Earlier last month, President Obama has annoucned the official White House National Fuel Efficiency Policy. The new standards, covering model years 2012-2016, and ultimately requiring an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016, are projected to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program with a fuel economy gain [...]
This is a modest part 2 of Airport Runway Design from last week. Last time, I explained a little about the nomenclature of runways, from the 10-degree approximated angles in the direction they are pointed. As review, the “09″ marker below indicates 90 degrees (which we know as pointing to the right). Note that the [...]
While we’re on the topic of airplanes and things related to airplanes, here is an interesting article from The New York Times about a safety board meeting regarding US Airways Flight 1549, which landed safely in the Hudson River earlier this year as a result of an unfortunate rendezvous with some Canada geese (a bird [...]
Understanding airport runway design is probably unnecessary if you aren’t in the business or industry of caring about it, but it is actually pretty cool stuff. (It’s not likely that you’ll be running around on the tarmac anyway.) What’s a runway for? It is for airplanes to take off and land. That one’s easy. But [...]
A recent article from the Cornell Chronicle reports that researchers at Cornell have developed algorithms that simulate the sounds that water and other fluids make. This is particularly useful in conjunction with graphical simulations of such liquids, such as in computer animations (games, CGI movies, etc.). From the article: In computer-animated movies, sound can be added [...]