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Category: transportation – Page 377

The journey took a very long time—505 days to fly 26,000 miles (42,000 km) at an average speed of about 45 mph (70 kph)—but pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg successfully landed the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, after flying around the world using only the power of the Sun. Solar Impulse 2 is a solar-powered aircraft equipped with more than 17,000 solar cells that weighs only 2.4 tons with a wingspan of 235 ft (72 m). Technical challenges, poor flying conditions, and a delicate aircraft all contributed to the slow pace. Gathered here are images from the record-setting circumnavigation, undertaken to help focus the world’s efforts to develop renewable energy sources.

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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Business Insider.

The U.S. Air Force has been experimenting with turning its cargo and transport planes into munitions trucks able to drop devastating bundles of standoff weaponry, the service has revealed.

The Air Force Research Laboratory said Wednesday that Air Force Special Operations Command successfully dropped simulated palletized munitions from a MC-130J Commando II multi-mission combat transport/special operations tanker in a test at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in January.

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A group of scientists from NUST MISIS developed a ceramic material with the highest melting point among currently known compounds. Due to the unique combination of physical, mechanical and thermal properties, the material is promising for use in the most heat-loaded components of aircraft, such as nose fairings, jet engines and sharp front edges of wings operating at temperatures above 2000 degrees C. The results are published in Ceramics International.

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A group of cyclists managed to charge a Tesla Model X electric SUV with their own power.

One of the best things about electric vehicles is that you get to choose where the energy powering your car comes from.

Even if your choices are somewhat limited, there are still a lot more options than with gasoline and diesel vehicles, which will of course each only take their own fuel.

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