing 737-900ER aircraft, capable of carrying 181 passengers. Each daily flight would begin in Seattle, then stop over in Los Angeles, with same-plane service continuing to Havana. The return flight would retrace that route.

The route is among 20 slots in Havana that were made available to U.S. carriers this year when the federal government signed an agreement with Cuba to restore regular commercial air travel between the two countries, after a gap of more than 50 years.

A dozen U.S. airlines applied for the slots, proposing a total of nearly 60 flights a day. Alaska was among eight airlines that were awarded the 20 available round-trip flights. Alaska said it was the only airline that proposed daily nonstop service from Los Angeles to Havana.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Feds investigate Tesla Autopilot fatality

Tesla Autopilot
Tesla Motors stresses that its Autopilot feature is still in beta. (Credit: Tesla Motors)

Tesla Motors says it’s cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation of the first known traffic death involving a driver who was using the Autopilot self-driving feature on the company’s Model S electric car.

In a report posted online today, Tesla said it had just learned that the National Highway Transportation Safety Board was opening a preliminary evaluation into Autopilot’s performance during a fatal crash. In a statement, the NHTSA said the opening of an investigation shouldn’t be construed as a determination that “there is either a presence or absence of a defect in the subject vehicles.”

Tesla’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, expressed his condolences to the victim and his family today in a tweet.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse begins four-day Atlantic crossing

Image: Solar Impulse takeoff
The Solar Impulse 2 airplane takes off from New York’s JFK Airport. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

The all-electric Solar Impulse 2 plane left America’s shores tonight and began what’s expected to be a 90-hour trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain.

This 3,600-mile leg of the solar-powered, round-the-world flight ranks as the longest single stretch since last summer’s Japan-to-Hawaii trip. During that earlier flight, Solar Impulse’s batteries overheated – forcing a months-long delay to make repairs and wait for the return of temperate weather.

The Swiss-led team says it has upgraded the batteries and added a cooling system to guard against a repeat. Nevertheless, this week’s over-ocean trip is likely to pose the biggest challenge left for the 15-month odyssey.

The fuel-free plane took off just after 2:30 a.m. ET Monday (11:30 p.m. PT Sunday) from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit. His destination is Seville, which is near Spain’s Atlantic coast and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Say hello to Maxwell, NASA’s latest X-plane

Image: X-57 Maxwell
This artist’s concept of NASA’s X-57 Maxwell aircraft shows the plane’s specially designed wing and 14 electric motors. (Credit: NASA Langley / Advanced Concepts Lab / AMA Inc.)

NASA says it has received its first X-plane designation in a decade, for a research aircraft that has 14 electric motors built into a slimmed-down wing. The X-57 hybrid electric airplane picked up a new nickname as well: Maxwell.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the name and the number today at Aviation 2016, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ annual Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition. The development highlights the first “A” in the acronym for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“With the return of piloted X-planes to NASA’s research capabilities – which is a key part of our 10-year-long New Aviation Horizons initiative – the general aviation-sized X-57 will take the first step in opening a new era of aviation,” Bolden said in a news release.

The X-plane designation, which applies to experimental airplane built for the government, was assigned by the U.S. Air Force in response to a NASA request. The first X-plane was the X-1 rocket plane, which became the first plane to go supersonic in 1947. The most recent NASA X-plane was the X-48 blended-wing aircraft, which was tested between 2007 and 2012.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse lands in PA, sets sights on NY

Image: Solar Impulse landing
The Solar Impulse 2 plane comes in for a landing at Lehigh Valley, Penn. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

One day after a close call, the Solar Impulse 2 round-the-world airplane made a 17-hour trip from Ohio to Pennsylvania today in preparation for its star turn in New York.

The gossamer craft floated down to Lehigh Valley International Airport just as night was falling, at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT) with a crowd of well-wishers in attendance. Some of them flew the Swiss flag in honor of pilot Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss psychiatrist-adventurer who co-founded Solar Impulse.

“There is an incredible traffic jam around the airport,” Piccard said from the plane’s solo cockpit just before landing. “It’s really fun. … It’s probably the nicest scenery I’ve had for landing.”

A 17-hour flight time from Dayton International Airport to Lehigh Valley would be classified as a nightmare if Piccard had been piloting a commercial jet. But it’s par for the course for Solar Impulse 2.

Get the full story on GeekWire.