Cosmic Log
When it comes to self-flying drones capable of delivering packages, Amazon isn’t the only game in town.
Today Bell reported that it’s begun putting its Autonomous Pod Transport 70, or APT 70, through test flights at a facility near its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. The tests are being conducted under an experimental type certificate through the remainder of the year, Bell said in a news release.
The sights and sounds of the Blue Angels flying their aerobatic fighter jets through August skies are a Seattle tradition – but this weekend, there are a few new twists.
The biggest twist in the Boeing Seafair Air Show takes place on the ground rather than in the air: The I-90 floating bridge is no longer being closed for the Blue Angels’ hour-long demonstrations on Aug. 2, 3 and 4.
To minimize disruption to light-rail construction work on the bridge, the flight path for the air show over Lake Washington has been moved slightly south. That means the bridge is now outside the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety zone, known as “the box,” and traffic no longer needs to be halted. That also means spectators will no longer be allowed to stop and gawk from the bridge.
“Pedestrians and cyclists will be able to access the bridge’s pathway for the duration of the flights. However, it may not be used for stopping and viewing the Blue Angels. The path is a heavily used route for commuters and should be viewed similarly to a roadway,” the Washington State Department of Transportation says in an advisory.
State patrol officers will be monitoring traffic to make sure motorists don’t stop to watch the show. And it goes without saying that drivers should keep their eyes on the road rather than trying to snap a smartphone picture while they’re at the wheel. That’s what passengers are for.
The name may have changed, but the result is the same: For the fourth time in a row, a German team registered the top speed in SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Hyperloop pod race for college-level engineers.
The TUM Hyperloop team from the Technical University of Munich — formerly known as WARR Hyperloop — sent its sleek pod racer through a specially built, mile-long test track next to SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., at a top speed of 288 mph (463 kilometers per hour).
There was some drama at the end of the run, when the pod experienced what Teslarati photographer Tom Cross called a “rapid unplanned disassembly” — but the judges nevertheless gave the nod to the German team.
As WARR Hyperloop, the same team had the top speed during the three previous runnings of the Hyperloop competition.
Today’s runners-up were Swissloop (160 mph) and EPFLoop (148 mph) from Switzerland, plus Delft Hyperloop from the Netherlands. The University of Washington had a team in the competition but didn’t make it to the Final Four.
Uber says it’s on track to start flying its first all-electric air taxis on a demonstration basis next year, with commercial service due to begin in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles areas in 2023.
It’s also planning to focus on Australia’s tech capital, Melbourne, as its first international air taxi market. That’s a change from previous plans, which looked instead in Dubai’s direction.
To give potential riders an idea of what they’ll be climbing into, the rideshare company took the occasion of its annual Uber Elevate conference in Washington, D.C., to show off a mockup of the aircraft’s passenger cabin and a new video.
Boeing’s venture capital arm is leading an investment round for Robotic Skies, a New Mexico-based startup that offers a global network of repair stations for drones.
Other investors in the round include Thayer Ventures, Sun Mountain Capital and KickStart Seed Fund. Neither Boeing nor Robotic Skies reported the total amount of funding, but the investments made by Boeing HorizonX Ventures are typically in the range of millions to the low tens of millions of dollars.
Two months after a pair of catastrophic crashes led to the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets worldwide, the company says it has finished work on a software update aimed at heading off future safety issues with an automatic flight control system.
Boeing announced the completion of software development today, and said it’s working with the Federal Aviation Administration to finish the process of getting the plane certified for its return to flight.
In addition to praising Tiger Woods and pillorying Democrats, President Donald Trump had some words of advice on Twitter for Boeing, which is dealing with federal investigations in the wake of two catastrophic 737 MAX crashes.
“What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President),” Trump tweeted today, “but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”
What, indeed?
In 1988, Trump acquired 17 Boeing 727s and landing rights at airports in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., from Eastern Air Lines’ shuttle operation. He added some additional features to the plane and rebranded the operation as the “Trump Shuttle.” Trump turned the no-frills service into a luxury experience, right down to the gold-colored bathroom fixtures — but never turned a profit.
Boeing will reduce its monthly production rate for its single-aisle 737 jets from 52 to 42, starting in mid-April, CEO Dennis Muilenburg said today.
In a statement, Muilenburg said he’s also asked the company’s board of directors to establish an internal committee to review Boeing’s policies and processes for airplane design and development.
The moves come in the wake of this week’s preliminary findings from an investigation into the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 plane that killed all 157 people on board. Less than five months earlier, a similar Lion Air 737 MAX crash in Indonesia killed 189 people.
Those two incidents led to a worldwide suspension in 737 MAX flights.
Readings from the recorders recovered from last month’s crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX jet reportedly suggest that the pilots tried using the recommended procedure for overriding a balky automated flight control system — but that the system was re-engaged and forced the plane into its fatal dive.
The reports by The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, based on interviews with unnamed sources who have been briefed on the post-crash investigation’s preliminary findings, raise deeper questions about the safety of the flight control system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.
Were airline pilots adequately trained on a catastrophic scenario involving the automatic flight control system for Boeing’s 737 MAX airplanes? And did the Federal Aviation Administration cede too much of its responsibility to Boeing when the system was certified as safe?
Those are among the key questions that U.S. senators had for federal officials today during a pair of Capitol Hill hearings today.
Meanwhile, Boeing brought about 200 pilots and airline industry officials to Renton, Wash., the base of operations for the company’s 737 program, to learn more about the changes being made in the wake of two fatal MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. October’s Lion Air crash in Indonesia killed all 189 people aboard, while this month’s Ethiopian Airlines crash killed 157.