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7-28-10: Avweb sent out an email talking about the single-seat Dragonfly helicopter. The pilot pushes a few times on a fuel-pump crank handle, the fuel climbs up to the rotor hub and travels out to a tiny combustion chamber in the rotor tips, then it's vaporized and ejected, creating thrust. The Dragonfly weighs around 250 pounds and can fly 100 knots. The hydrogen peroxide fuel burns at the rate of 11 gallons per hour. The aircraft is FAA certified and sells for $120,000 although they were offering a show special of $84,000 to the first five takers. An electronic flight instrument system is included as standard equipment. Not surprising, Google reveals a YouTube video that's also embeded along with an article from Popular Science that did an article on the Dragonfly Tip-Jet back in March of 2010. 

FAA Safety Seminars ~7-26-10: Another Light Sport get together is coming up at Parlin Field Airport in Newport NH. This time it's going to be in conjunction with an FAA Safety Seminar. Title: The World of Light Sport! .Topic: Introduction to Light Sport Aircraft. "Dave Pepple of the FAA leads an informative and wide ranging discussion about the new world of Light Sport Aircraft. This seminar is being held in conjunction with a Light Sport Aircraft Exposition that includes several Light Sport Aircraft provided by various manufacturers.  See the airplanes, talk with manufacturers, ask questions, and learn more about Light Sport!" They are to have Exhibits and demonstrations from Flight Design, Tecnam, Legend Cub, Remos, and Jabiru, and Garmin reps.

Small UAV's Get Hi-Tech Custom Engines ~7-24-10: --Manufacturer's of small UAVs have been using off-the-shelf engines to deploy the aircraft more quickly. The way they are talking, using off the shelf commercial engines for lawnmowers and weed wackers isn't good enough for sophisticated hi-tech scientific and military equipment. The solution was decided to make a custom engine from scratch. That’s where Ricardo, Inc. (ricardo.com), company comes in. Engineers developed a family of purpose-built engines for small UAVs that's an air-cooled, 88-cc, three horsepower, two-cylinder, two-stroke hybrid, runs on the military’s JP-8 heavy fuel, and ignited by spark plugs. It also carries 500 watts of onboard power from an integrated starter-generator. CLICK HERE for more information.

LSA's At Skyhaven ~7-18-10: Are LSA's the coming thing? Well more and more people are asking questions about them and there's certainly a lot of makes and models to choose from. Yesterday here at Skyhaven, through arrangements of the Skyhaven Flying Club, some LSA dealers flew in with their LSA aircraft to maybe temp the club into adding one to their current fleet of two Skyhawks. For some reason, all the LSA's I've seen are manufactured outside of the U.S. Countries like Poland, Yugoslavia, Russia, even Thailand and Australia are getting into the "sold in America" act. Finding an LSA that is made in the United States is kind of tricky. Even the Piper Sport is made in Yugoslavia. CLICK HERE to see some of the planes in front of the Skyhaven Flying Club hangar.

TFR ALERT FOR BAR HARBOR MAINE   ~ 7-14-10 FAA TO ESTABLISH TFR OVER BAR HARBOR, ME ON JULY 16-18. A notam has been issued that will restrict flight in the area during President Obama's planned visit. 30 nm radius TFR Location:
BGR VOR's 156-degree radial at 35.2 nautical miles Surface to 17,999-ft-MSL Times:11:00 a.m. local Friday, July 16 until 11:30 a.m. local Sunday, July 18.  12 nm radius no-fly zone Location: BGR VOR's 156-degree radial at 35.2 nautical miles Surface to 17,999-ft-MSL Times: 11:00 a.m. local Friday, July 16 until 11:30 a.m. local Sunday, July 18. A GATEWAY AIRPORT HAS BEEN CREATED AT BANGOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (KBGR).

TANDEM LSA Called  MySky MSOne ~7-10-10: There's a few high-wing LSAs that offer tandem seating but only a couple of low-wing designs offering the same feature. It sounds like the idea is to give that fighter-like view from the cockpit for both pilot and passenger. According to their website, the fabrication of parts is done in Thailand and the parts are shipped to Daytona Beach, FL, where they intend to do the final assembly and flight testing. There are so many LSA's out there it's hard to keep track of the latest offerings.

FAA Safety Seminars ~ 7-6-10: Looks like two interesting safety seminars coming up this month being held at the Yankee Ultralight Fly-In, 682 Old Post, Road, Greenland, NH 03840. The one on July 10 is titled, "Be A Sport!" Randy Autrey of the FAA Safety Team will discuss the latest changes to the sport pilot regulations, the automated WINGs Program, and the safety-critical concept of personal minimums. The other seminar is on Tuesday July 13th is called, "Building Your Own Aircraft!" These seminars appear to be part of the Yankee Ultralight Flyers FLY-IN  July 09 Through 17, 2010 at Sanderson's Field Greenland, NH. Click on the above meeting dates for more information.

NASA Encourages Supersonic Aircraft  7-4-10:More articles are showing up about supersonic aircraft. This time it sounds like NASA is working with Boeing and Lockheed Martin to submit ideas for a NASA research mission, "Looking into new airplanes that could take the boom out of supersonic flight." From what I've seen on some of this research, it seems like the key to quieting the sonic boom lies in the shape of the nose taking on the appearance of a needle that will pierce the air with a very sharp shallow angled point. The Lockheed model of this aircraft looks like they borrowed the engines from the SR-71. Maybe they had a warehouse full of unused SR-71 engines and have found a place to put them. However, it appears that articles about these secret projects imply this green trim aircraft has been around for a while. Check out this article from Aviation Week.

NASA Award For Performance  7-2-10:A company in Yugoslavia that was known for making gliders has branched off into the LSA market. The company called Pipistrel, is known for producing planes that are both fuel-efficient and high performance. To do this, the company uses a high tech computer program called "CATIA." It has the ability to model composite materials into complex shapes. Their goal is to, "Produce an airplane that has the most possible lift while producing a minimal amount of drag.” Its Virus SW (Short Wing) cruise aircraft won the NASA Challenge, winning accolades for their fuel efficiency and performance." Check out these specs: Maneuvering speed 95 kts, turbulence penetration speed (green arc) 135 kts and the VNE at 163 kts.  The aircraft can be equipped by either the Rotax 912 UL2 (80 hp) or 912 ULS (100 hp) powerplants and a large variety of avionics options. The new 80 HP S-Wing cruises at 133 kts, burning less than 3.6 gph. At 75% cruise-power-setting the 100 HP version speeds over the skies at 147 kts! That's a cruise speed of 169 mph with a 100 hp Rotax engine.