Does E = mc² or mc³? The Science in Bond Films Thread

RichardTheBruce

DAF





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MR











TLD


LTK


GE


Not a laser


DAD








SP

thedove

One small thing, it was not Connery saying "Operation Grand Slam" that stopped the laser, unless he was told to cut the torch at that point. The line that stops the laser is Goldfinger saying "You are right Mr. Bond you are worth much more to me alive."

Now I am trying to recall whether we see the torch in the film after Bond speaks and says his lines? Maybe close ups or insert shots of the lasers after that line?

QBranch

Movie magic. Keep in mind the shots were not filmed in order as we see them. And time can play with one's memory. When the laser flame disappears for good in the long shot it's a visual effect added in post.

RichardTheBruce

Science
James Bond: The profile of a perfect vaper?

Two researchers at the University of Otago in Wellington (New Zealand) got interested in tobacco use by James Bond and other characters of the Eon production series, especially by Bond's sexual partners. They also paid attention to tobacco-related spy-gadgetry over the six decades of the series and noticed he never used an e-cigarette so far.
https://www.vapingpost.com/2017/01/18/james-bond-the-profile-of-a-perfect-vaper/
By A7mad-vp -
January 18, 2017

“It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr Bond”

Everybody knows how James Bond’s life is stressful. He is a joker, a gambler, he smokes and drinks. But in “this ever-changing world in which we’re living” (Live and Let Die, lyrics) we have never seen James using an e-cigarette to get his nicotine fix, why? The warning, “It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr Bond”, in the mouth of vilains, in 1967, could have paved the way of his smoking cessation.

Selected smoking trends in 24 James Bond movies from 1962 to 2015 (from Wilson & Tucker, 2017)

Interestingly, James has gradually decreased his smoking since the first movie in 1962 (83%) and stopped smoking 14 years ago. He relapsed for his “last cigar” in Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan) and, since, hasn’t been spotted smoking, even in a mirror image (cf. Dr No where Sean Connery was smoking in bed).

Bérénice Marlohe smoking in Eon’s Skyfall movie (James Bond).

Secondhand smoke exposure and temptation to smoke
Bond’s exposure to cigarette smoke started at work, where his colleague at MI6, Miss Moneypenny, was spotted smoking as early as in 1963 (From Russia with Love). James also had multiple sexual partners who smoked and both enjoyed post-coital cigarette break, which adds to secondhand smoking the risk of fire.

Although Bond’s partners stopped smoking in the 1990s, the risk of a relapse into smoking couldn’t be completely discarded. The last occurence of a James Bond’s Girl smoking after almost 10 years of abstinence was in Skyfall (2012), as the French actress, Bérénice Marlohe (featuring Séverine), was holding a cigarette and blowing smoke at James’ face. Provocation?

Cigarettes, cigars, packs or lighters, the temptation to smoke was also present through the gadgets James received from Q’s for his missions. Were Dr No’s producers visionaries when they invented cyanide-containing cigarettes for use in suicide?

Remote controller hidden in a cigarette case (Thunderball, 1965)

Tobacco products always refer to death
In James Bond movies, various tobacco products have been diverted with strong reference to death, always. Some cigarettes were used to blow corrosive powder at vilains’ faces, hookah pipes were converted in machine guns and even a cigarette pack was equipped with a remote control detonator. But references to the risk of smoking have always been made with a lot of humour.

“You should give up smoking, cigarettes are very bad for your chest”

James received his first warning in 1967 when he was told “You should give up smoking, cigarettes are very bad for your chest” (in You Only Live Twice). His black humour about a cigarette that fires a rocket made him say “It can save your live, this cigarette”. He also ironically told “filthy habit!” to a man about his smoking after he knocked him out in 1997 (Tomorrow Never Dies).

Adaptation to changes in the society and anticipation
As health warnings appeared on British cigarette packs in 1971, reading “WARNING by H.M. Government, SMOKING CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH”, James Bond (Roger Moore) referred to such warnings in 1974 (The Man with the Golden Gun) and said “I see why these packets carry a government warning (…) they certainly can damage your health”.

Innovation is not the only fact of James Bond’s high-tech gadgets. The study also reveals that the producers of the series had anticipation skills, especially when a person, in Goldeneye, is seen going outside to smoke for the first time, saying “I’m going for a cigarette”. It was in 1995 the first reference to smoke-free workplaces while the Health Act 2006 that introduced provisions for the creation of a ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces in the UK was enacted about 10 years later.

Smoke-free workplaces is also referred to in 1999, when Bond offered a cigar to Miss Moneypenny and she threw it into her office bin. But in the same movie (The World Is not Enough), James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is also seen smoking in public transportation: a private plane and a submarine.

James Bond (Timothy Dalton) manipulation a cigarette pack of the brand Lark (Licence to Kill, 1989)

After some studies dealt with alcohol use and violent behaviour in James Bond movies the authors believe that “persisting smoking content remains problematic”. They notice that product placement (Aston Martin, Martini, Marlboro, Lark) also occurred on two occasions against only one occasion where no reference to tobacco products was made (Casino Royale, 2006).

“Will we see James Bond remaining abstinent in the future opuses of his movies?”
“Will we see him using an electronic mods or rather a PMI/Altria HNB cigarette?”

The study demonstrates that James Bond has a problem with stress, games, alcohol and women. Nevertheless, the hero is shown to follow the general trends of the society. Given his good start to get rid of combustible cigarettes over the last 14 years and the taste of his colleagues for high-tech devices, there are some questions which appear to be on the lips of a number of persons: “Will we see James Bond remaining abstinent in the future opuses of his movies?” “Will we see him using an electronic mod or rather a PMI/Altria HNB cigarette?”


Wilson N & Tucker A., 2017. Die Another Day, James Bond’s smoking over six decades. Tob Control doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2016-053426

CommanderRoss

moke-free workplaces is also referred to in 1999, when Bond offered a cigar to Miss Moneypenny and she threw it into her office bin. But in the same movie (The World Is not Enough)

not quite. It had nothing to do with no smoking in the workplace, but with the line 'i know exactly where to put that'it was a reference to a certain US president, and his extracurricular activities at the workplace.

RichardTheBruce

Well the joke was definitely relating the cigar to presidential mischief of the day in the oval office as you said @CommanderRoss .

To be fair, smoking restrictions in the UK up-ticked in 1992 and 1995, leading to an outright ban for smoking in the workplace 2006-2007.

RichardTheBruce

RichardTheBruce

RichardTheBruce

Magnets Featured in James Bond
Films, Part One

https://buymagnets.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-films-part-one/?srsltid=AfmBOoqZvXq8ZPJfo7Qvqq3WCKg942OxR0UsJmx5K_LHLwtxfH0KrDX7

Some of the most creative ideas about magnets have come from the silver screen. In movies, television, and comic books, magnets have been featured as the power behind some truly incredible gadgets and gizmos. One of the most interesting masters of magnets has been Agent 007—James Bond. In fact, magnets have so frequently played a starring role in the James Bond movies that this will be the first blog in a multi-part series examining magnets in the world of James Bond.

Magnets have Helped James Bond
Escape from Certain Doom

From Russia with Love (1963)
In From Russia with Love, the second film in the Broccoli & Saltzman franchise, Sean Connery played James Bond with a stylish attaché case in hand. This leather case, supplied to him by the brilliant “Q,” was no ordinary briefcase. Instead, it was a state-of-the-art gadget that contained a magnetized tin of talcum powder concealing a tear gas cartridge. The case was designed so that when it was opened with the latches in the wrong position, the tear gas bomb inside would explode. When Bond was confronted by Spectre villain Donald “Red” Grant, Bond had to rely on the teargas canister exploding in the face of his adversary. If not for this clever trap, Bond may not have been able to defeat Grant.

Now, could this work in real life? Well, it would probably be easier today than it was in 1963. You see, in 1963, powerful neodymium magnets had not been invented yet. This means that Bond would have had to rely on weaker ferrite or alnico magnets to attach the tin to the inside of the case.

You Only Live Twice (1967)
Sean Connery starred as James Bond for the fifth time in this film, with a screenplay written by Roald Dahl. In this film, Bond finds himself and his ally Aki being chased by a carload full of gunmen as they speed down the road in a Toyota 2000 GT. Just when things start to look particularly dire, the two are saved by Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese Secret Service. Tanaka orders a large two-rotor helicopter to their rescue, but this is no ordinary helicopter. The helicopter is carrying an enormous electromagnet, which is lowered onto the car of the villains. As the villains are lifted higher and higher into the air, the helicopter carries them away from the road and over the ocean. Suddenly, the electromagnet is shut off, and the gunmen, trapped in their car, fall helplessly into a watery grave.

Of this scene, associate producer William Cartlidge was quoted as saying, “I remember script conferences where the idea was to think of as many outrageous suggestions as you could, and this was one of them.”

Is this idea as bizarre as Cartlidge implies? On one hand, it’s not completely crazy. Electromagnets are commonly used in the scrap metal recycling industry to move cars from place to place during the recycling industry. On the other hand, electromagnets capable of lifting cars are quite heavy, and it’s questionable whether or not a small helicopter could realistically carry a large electromagnet in addition to the car the magnet picked up. Additionally, all electromagnets must be connected to a power source—we’re not sure exactly how this electromagnet is being powered.

But, part of the fun of film is that it presents us with larger than life thrills!

If you are interested in learning more about electromagnets—which you may or may not wish to connect to a helicopter—contact BuyMagnets.com today. And, stay tuned for the next blog in our James Bond series!

Magnets Featured in James Bond Films
Part 1

By Paul Fears | 06 November 2017
https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-films-part-1/

Magnets and magnetic powers often make it into popular culture via the movies. With all the gadgets and gizmos, James Bond has enlisted the help of the simple magnet on many occasions. In the first of two blogs, we look at the movies in which Magnets took a starring role alongside Sean Connery and Roger Moore.

From Russia With Love (1963)
The 1963 movie was the 2nd in the Broccoli & Saltzman franchise, featuring Sean Connery as James Bond. His attache case was the first of many state-of-the-art gadgets supplied by Q. The leather case contained a magnetised tin of talcum powder concealing a tear gas cartridge.

When the case was opened with the latches in the wrong position, the tear gas bomb exploded. After being overcome by Spectre villain Donald ‘Red’ Grant (played by Robert Shaw) on a train returning to England, Bond has to rely on the teargas canister exploding in his adversary’s face when he opens the case. In the ensuing hand-to-hand battle, Bond eventually strangles Grant with his own garrote.

Magnetically attaching the tin to the inside of the case is possible, although only weak Ferrite Magnets were available when the movie was made.

You Only Live Twice (1967)
Sean Connery’s 5th outing as James Bond was in a movie with a screenplay written by Roald Dahl. In the movie, Bond is in a Toyota 2000 GT with with an ally Aki and being chased by a car-load of gunmen. The beautiful head of the Japanese Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka, comes to his rescue. Her large two-rotor helicopter has a gigantic electro-magnet, which is lowered onto the villain’s car, lifting them off the ground and then dropping them into the sea.

Electro-magnets are used widely in the scrap metal industry and was clearly the inspiration for this gadget. However, the weight of such an electro-magnet would be considerable, especially with the addition of a car. Also, how the electro-magnet is powered is never made very clear.

Live and Let Die (1973)
In 1973 Roger Moore made his first appearance as James Bond. In the movie, Bond wears a unique Rolex watch with many features. As well as a small buzz saw built into the face, which Bond uses to free himself after being tied up, the watch has two magnetic properties. Incredibly, the timepiece has a magnetic field that is powerful enough to deflect a bullet at long range. However, it is the use of the magnet in his watch to unzip the dress of Miss Caruso is the one that is most remembered. Bond attributes this to ‘sheer magnetism’.

In reality, it is difficult to comprehend how a magnet in a watch would deflect a bullet. However, a Rare Earth Neodymium Magnet (which was not widely available at the time), may have some chance of unzipping a dress, although very unlikely.

Magnets in James Bond and the Real World
With the amazing advances in technology, many of the gadgets featured in early James Bond movies have now become reality. Since 1963 permanent magnet technology has evolved considerably, with Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets producing exceptionally strong magnetic forces. In fact, without Magnets the world would be without mobile phones, wind turbines, and electric motors.

We just wonder when James bond will next need the help of a Magnetic Force.

Related Technical Article
Magnets Featured in James Bond Movies Part 2 https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-movies-part-2/
Magneto Embraces Magnetic Power https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-movies-part-2/

Magnet and Magnet Assembly Design
Bunting designs, manufactures and supplies a wide range of magnets and magnetic assemblies. Many are bespoke for specific applications operating in extreme conditions. For further information on any of the products mentioned in this article, or for bespoke magnet assemblies and magnet designs, please contact us via:
Phone: +44 (0) 1442 875081
Email: [email protected]

Magnets Featured in James Bond Movies
Part 2

By Paul Fears | 20 November 2017

https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-movies-part-2/

In the second of our two James Bond blogs, we continue the review of how 007 and his enemies utilise magnets and magnetic forces. Our first blog concentrated on the eras of Sean Connery and Roger Moore, and in this blog we look at the movies in which Magnets took a starring role alongside Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.

The Living Daylights (1987)
It was 14 years and the appearance of a new James Bond in the form of Timothy Dalton before another magnet inspired gadget appeared after Live and Let Die (1973). In The Living Daylights, Bond has a Philips Magnetic Fob Key Ring Finder that emits a stun gas when activated by whistling the first notes of ‘Rule Britannia’. In additional, this innocuous magnetic fob also contains high explosive detonated by a wolf whistle and a series of keys capable of opening 90% of the world’s locks.

GoldenEye (1995)
The most impressive use of magnetic forces featured in the movie that introduced Pierce Brosnan as 007. GoldenEye was a top-secret Russian weapons system that converted two satellites into offensive weapons. With special access codes, the satellites set off an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would cause any object working with an electrical circuit to fail.

In the real world, minor EMP events cause low levels of electrical noise or interference which can affect the operation of susceptible devices. A very large EMP event, such as a lightning strike, is also capable of damaging objects such as trees, buildings and aircraft directly, either through heating effects or the disruptive effects of the very large magnetic field generated by the current. The damaging effects of high-energy EMP have led to the introduction of EMP weapons, from tactical missiles with a small radius of effect to nuclear bombs tailored for maximum EMP effect over a wide area.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Brosnan’s next outing as James Bond came in Tomorrow Never Dies. One of the most dramatic scenes in the movie is the car chase in the multi story car park, with Bond driving a BMW 750iL using an Ericsson Cellular Phone whilst hiding in the back seat. The car was fitting with an array of weapons including Magnetic Flash Grenades.

Magnets in James Bond and the Real World
With the amazing advances in technology, many of the gadgets featured in early James Bond movies have now become reality. Since 1963 permanent magnet technology has evolved considerably, with Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets producing exceptionally strong magnetic forces. In fact, without Magnets the world would be without mobile phones, wind turbines, and electric motors.

We just wonder when James bond will next need the help of a Magnetic Force.

Related Technical Article
Magnets Featured in James Bond Films Part 1 https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/magnets-featured-in-james-bond-films-part-1/
Magneto Embraces Magnetic Power https://www.bunting-berkhamsted.com/how-true-are-magnetos-magnetic-powers/

Magnet and Magnet Assembly Design
Bunting designs, manufactures and supplies a wide range of magnets and magnetic assemblies. Many are bespoke for specific applications operating in extreme conditions. For further information on any of the products mentioned in this article, or for bespoke magnet assemblies and magnet designs, please contact us via:
Phone: +44 (0) 1442 875081
Email: [email protected]

RichardTheBruce

FRWL


GF






YOLT







LALD








TSWLM



TLD



GE






TND


NTTD

Gerard

A few points : Mythbusters busted the myth that a magnet could divert a bullet. They tried, and didn't succeed, even with the strongest magnets in existence. As for the idea of weightlessness through magnets, it's been with us for a long time. La Diane de l'Archipel, a novel published in the 1900, showed the protagonists dress in magnetic nightshirts in order to sleep at night in complete weightlessness, and in one of his adventures, Tom Swift used a magnetic costume to train for weightlessness on Earth before going to space.

RichardTheBruce

It's correct that bullets aren't ferromagnetic.

James Bond in space

Charles Day | DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.5.01024025 September 2013
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/18876/James-Bond-in-space

The MI6 agent's occasional ventures into space are the least plausible element of the long-running movie series.

Ian Fleming’s third James Bond novel, Moonraker (1955), centers on a plot by Sir Hugo Drax, a British aerospace tycoon with a secret Nazi past, to bomb London with a missile armed with a Soviet nuclear warhead.

As usual, Fleming made his fanciful tale seem plausible by incorporating details drawn from real life. At the start of the book, Drax’s company is ostensibly developing a medium-range nuclear missile for the UK as part of the country’s nuclear deterrent. The UK had in fact embarked on just such a program, Blue Streak, in 1954. Drax’s missile is an updated version of the V-2, which Germany used to bomb Antwerp, Liège, and London in World War II and which the US used after the war to jump-start its space program.

Moonraker poster

The movie version of Moonraker, which came out in 1979, follows the novel’s theme of death dealt from the skies—but little else. As is the case in the novel, Drax’s movie spacecraft is a real one, the space shuttle. But whereas Fleming’s WMD, the nuclear-armed missile, was already in service when he wrote the novel, the movie’s WMD, a metal sphere containing nerve gas and launched from low-Earth orbit, is just silly. Why deal with the technical challenge of aiming and firing the spheres from space when they could be deployed remotely and more effectively on the ground? The fight aboard Drax’s space station was conducted, implausibly, with handheld laser weapons. Deadly laser weapons exist, but they’re hardly compact.

Indeed, most—but not all—of the James Bond movies that incorporate space weaponry stretch plausibility to the breaking point. The shining exception is GoldenEye (1995), whose villain, Alec Trevelyan, gains control of two Soviet satellites. By detonating an onboard nuclear weapon, each satellite can set off an electromagnetic pulse of such power that it would fry circuitry on Earth. Although the movie doesn’t mention it, Earth’s own magnetic field lines can direct the pulse to its target. In 1962 the Soviet Union tested the concept over Kazakhstan. From what we know of the test, the damage was extensive.

The makers of You Only Live Twice (1967) expect the audience to believe that a spacecraft can launch, chase down, and capture another spacecraft, then return to Earth—all without being detected. Here’s what Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg have to say about the feat in their book The Science of James Bond (2006):

The You Only Live Twice gobbling spaceship must travel much faster than the ship it eats, and it must possess extraordinary navigation. How could the gobbling spaceship maneuver so cleverly and precisely in outer space to find speeding rockets, get exactly on the right track for interception, and gobble them up without a major explosion? The answer is simple: It couldn’t.

Perhaps the most preposterous space weapon is the one in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Having taken over billionaire Willard Whyte’s business empire, villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld intends to hold Earth’s superpowers for ransom by threatening to destroy their ICMBs with a heat ray fired from a satellite.* The weapon is powered by mirrors that collect, store, and concentrate sunlight. Even if Blofeld knew where China, the Soviet Union, and the US hid their weapons, the spacecraft’s mirrors—made for no clear scientific reason from diamonds—are far too small for the job.

Judging by the size of its solar panels, the spacecraft in Diamonds Are Forever is tens of meters in size—too small to harvest enough of the Sun’s energy to zap targets on Earth.

Judging by the size of its solar panels, the spacecraft in Diamonds Are Forever is tens of meters in size—too small to harvest enough of the Sun's energy to zap targets on Earth.

How small? The idea of collecting sunlight and beaming it down to Earth to generate electricity predates Diamonds Are Forever by three years (or 30 years, if you count Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story “Reason”). In most schemes, including the latest by Japan’s space agency JAXA, the mirrors are kilometers in size. And by the time the beam reaches Earth’s surface, it’s even wider.

Does it matter that Bond movies get space science so wrong? After all, until the release of GoldenEye, Moonraker was the highest-grossing movie of the series. And why worry about far-fetched space travel when the central premise of the books and movies—that a single secret agent is assigned to thwart global evil—is itself far-fetched?

It matters, in my view, for two reasons. First, there’s the moviemakers’ implicit presumption that their audience will swallow bad science. Maybe that patronizing presumption is valid, but as the books and some of the movies demonstrate, it’s possible to thrill an audience with plausible science, too.

The second reason is that the Bond movies are set in the present day and purport to deal with real, present-day threats. That grounding in reality would be strengthened by plausible science; Bond’s battles with his adversaries would be more believable and therefore even more thrilling.


*Historian of science Alex Wellerstein discusses the vulnerability of nuclear weapons in his recent blog post, “The final switch: Goldsboro, 1961.”

CommanderRoss

Absolutely true, and not even mentioning dad.


But the closer to what can actually be done, the more exciting the films get.

RichardTheBruce

How James Bond's Gun Barrel Opening Was Made (Before CGI)

https://screenrant.com/james-bond-gun-barrel-opening-sequence-how-cgi/
By Craig Elvy Published Apr 9, 2020
https://screenrant.com/james-bond-gun-barrel-opening-sequence-how-cgi/

Here's how James Bond's iconic gun barrel opening sequence was filmed in the days before CGI was commonplace. Whenever a new James Bond film is released, fans have come to expect the reprisal of certain consistent elements throughout the decades. The overly-specific martini order, the outlandish gadgets, Bond girls, Aston Martins, and the "Bond, James Bond" greeting are just a few of the tidbits to look out for when settling down with a Bond film. Another standard feature is the gun barrel opening sequence, with Bond positioned down the end of long tunnel, a gunshot ringing out and crimson red blood flooding the screen.

The intro perfectly captures the action, violence, danger, style and secrecy of the James Bond character, and although the sequence has evolved with each incarnation of 007, the basic structure has more or less remained in place ever since Dr. No hit theaters in 1962.The version of the gun barrel intro movie-goers will see when No Time To Die (hopefully) arrives later this year is a mostly digital construction, but this obviously wasn't an option in the early 1960s. As such, James Bond had to dip into his innovative bag of tricks in order to first create the shot's intended effect.

While Dr. No was directed by Terence Young, the task of filming the opening sequence fell to a specialist film title designer known as Maurice Binder, whose work on Bond would form a cinematic legacy. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the arrangement of the sequence came about very quickly, with a rough draft put together 20 minutes prior to a meeting with Bond's producers. When it came time to craft the actual intro sequence, a lack of digital alternatives meant using a genuine gun barrel was the most logical solution. The gun itself is widely believed to be a 38. caliber, but Trevor Bond, who worked alongside Binder on the sequence, claims in Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films (Ajay Chowdhury and Matthew Field, 2015) that the firearm used was actually a .45 Colt British service revolver.

The use of a genuine weapon provided the signature rifling that runs all the way down the tunnel-like shot towards Bond himself. Filming in sepia, Binder first attempted to use a standard camera pointed down the barrel, but this technique created problems with keeping in focus. Instead, the finished version saw Binder switch to a small pinhole camera poked through a piece of black paper and placed down the gun's barrel, providing a photograph with far superior clarity. Because the gun barrel sequence would only feature Bond as a silhouette, a stuntman by the name of Bob Simmons stood in for Sean Connery.

In terms of sound, fans will notice that before the gunshot and famous theme music kick in, the barrel sequence is accompanied by the vaguely familiar sounds of an early computer. Binder added this as an allusion towards Dr. No's evil scheme in the movie, and the sounds themselves were provided by, in Binder's own words, "a little old lady in Surrey" who had been experimenting with the possibilities of electronic sound.

This behind-the-scenes tale perhaps isn't as auspicious as one might think given the current status of the James Bond franchise as an international movie juggernaut. And while modern sequences no longer have to resort to pinhole cameras and proper guns, Maurice Binder's original 20-minute brainwave remains intact over 50 years later, and has played a major part in making 007 a cinematic legend.

RichardTheBruce

The Opener BlackFly eVTOL performs during a night airshow at the
EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh on July 27, 2022. David Tulis

It’s 2024: Where are our flying cars?

By Shaunessy Renker, Think intern
May 7, 2024 Current Events, Science and Technology, Think
https://think.kera.org/2024/05/07/its-2024-where-are-our-flying-cars/

A running joke in the tech world is that flying cars are perpetually three to five years away. So when will they ever be a reality? New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the industry trying to create “electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles”—a.k.a. flying cars—and what it was like for him to actually fly one of the prototypes. His article is “Flight of Fancy.”

What the first years of flying cars would look like
Flying cars have been a figment of fantasy in popular culture for quite a long time. Movies such as Blade Runner, Back to the Future, and even The Man with the Golden Gun, the ninth film in the James Bond series, feature flying cars or some sort of ‘roadable aircraft.’ The invention and popularization of such a vehicle has been highly anticipated for the last century, so where are they?

“So there’s kind of an old joke that these things have been two to three years away since the early 90s,” says Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker staff writer and author of “Flight of Fancy.” “There are a lot of things that would have to happen.”

Lewis-Kraus says that for ‘flying cars’ to be integrated into society there need to be massive changes made to the infrastructure of urban landscapes and airspace control.

“Certainly, our current air traffic control is not prepared to allow that to happen,” he says. “Right now we have pretty strict minimum separation standards for how far apart aircraft have to be in the sky, especially in congested airspace.”

The first successful prototypes of eVTOLs, electric vertical take-off and landing aircrafts, don’t require a license to operate and are solely for recreational use. Lewis-Kraus says the use of the aircrafts are targeted towards people who own a lot of land since they’re greatly constrained in terms of its surroundings. More specifically, eVTOLs can’t operate in windy or rainy weather and congested airspace, they’re limited in terms of altitude, and their current battery capacity is a mere 25 minutes.

“The way that they [eVTOL manufacturing companies] envision it this first-use case are gonna be more or less what helicopter services are like now,” says Lewis-Kraus. “The first iteration of these are going to be piloted. One of the big hurdles to overcome outside of the technological limitations is just passenger-consumer behavior and passenger expectation.”

Lewis-Kraus says that through conducting different business model calculations, eVTOL companies discovered that having aircrafts operated by pilots indefinitely would not be sustainable long term. Given the daunting pilot shortage airline companies currently struggle with, finding pilots to take on eVTOL transport would be incredibly difficult.

“Some of the companies have bet on the idea that the first to market will be piloted air taxis and then down the line—once people are used to those and once people see that it’s safe and reliable—then they’ll introduce autonomous drone taxis,” says Gideon Lewis-Kraus.

Lewis-Kraus predicts that autonomous air taxis would operate like shuttles and fixed departure and arrival locations would be established. This is because allowing anyone to own an eVTOL for personal use and then to fly it wherever they please could result in chaotic and congested airspaces, especially in urban areas. So, the first ‘flying car’ services will operate similar to how helicopter companies are run today.

“You’ll be able to go to what they call your local Vertiport… and you would book it through an app,” says Lewis-Kraus. “You would stroll over to the Vertiport, you would get through security and board in seven minutes. And then 10-15 minutes later you would be from Manhattan to JFK airport… these would be run on regular schedules.”

He says that a ticket for the first commercial eVTOL flights would be priced at about the cost of a helicopter trip which hovers around $175 per seat.

“One of these companies as signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Brisbane to fly passengers for their 2032 Olympics which does seem like a much more plausible timeline,” says Lewis-Kraus. “Within 10 years there will be some form of air taxi flying around.”

RichardTheBruce

Bond Flies PHASST

https://www.kineticaerospace.com/
for more information contact:
Kinetic Aerospace Inc. E-mail: [email protected] or phone 541-895-2038

Or "Switchblade" as it's called in the 20th James Bond film,
Die Another Day, released in American theaters November 22, 2002.

Yes, those are PHASST gliders carting superspies James Bond and Jinx Johnson (played by Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry, respectively) into the face of peril. They're the reason Kinetic Aerospace Inc. pulled the PHASST test flight photos off the company's www.kineticaerospace.com web site for a year.

Amazingly (amazing at least to KA's lead designer, Jack McCornack), the producers of the film wanted the Switchblades to look like the version Kinetic Aerospace flew at Eloy, AZ in January 2001. "I thought their art department would go crazy with [the Switchblades]," said McCornack, "but they wanted them identical to our first flight test model, right down to the paint job."

According to Kinetic Aerospace's president, Dave Rogers, this put the company in a bit of a quandary. "We were honor- and contract-bound to keep the Switchblade image and information under wraps," said Rogers. "Since Switchblades look and fly just like PHASSTs, we felt the most discreet thing to do was to block public access to kineticaerospace.com until the film was released." Rogers acknowledged the company's other projects are not publicly accessible at present, saying, "If we couldn't keep secrets, we couldn't keep customers."

McCornack claims he was pleased to see how director Lee Tamahori handled the Switchblade scene. "It's brief, but realistic," said McCornack, "The good guys get in unobserved, thanks to a fast cruise, good glide performance, and minimal radar signature. It's a wonderful promotion for the PHASST."

Glimpses of Switchblade flight grace the official Die Another Day trailer, and all five of MGM's television ads for the film. Flash and QuickTime movies are available on www.jamesbond.com and www.mgm.com For more information regarding Switchblades, email [email protected]

Kinetic Aerospace Inc. builds specialized aircraft and provides equipment and services for these aircraft, such as launch mechanisms and on-location/field support. If you have a specific question about our aircraft, or would like us to quote on a project of your own, please contact us at [email protected] or phone 541-895-2038

Kinetic Aerospace Inc.
P.O. Box 50103
Eugene, OR 97405

News Release
PHASST Makes First Flights

ELOY, AZ: Early in 2001, a new breed of aircraft took wing two miles above the Arizona desert. The PHASST (Programmable High Altitude Single Soldier Transport), pronounced "fast" flew three test missions in January, launched from a Skyvan jump plane and landing in desert rangeland near the Picacho Mountains, east of Eloy. All three launches were at 12,000 feet, with development pilot Allan Hewitt separating from the PHASST at 6000 feet and landing under his own canopy.

The PHASST is designed to carry a paratrooper or skydiver, and as such is designed around parachuting skills rather than airplane pilot skills. The PHASST pilot flies in a "tracking" position (prone, head forward), the aircraft is dynamically stable in all three axes, and like a parachute, has no elevator, rudder, or aileron input. Instead, the pilot has brakes on each wingtip, which control direction and drag, much like the brakes on a ram-air parachute.

Hewitt was chosen for his considerable parachuting experience, which includes a stint with the British Army's Red Devils display team, and also his powered parachute experience, which includes stunt piloting a Parahawk in the 19th James Bond film, The World is Not Enough. He met PHASST designer Jack McCornack while both were working on that film, on location in the French Alps.

"We needed someone who would be a quick study, since we couldn't draw from a pool of pilots who had flown this sort of thing," said McCornack. "There is no 'this sort of thing.'"

Described as "more something you wear than something you ride," the PHASST is contoured to fit the pilot, with the pilot's arms and legs fitting into recesses in the fuselage. Sweep is variable in flight, with a minimum wingspan of 5-1/2 feet for deployment from the transport plane and rapid decent, and a maximum wingspan of 8 feet for cruise and slow flight.

The PHASST is launched tail-first with wings folded, from the rear ramp of the transport plane. Once free of the plane, the PHASST pilot spreads the wings and begins a high speed glide to his destination. On arrival, he releases the PHASST and tracks away, then opens his parachute and lands in the normal skydiving manner. The PHASST can then land under its own canopy, or fly unmanned under remote guidance or programmed instructions.

According to McCornack, the first flight tests were meant to "...practice the launches, make sure the pilot can get clear [of the PHASST] easily in flight, and prove the practicality of the concept. And though we intend the PHASST to literally fly itself, Allan needs some time on it before we can explore its performance envelope."

Current PHASST test projects include autopilot control and autonomous navigation by GPS, which allows the PHASST to follow a preprogrammed course without pilot input. The pilot will be able to overpower the navigation system through use of the wingtip brakes, should the situation warrant such action.

Hewitt reported the PHASST was "a rock steady jump platform" for his two low speed (100 mph) separations, but "a bit of a handful" in his one high speed (197 mph recorded) separation. Hewitt recommended future PHASST pilots "...put on the brakes before bailing out."

Three chase jumpers videoed the tests, and found the task challenging. "When Allan circled, we dropped right past him," said Andy Bennett, rigger and jumpmaster for the flights. "and when he put the nose down and tracked, he shot off toward the horizon much faster than we could go."

The tests were a joint effort by Kinetic Aerospace Inc., which built the PHASST, and Sky Science Inc., which provided the pilot, rigger, recovery system, and cameramen. According to Kinetic Aerospace marketing VP Dave Rogers, the next manned tests will involve two PHASSTs, so "...the cameraman will have a way to keep up." He said future development plans include a turbojet powered version, which is expected to cruise at 180 knots and have a 100 mile range.

Rogers explained the six month delay between the January 2001 test flights and the release of information as "...a courtesy to a customer, but now that we've met those needs, we're ready to brag."

The company is seeking clients in the military, film, and recreational markets, for both the glider and turbojet versions.

For more information contact Dave Rogers at [email protected] or 850-668-6363, or write Kinetic Aerospace Inc., PO Box 50103, Eugene, OR 97405.

--end--

PHASST EXIT With wings swept, Hewitt deploys both brakes and backs out of the Skyvan.
A cameraman is exiting to the right.


PHASST CRUISE With wings spread to full span,
the PHASST "flat tracks" below a video cameraman.

RichardTheBruce

Are laser beams visible even without haze and fog?

https://www.laserworld.com/en/laser-technical-faq/1132-do-i-need-fog-or-haze-to-make-the-laser-beams-visible.html

You always need a surface to reflect the laser light. This can be fog or haze for beam shows, or all kinds of screens for projections. Very common screen types are waterscreens, gauze screens, rear projection screens or fog screens.

All 3D-like projections with lasers also need kind of a surface to be reflected on!

It is not possible to create laser-sword like effects: You cannot "terminate" the laser beam somewhere, it can physically not be terminated without having an end-point (surface).

Laserworld recommends to use a haze machine for indoor beam shows to get the smoothest effect.

It is definitely not possible to see any laser beams in the air without having particles in the air!

RichardTheBruce

13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
August 1-6, 2004
Paper No. 548

COLLAPSE MECHANISMS OF MASONRY BUILDINGS DERIVED BY
THE DISTINCT ELEMENT METHOD
Argiris Alexandris 1 , Eleni Protopapa,2 and Ioannis Psycharis 3
https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/13_548.pdf

SUMMARY
The present paper investigates the crack patterns and the collapse mechanisms of stone masonry structures subjected to severe earthquake excitations, using a distinct element representation of the structural walls. The investigation was focused on typical structures of traditional Cypriot architecture. It was found that, for typical houses, the most common mode of collapse is the out-of-plane failure of the façade walls, while other failure mechanisms were related to the excessive shearing of the stiffer walls and the collapse of window or door lintels. For this reason, three-dimensional analysis is usually necessary, in order to capture the response realistically. However, the response of the vaults and arches can be estimated quite realistically by two-dimensional modeling. A number of possible intervention techniques were also studied, as the addition of concrete ties or a concrete slab at the roof level and the construction of additional structural walls. Such techniques result in decreasing the out-of-plane deformation of the walls, diminishing, in a great extend, the possibility of collapse. The addition of steel ties to arched walls also enhances the seismic resistance. It is recognized that further research is needed in the field, especially in the simulation of the progressive damage and degradation of the masonry fabric during subsequent shaking cycles.

INTRODUCTION
Non-engineered stone masonry structures, which in many cases constitute the architectural heritage of a country, are the most vulnerable class of buildings to earthquakes. Damaging earthquakes of the last decades in Italy (Umbria-Marche, 1997), Greece (Grevena-Kozani, 1995, Aigio, 1995, Athens 1999), Cyprus (Paphos, 1995, Lemesos, 1996) and Turkey (Izmit, 1999), to confine the presentation to the eastern Mediterranean only, resulted in great losses of building stock in historical centers. Although damage statistics and empirical relations are important tools in order to quantify vulnerability and to estimate future losses, they do not provide any help or guidance on how to reduce this vulnerability and, more importantly, how to assess the effectiveness of various intervention techniques, commonly used by engineers in practice...

...

page 5
In all the analyses presented herewith, the Kalamata, Greece, 1986 earthquake record was used as the base excitation (Ambraseys et al., [13]), appropriately scaled each time to various shaking levels, necessary to study the structural damage and the collapse mechanisms. The earthquake was of magnitude 6.2 and caused considerable damage not only to stone masonry houses, but also to modern, reinforced concrete frame structures in the city of Kalamata, which was located directly above the seismic source. The record of this earthquake bears the characteristics of a near-source seismic motion: it contains a couple of long- period pulses and it has a rather high value of peak ground velocity. This earthquake record was selected because we believe that small size earthquakes at short epicentral distances are the main threat to Cypriot traditional building stocks.

A two-dimensional model of the long façade of the house was analysed using the code UDEC. In spite of the fact that the block size was almost double than the stone size used in the real structure, a significant number of blocks were necessary for a realistic modelling of the wall. The short walls, which run perpendicular to the plane of the analysis, were taken into account by appropriately scaling the density of the brick elements at the model edges. This technique was also used by De Felice and Giannini [14] and it gives satisfactory results when the out-of-plane response of the normal wall affects the overall behaviour.

The cracking pattern and the collapse mechanism, obtained for two levels of the seismic motion, are presented in figure 7. It can be seen that cracks originated from the corners of the window and the door openings and propagated diagonally. The separation of the normal walls at the model edges is also apparent in the lower figure, where the shaking intensity is higher. The collapse originated from the shear failure of the weakest pier, which, in this case, was the pier formed between the left window and the door.

The model house was also analysed by the three-dimensional code 3DEC. In this case, the two-story part of the structure was modelled. The results are presented in figure 8 for the scaled Kalamata record. In the left plot, the cracking pattern for a base excitation with pga=0.54g (twice the original record) is shown,
while in the right plot, the collapse mechanism for the seismic motion scaled to pga=0.80g is given. For the lower shaking level, the cracking pattern observed is similar to the one obtained by the two-dimensional analysis (top of figure 7). It should be mentioned, however, that in the 3-D analysis the base excitation was double in amplitude than the one in the 2-D runs. As far as the collapse mechanism is concerned, the mechanism obtained by the 3-D analysis is completely different than the corresponding one from the 2-D analysis. In the three-dimensional model, the out-of-plane rocking of the long walls dominates and the collapse is reached when these walls topple.

It should be noted that the cracking patterns derived by the distinct element analyses (top of figure 7, left of figure 8) are in good agreement with the damage observed in similar structures after the 1995 Paphos earthquake. The most common damage is summarized in figure 9 and it consists of diagonals shear cracks, which were more often concentrated to weak piers between openings, vertical cracks at the building corners, caused by wall separation, and horizontal cracks at roof level, due to roof and wall separation. Wall buckling, caused by the out-of plane bending, was also frequent especially at the longer façades.

The shaking level, necessary to reach the collapse threshold, is considerably high according to the numerical analyses and it does not seem realistic, compared to the damage observed after the earthquake. This does not happen only for the Kalamata record, but it is also the case for a number of other records tested. It should be attributed to the perfectly shaped brick elements used in the masonry representation and the inability of the model to simulate contact breakage and rounding of the corners during the rocking. However, the collapse mechanisms are quite realistic.

...

References

REFERENCES
1. Casolo S., S.Neumair, M.Parisi and V.Petrini (2000) Analysis of seismic damage patterns in old masonry church facades. Earthquake Spectra Vol. 16 No 4.
2. Griffith M.C. Magenes G. Melis G. and Picchi L. (2003) Evaluation of out-of-plane stability of unreinforced masonry walls subjected to seismic excitation JEE vol 7 Special Issue 1, pp 141-169.
3. Doherty, K. T., Rodolico, K.T., Lam, N., Wilson, J. and Griffith, M.C. (2000) The modelling of earthquake induced collapse of unreinforced masonry walls combining force and displacement principals, Proc. of the 12 th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Auckland, New Zealand.
4. Brookes, C.L. Mehrkar-Asl, S. (1998) Numerical modelling of Masonry using discrete elements. Proc. of the 6 th SECED Conference on Seismic Design Practice into the Next Century Oxford.
5. Sincraian G.E. & J.J. Azevedo (1998) Numerical simulation of the seismic behavior of stone and brick masonry structures using the discrete element method. 11th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Balkema, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5410 982 3.
6. Azevedo J., Sincraian G. and Lemos J.V. (2000) Seismic behavior of blocky masonry structures, Earthquake Spectra, 16, no.2, p.337-365.
7. Cundall P. A. (1971) A computer model for simulating progressive large-scale movements in blocky rock systems, Proc. Of the Symposium of the International Society of Rock Mechanics (Nancy, France, 1971), 1, paper no.II-8.
8. Itasca Consulting Group, Inc., (1996) UDEC-Universal Distinct Element Code, version 3.0- User’s manual, Minneapolis.
9. Itasca Consulting Group, Inc., (1998) 3DEC-3 Dimensional Distinct Element Code, version 2.0- User’s manual, Minneapolis.
10. Cundall P.A. (1988) Formulation of a three-dimensional distinct-element model-Part I: A scheme to detect and represent contacts in a system composed of many polyhedral blocks, Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci., 25, p.107-116.
11. Chronopoulos M. (1995) Behaviour of stone masonry walls. STREMA’95.
12. Pitta A. (2000) Traditional stone masonry houses in Cyprus. Manual for post earthquake repairs. Nikosia 2000 (in Greek).
13. Ambraseys N.N., Smit P., Berardi R., Rinaldis D., Cotton F. and Berge-Thierry C. (2000) Dissemination of European strong motion data. CD-Rom collection. European Council,
Environmental and Climate Program.
14. De Felice G. & Giannini R. (2001) Out-of-plane seismic resistance of masonry walls. J. of Earthquake Engineering, 5, p. 253-271.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Collapse-mechanisms-in-the-front-and-back-facades-a-Overturning-b-Vertical-bending_fig27_370134952

Collapse mechanisms in the front and back facades. (a) Overturning, (b) Vertical bending, (c) Lateral bending.

RichardTheBruce

Finger on the pulse: the use and abuse of EMP in 10
Hollywood films

https://www.qinetiq.com/en/blogs/finger-on-the-pulse-emp
Grant Williams, Senior Sales Manager - Novel Product Incubation
13/10/2020

Electromagnetic (EM) pulses are a short burst of electromagnetic energy. They can originate from natural occurrences such as sun spots or electrical storms, but are increasingly delivered through man-made activities either intentionally in a weapon format or accidentally by creating ‘noise’ in certain parts of the spectrum through activities, for example, welding.

Regardless of source, the effects of an EM pulse remain consistent, in that they deny the availability or degrade the performance of critical electrical and autonomous systems; many of these systems being those we place an ever-increasing reliance on to deliver day-to-day functions across our homes, cities and industries.

The impact of electromagnetic interference scales up or down depending on the type of environment that it occurs and its reliance on electrical connectivity. For example, autonomous systems could emit small EM pulses as they communicate with each other - this would be fine in an open space, with nothing around, but place those systems inside of a consumer retail business and the pulses they emit could impact the working efficiency of each other, the infrastructure around them, or even the security of the building. On the opposite end of the scale, terrorist groups could create an EMP device with an impact similar to a nuclear bomb which at the speed of light could wipe out infrastructure for hundreds of miles and leave no trace.

The latter is much less likely to happen, but the slight possibility of it has led many a Hollywood production to include references to EMP. But, like many plot devices, liberties are often taken with the science. So how accurate actually are movie references to EMPs? From the mostly credible to the patently ridiculous, we’ll break down the science for you for ten popular movie moments.

Spoiler alert: EMP is an important feature in most of these films. So, please bear this in mind if you’ve not seen them all yet.

#1 GoldenEye (1995)

“…discovered after Hiroshima. Set off a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere, creates a pulse, a radiation surge that destroys everything with an electronic circuit.” - M

What happens?
The eponymous Goldeneye describes a fictional Russian EMP weapon system; two disposable satellites - ‘Mischa’ and ‘Petya’ (which sound a lot less sexy than ‘Goldeneye’). Each is armed with a nuclear warhead, and designed to detonate in the upper atmosphere, producing an EMP blast that affects the area beneath them.

One of the satellites is triggered earlier in the film over a Russian base; we don’t actually see a nuclear blast. Instead, there’s a visible light pulse and lots of explosions at the base in question. The pulse causes two fighter jets to explode, and the other to lose control and crash. It also spells a similar fate for a helicopter. The villains escape the facility in a completely EMP-shielded, stealth Tiger helicopter.

The main antagonist, Alec Trevelyan, plans to later activate the second Goldeneye satellite over London, erasing all electronic information in the city. Ultimately (and as usual) Bond saves the day and the satellite is never fired.

Is it scientifically accurate?
Some of it. Goldeneye is what would be called a High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (‘HEMP’) and, were such a satellite to exist it’d be a credible threat.

Nuclear blasts in the upper atmosphere have shown to cause EMP that effect things at ground level - the Starfish Prime test of 1962 involved a 1.4 megaton warhead detonated over 240 miles above the Pacific Ocean. This was enough to affect infrastructure in Hawaii, over 850 miles away, whilst also irreparably damaging at least three low earth orbit satellites.

What’s important to note is that 60s era infrastructure was much, much less vulnerable to EM than the infrastructure of today. There were less vulnerable electronics; a transistor was the size of a match head. Today, a billion transistors can be fitted on to a match head - if you were to scale your smartphone to 1962, its electronics would fill a football stadium. The point is that there are far, far more electronic devices now and these devices are smaller and operating at lower volts, amps and power. All of which makes for increased susceptibility

Of course, we don’t know what kind of precautions that the electronic systems of the Bank of England have taken - but it’s quite possible that the computer system that governs the UK’s central bank is EMP shielded to a certain extent.

However, the consequences of triggering Goldeneye over London could have been disastrous for other areas of critical infrastructure and lesser-shielded civilian society. Power grids, utility providers, other satellites - all would be vulnerable to the effects of Goldeneye.

That said, the pulse is unlikely to have had such a dramatic effect on the Severnaya military facility itself, instead of arcs of lightning and fires, you’d more likely have just seen the lights go out as the electronic circuits at the facility fail. This is, unless, the base stored munitions; most explosive charges (from mining to the military) use electronic devices as the detonator.

Accuracy rating: Not bad

#2 Broken Arrow (1996)

“That’s EMP; electromagnetic pulse, nuclear blast sends it out for miles, everything electronic shuts down, including choppers and radios. Hell we just shut down McMurran's field communications!” - Vic Deakins

See Blog link above

#3 Escape from L.A. (1996)

"You push that button, 500 years' worth of work will be finished. Our technology, our way of life, our entire history. We'll have to start all over again. For God's sakes, don't do it, Snake!!” - Malloy

See Blog link above

#4 The Matrix (1999)

“Electromagnetic pulse. Disables any electrical system in the blast radius. It's the only weapon we have against the machines.” - Trinity

See Blog link above

#5 Cars 2 (2011)

“I’m detecting an extremely strong electromagnetic pulse. Finn, it’s the camera!” - Holley Shiftwell

See Blog link above

#6 Red Dawn (2012)

"There's a new class of weapon that caused a massive electrical pulse. Everything went offline and never came back. Grids fried, subs drowned, they mopped up by hitting cities with tactical non-nuke warheads…” - Sgt Maj. Andy Tanner

See Blog link above

#7 Independence Day (2016)

“What goes up, must come down.” - David Levinson

See Blog link above

[#8 Captain America: Civil War (2016)

“Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight Car... Soldier?” - Baron Zemo

See Blog link above

#9 The Fate of The Furious (2017)

“That Damocles 7 EMP weapon that went missing in the Gulf? Arms dealers from the Liberation front have it in Berlin. This thing can wipe out an entire electrical grid in a major city. No lights, no power, instant stone age… This is a Class Four WMD, do you have any idea what’s at stake here?!” - DS Allan

See Blog link above

#10 Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

“…twenty minutes ago an energy surge knocked our power across the entire Pacific Northwest.…our first instinct was that it was an EMP… but electromagnetic pulses don’t have that kind of power” - Unnamed US General

See Blog link above

Electromagnetic activity in the real world
While we have torn apart the scientific accuracy of EM attacks in the way Hollywood portrays, the fact is that electromagnetic disruption is happening and having an increasing impact on business and services.

The application of the EM threat is shifting rapidly from expensive military systems to low cost, easy to acquire and highly mobile platforms, increasingly being used by sophisticated terrorist, cyber-criminal and civilian activists to disrupt our key industries and services for their gain.

EM pulses are invisible to all cyber detection technologies, meaning that interference, be that intentional or not, can not only cause issues with an organisation’s infrastructure, but it can be undetected and remedied for an unknown amount of time; causing untold organisational, reputational and operational costs.

You can find out more about QinetiQ’s electromagnetic disruption detection technology here. https://www.qinetiq.com/en/what-we-do/services-and-products/electromagnetic-disruption-detection

James Bond explains EMP


James Bond Jr Episode 1 The Beginning/A View To A Thrill



007 Racing Ambush Mission



Everything Or Nothing EMP Grenade


GoldenEye: Rogue Agent EM Pistol


Black Box EMP Wristwatch

RichardTheBruce

Kasper Bekas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasper_Bekas

Bekas series
Role Glider
National origin United States
Designer Witold Kasper
First flight April 1968
Introduction 1968
Status No longer in production
Number built 3
Developed from Brochocki BKB-1

The Kasper Bekas is a family of American mid-wing, tailless gliders designed by Witold Kasper and derived from the earlier 1959 Brochocki BKB-1 design.[1][2]

Design and development
The Bekas series was an attempt by Kasper to create an experimental tailless glider with a higher glide ratio, better ground handling and rigging, using a flexible wing to study the effects of wing flexing on stability and controllability in flight.[1][2]

The Bekas is built from wood and covered in plywood. The wing uses a NACA 8-H-12 airfoil and has greater span and higher aspect ratio than the BKB-1 to achieve its goals. The wing features outboard trailing edge control surfaces that act both as elevator for pitch control and aileron for roll control. The wing is swept 15° and has a chord of 38 in (97 cm). The landing gear is a fixed monowheel.[1][2]

The design resulted in a high glide ratio for a 15 m (49.2 ft) wingspan of 45:1, along with a reasonably low sink rate of 2.0 feet per second.[1][2]

Operational history
The first Bekas, an "N" model, was built by Kasper in 1968. It was destroyed and removed from FAA records in 1977.[3]

Two others were completed. One model 1-A was started by Al Wilson of Seattle, Washington and completed by Clifford Johnson of Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1972, which features a wider chord wing. The final one was completed by Don Mattson of Seattle.[2][4]
Variants
Bekas N
The "N" (for narrow wing) was first flown in April 1968.[2]
Bekas 1-A
Variant with longer wing chord.[1][2]

Specifications (Bekas N)
Data from Sailplane Directory and Soaring[1][2]
General characteristics
Crew: one
Length: 12 ft 0 in (3.66 m)
Wingspan: 49 ft 3 in (15 m)
Wing area: 158 sq ft (14.7 m2)
Aspect ratio: 15.3
Airfoil: NACA 8-H-12
Empty weight: 350 lb (159 kg)
Gross weight: 550 lb (249 kg)

Performance
Maximum glide ratio: 45:1 at 66.5 mph (107 km/h)
Rate of sink: 120 ft/min (0.61 m/s) at 50 mph (80 km/h)
Wing loading: 3.48 lb/sq ft (17.0 kg/m2)

https://eaglepubs.erau.edu/introductiontoaerospaceflightvehicles/chapter/gliders-sailplanes/

Gliders and sailplanes are streamlined, low-drag aircraft with long, high-aspect-ratio wings.

Anatomy of a modern sailplane, which will be made of glass and/or carbon fiber with glassy smooth surfaces to obtain laminar flow.

The balance of forces on a sailplane shows that the higher the lift-to-drag ratio of the aircraft, the shallower the glide angle.

Aeromot AMT-200 Super Ximango

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeromot_AMT-200_Super_Ximango

AMT-200 Super Ximango
Role Motor glider
National origin Brazil
Manufacturer Aeromot
Designer René Fournier
Introduction 1993
Number built 126 (2009)
Developed from AMT-100 Ximango

The Aeromot AMT-200 Super Ximango is a Brazilian motor glider developed from the AMT-100 Ximango but fitted with a Rotax 912 engine.[1]

Design and development
Built from glassfibre, the Super Ximango is a low-wing cantilever monoplane with conventional landing gear and a T-tail. Powered by front-mounted 80 hp Rotax 912A, it has an enclosed side-by-side cockpit for two. The wings fold for storage or transportation.

U.S. Air Force TG-14A designated AMT-200
Variants
AMT-200
Rotax 912A powered variant in the Utility category.
AMT-200S
Rotax 912S4 powered variant in the Utility category.
AMT-200SO
Reconnaissance variant of the AMT-200S in the Restricted category

Operators
United States
United States Air Force – operated by the U.S. Air Force Academy as the TG-14.
NASA – operated at Armstrong Flight Research Center as the TG-14.
Brazil
Military Police of Paraná State – operated in patrol of environmental policing.
Dominican Republic
Dominican Air Force

Specification
Data from Taylor 1996, p. 511, Jackson 2007, p. 28
General characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 8.05 m (26 ft 5 in)
Wingspan: 17.47 m (57 ft 4 in)
Width: 10.15 m (33 ft 4 in)
Height: 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 18.7 m2 (201 sq ft)
Aspect ratio: 16
Airfoil: NACA 643-618
Empty weight: 625 kg (1,378 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 850 kg (1,874 lb)
Fuel capacity: 90 L (24 US gal; 20 imp gal)
Powerplant: 1 × Rotax 914-S4 piston engine, 60 kW (80 hp)
Propellers: 2-bladed Hoffmann HO-V62R/170FA, 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) diameter

Performance
Maximum speed: 220 km/h (140 mph, 120 kn)
Cruise speed: 205 km/h (127 mph, 111 kn)
Stall speed: 76 km/h (47 mph, 41 kn)
Never exceed speed: 245 km/h (152 mph, 132 kn)
Range: 1,000 km (620 mi, 540 nmi)
Service ceiling: 4,900 m (16,100 ft)
Maximum glide ratio: 31
Rate of climb: 1.8 m/s (350 ft/min)
Rate of sink: .93 m/s (183 ft/min)
Wing loading: 45.3 kg/m2 (9.3 lb/sq ft)

References
Taylor 1996, p. 511.

Bibliography
Taylor, Michael JH (1996), Brassey's World Aircraft & Systems Directory 1996/97, London: Brassey's, ISBN 1-85753-198-1
Jackson, Paul (2007). Jane's All The World's Aircraft 2007-2008. United Kingdom: Jane's Information Group. ISBN 9780710627926..

https://www.facebook.com/nationalmotormuseum/posts/the-submersible-glider-from-no-time-to-die-is-a-star-attraction-of-our-new-007-b/10160412224037878/



https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1164770114291851

James Bond Glider is real or fictional | Military Glider | Top secret weapons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8gKnci7Ac0

RichardTheBruce

Convair Submersible Seaplane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_Submersible_Seaplane

The Convair Submersible Seaplane (or "Subplane") was a United States Navy project to produce a seaplane which could travel underwater as well as fly.

History
Between 1962[1] and 1964,[2] the Navy granted a contract to Convair, a military aircraft arm of General Dynamics, to design and develop the vehicle, intended for anti-submarine warfare. The craft's operational deployment would be to scout for enemy submarines from the air and, if any were detected, land on the water, submerge, and engage them underwater.[1] One envisioned deployment was to attack shipping in the Soviet Union's marginal seas – the Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas.[3]

The specifications were for a craft capable of operating in sea state 2 (waves of maximum height of 1.8 feet (0.55 m)), a cruising speed in flight of up to 220 miles per hour (350 km/h), and an underwater performance of up to 10 knots (19 km/h), a depth of down to 75 feet (23 m), and an endurance of 10 hours.[2]

Convair's design was for a narrow-hulled flying boat (rather than a floatplane).[3] The craft was to be powered by three turbojets, carry a crew of two, and carry a payload of 500 to 1,500 pounds (227 to 680 kilograms). The craft was to have used ballast tanks to dive and surface, much as a conventional submarine does,[1] located in the wings and fuselage.[4] The weaponry was to be torpedoes or mines.[2] For undersea operations, the turbojets would be sealed water-tight, and underwater propulsion would be provided by a battery-powered electric motor driving a propeller.[2]

Convair made detailed designs and built scale models which were tested, and averred that the craft would work, but the project did not get beyond that stage and was cancelled by Congress in 1965[2] or 1966.[1][3]

References
"Convair Submersible Seaplane (1962) - "Flying Submarine" Concept". Fantastic Plastic catalog. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
"CONVAIR Submersible Seaplan". Military Factory. January 4, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
Paul Marks (June 30, 2021). "From sea to sky: Submarines that fly". New Scientist. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
"Engineers working on design for combination plane-submarine". Palo Alto Times. March 10, 1965. Retrieved April 10, 2021.

Technology
From sea to sky: Submarines that fly

By Paul Marks 30 June 2010
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727671-000-from-sea-to-sky-submarines-that-fly/

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/ccA4LiLX?exp=1745697231&sig=2165912adf6b92d6fbe8e1a608f8daa6
Video: “Stingray fin” boat (see box at end of article)


Flying underwater
(Image: Simon Danaher)

GUILLEMOTS and gannets do it. Cormorants and kingfishers do it. Even the tiny insect-eating dipper does it. And if a plan by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) succeeds, a remarkable airplane may one day do it too: plunge beneath the waves to stalk its prey, before re-emerging to fly home.

The DARPA plan, announced in October 2008, calls for a stealthy aircraft that can fly low over the sea until it nears its target, which could be an enemy ship, or a coastal site such as a port. It will then alight on the water and transform itself into a submarine that will cruise under water to within striking distance, all without alerting defences.

That, at least, is the plan. The agency is known for taking on brain-twistingly difficult challenges. So what about DARPA’s dipper? Is it a ridiculous dream? “A few years ago I would have said that this is a silly idea,” says Graham Hawkes, an engineer and submarine designer based in San Francisco. “But I don’t think so any more.”

DARPA, which has a $3 billion annual budget, has begun to study proposed designs. In the next year or so it could begin allocating funding to developers. Though the agency itself is unwilling to comment, Hawkes and others working on rival designs have revealed to New Scientist how they would solve the key problems involved in building a plane that can travel under water – or, to put it another way, a flying submarine.

The challenges are huge, not least because planes and submarines are normally poles apart. Aircraft must be as light as possible to minimise the engine power they need to get airborne. Submarines are heavyweights with massive hulls strong enough to resist crushing forces from the surrounding water. Aircraft use lift from their wings to stay aloft, while submarines operate like underwater balloons, adjusting their buoyancy to sink or rise. So how can engineers balance the conflicting demands? Could a craft be designed to dive into the sea like a gannet? And how will it be propelled – is a jet engine the best solution, both above and below the waves?

“Aircraft must be light to minimise the power needed to get airborne, while subs need massive hulls to resist crushing”

According to Norman Polmar, former adviser on naval strategy and technology to the US government, the starting point must be to find a way to make an aircraft that can sink in water. “Submarines cannot fly,” he says, “but seaplanes can submerge.” This was the thinking behind what was probably the first stab at a flying submarine. In 1934 Boris Petrovich Ushakov, a student engineer at a Soviet military academy, devised a flying underwater boat – a three-engined floatplane designed to scout out enemy ships and then ambush them. Ushakov envisaged his craft flying ahead of the target, landing on the sea and then flooding its fuselage so that it could lie in wait beneath the surface and torpedo the ships as they sailed past. Ushakov submitted his radical design, which included a conning tower and periscope, to senior officers in 1936. But the concept was never put into practice, being deemed too heavy to be effective.

It took another three decades before a flying sub appeared for real. This was a craft built in 1962 by Donald Reid, an engineer at aircraft manufacturer North American Aviation. The Reid Flying Submarine (RFS-1) was a true mongrel, constructed by Reid in his spare time using leftover parts from other aircraft and, like Ushakov’s design, it was a floatplane. The craft proved able to dive to a depth of a few metres in tests, but was so heavy it could only make short hops into the air. Though this was at the height of the cold war, the US navy showed little interest in Reid’s machine.

That may have been because the navy had already commissioned another aircraft manufacturer, Convair, to build what became known as the “subplane“. It dispensed with heavy floats, relying instead on its streamlined fuselage, like the hull of a flying boat, to land on the water. In a paper in the September 1964 issue of Naval Institute Proceedings (p 144), hydrodynamics engineer Eugene Handler at the US Bureau of Naval Weapons claimed this flying sub would be ideal for attacking Soviet shipping in the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas. Convair drew up detailed designs and even built scale models which were tested in water tanks. Though the results looked promising, the project never made it any further; it was cancelled by Congress in 1966.

So is DARPA’s new project destined for a similar fate? “What the Americans want sounds incredibly ambitious,” says UK Royal Navy commander Jonty Powis, head of NATO’s submarine rescue service. “If they achieve half of what they want from this machine they will be doing well.” Others are more optimistic, especially in the light of advances in engineering and materials science since the last attempt – notably in lightweight carbon fibre composites and energy-dense batteries. “There’s probably no reason why it can’t be done,” says Hawkes.

There is general agreement that Convair’s hull design was sound. Landing on a flying-boat-style fuselage and doing away with cumbersome floats should make the craft lighter and faster both in the air and under water. But once the craft is on the water, how best to get it to dive?

Simply flooding the fuselage with water is one solution, but this means the crew would have to be kitted out with scuba equipment. Housing the crew in a watertight cabin is obviously preferable, and to counter its buoyancy Polmar suggests borrowing another idea from Convair’s design – floodable fuel tanks. If the fuel in the tanks is held in a rubber bladder, the craft can be submerged by letting water into the void vacated by fuel used on the outward trip. When it’s time to surface, the water can simply be pumped out.

For propulsion under water, electric power is the preferred option, according to Ian Poll, an aerospace engineer at Cranfield University in the UK. “Using batteries to drive electric motors when submerged could have another benefit,” he says: their weight would help counter the craft’s buoyancy.

Unfortunately batteries could severely undermine the sub’s airworthiness. In a report titled “Conceptual Design of a Submersible Tactical Insertion Aircraft“, published last year by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a team of engineering students at Auburn University in Alabama calculated that the batteries required for a sub capable of travelling 44 kilometres under water – a distance specified by DARPA – will weigh as much as all the other components of the vessel combined, making it too heavy to fly.

So rather than using electric power, the Auburn team favours propelling the vessel with a gas turbine fed by air drawn in through a 10-metre snorkel. That means the sub will have to stay close to the surface. While DARPA has yet to specify at what depth the flying sub should operate, being restricted to a limited depth might not matter. “As long as it is not visible, there’s not much reason to dive far below the surface,” says Bob Allwood, engineer and chief executive of the Society for Underwater Technology in London. “The problem is that the craft has still got to be slightly denser than water to submerge.”

Hawkes, however, does not see this as a problem. In fact he doesn’t accept that the craft has to be made heavier to sink beneath the waves, any more than a normal aircraft has to become more buoyant to take off. “You can’t build an aeroplane that is also a balloon, and an aeroplane can’t go under water in the same way a sub does. You’re mixing two fundamentally different modes of operation.”

Hawkes already builds submarines that are lighter than water (New Scientist, 12 February 2000, p 36). To overcome their natural buoyancy and keep them below the surface, they are equipped with wings that generate downward “lift”. “Think about it as flying under water,” he says. “It can be done. It just needs a lot of work.”

“A submersible that is lighter than water needs wings that generate downward ‘lift’”

Into the deep
To operate below the waves as well as above them, these wings will have to be a bit out of the ordinary. “One important thing is that the craft’s wings will need a symmetrical aerofoil, unlike the asymmetrically curved wing that gives aircraft lift,” he says. So when the craft is airborne, the wing will need a positive “angle of attack”: in other words, it will need to be angled upwards relative to the airflow. To achieve this, the craft will have to fly in a nose-up attitude. Conversely, when under water it will need a negative angle of attack, so the craft will travel nose-down (see diagram).

Ocean flyer

Hawkes has already built a stubby-winged submersible called the Super Falcon that can “fly” down to 300 metres, about 10 times deeper than a scuba diver. Redesigned with aero engines and larger wings, it could be made to fly at about 900 kilometres per hour with its nose angled up by about 5 degrees, Hawkes says. Under water it should manage around 10 knots (18 kilometres per hour). At these speeds, the characteristics of the air and water flow – defined by a parameter known as the Reynolds number – are roughly the same, so the craft’s control surfaces should work in both environments.

Hawkes admits that an awful lot of power will be needed to get the Super Falcon airborne, and only jet engines have enough oomph to do the job. Polmar agrees, and points out that the piston engines used in conventional light planes are ruled out for other reasons: they would fail if any water leaked into the cylinders. “You cannot immerse a reciprocating engine and expect it to work,” he says. But protect a jet engine against saltwater corrosion and position it high on the craft so the spray doesn’t enter the intake during take-off and landing, and it will work fine. Russian aircraft maker Beriev has proved this with its Be-200 amphibious plane.

In fact, Hawkes foresees jet engines playing a dual role, propelling the plane through the water as well as through the air. There’s no reason why the compressor and turbine blades in a jet engine can’t be driven by an electric motor to generate thrust under water, he says. It should be possible to build an engine that runs on kerosene in air and switches to electricity when submerged.

Others are already thinking along these lines. Last year, aircraft manufacturer Airbus patented a hybrid electric jet engine for airliners which can be powered by both conventional kerosene and electricity. Most jet engines have an electric starter motor, and this motor could spin the turbine’s shaft under water, Hawkes suggests. The blades would rotate more slowly than normal, he says, and the engine won’t be particularly efficient. “But I believe this could work perfectly well.”

The Auburn students came up with much the same strategy in their design, opting for a type of gas turbine called a turboshaft to get the best performance. Equipped with large rotor blades and gears to adjust its speed, a turboshaft unit offers “acceptable efficiency” in both air and water, they say. Alternatively the air could be fed to a fuel cell to generate electricity to spin the blades.

But there is one stumbling block to Hawkes’s scheme for using a conventional jet engine for propulsion in air and water. “You can’t let cold seawater get at a hot engine because the thermal shock will blow it apart,” warns engineer Jim McKenna of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, who has previously researched submersible systems. “It takes a long, long time to cool down a jet engine: the turbine runs at somewhere between 500 and 600 °C,” he says. In other words, without some innovative thinking, a jet-powered sub might have to wait hours on the surface before its engines are cool enough for it to dive.

Should Hawkes’s buoyant design win out, getting it to sink low enough in the water for its wings to start creating downward forces could also be a problem. Hawkes has a dramatic solution: copy what diving birds do. “You might have to put the nose down and literally dive, smack, into the water,” he says. Taking inspiration from birds would put submersible-aircraft engineers in illustrious company: 19th-century glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal and the early 20th-century inventors of powered flight, the Wright brothers, are among those who did so – though it’s no guarantee of success in this case. Whatever happens, says Hawkes, “it would certainly be spectacular”.

As stealthy as a fish
Fish of the family Rajidae, which includes stingrays and skate, swim by flicking the outer edges of their fins. Victor Krylov from Loughborough University in the UK believes that winged submarines might be able to do the same (Ocean Engineering, vol 37, p 378). He suggests using electric motors or shape-memory materials to repeatedly flick the end of a flexible, wedge-shaped wing, creating a wave that ripples backwards and generates forward thrust.

Tests using model boats equipped with undulating rubber keels have shown that the rippling effect works, though it is less efficient than a conventional propeller (Applied Acoustics, vol 68, p 97). But importantly for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is about to commission development work on flying submarines, the “rajiform” drive should be far quieter than propellers, making craft harder to detect. And, he says, a vessel’s crew would not feel vibrations with a wedge-shaped wing, as the wave remains confined near the wing tip.

This Plane Could Fly Underwater... (9:20)


https://www.flightglobal.com/picture-darpa-seeks-submersible-aircraft-concepts/83329.article




https://www.twz.com/41045/the-navy-concluded-transmedium-flying-submersible-vehicles-were-possible-a-decade-ago

RichardTheBruce

Eyeborg: Man Replaces False Eye
With Bionic Camera > Canadian
filmmaker Rob Spence has replaced his
false eye with a bionic camera eye. He
showed us his latest prototype

Tim Hornyak | 11 Jun 2010
https://spectrum.ieee.org/eyeborg-bionic-eye

Tim Hornyak is a Tokyo-based journalist and the author of Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots.

A man holds a prosthetic bionic eye, a round silver device, with his fingers in front of his face. Photo: Tim Hornyak

When Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence was a kid, he would peer through the bionic eye of his Six Million Dollar Man action figure. After a shooting accident left him partially blind, he decided to create his own electronic eye. Now he calls himself Eyeborg.

Spence’s bionic eye contains a battery-powered, wireless video camera. Not only can he record everything he sees just by looking around, but soon people will be able to log on to his video feed and view the world through his right eye.

Spence and his collaborators—Kosta Grammatis, John Polanski, Martin Ling, Phil Bowen, and camera firm OmniVision—managed to get a prototype working last year. Time magazine named it one of the best inventions of 2009. Now the group is developing a version that offers a clearer picture.

I recently met with Spence in Toronto. In unreleased footage (see screenshot below) that Spence gave me, he demos the prosthetic as a colleague filmed. The feed from the eye-cam is picked up by a wire antenna that Spence held to his cheek, and relayed to a flatscreen TV in the background.

The prototype in the video provides low-res images, but an authentic experience of literally seeing through someone else’s perspective. The image is somewhat jerky and overhung by huge eyelashes; a blink throws everything out of whack for a half-second.

Rob Spence demonstrates his bionic camera eye. A wireless camera in a specially designed prosthetic relays a video feed to an antenna that he presses to his cheek. The feed is shown on the screen behind him as a colleague films. Image: Rob Spence

The bionic eye is simply designed, and components are constantly changing. It basically contains a 1.5mm-square, low-res video camera, a small round printed circuit board, video transmitter, and a 3-volt rechargeable Varta microbattery. The components are contained in resealable clear acrylic used in false eyes, but it has two holes for wires to recharge the battery.

“I can recharge my eye via USB off my laptop,” says Spence.

The Eyeborg prototype in the video, the third, can only work for an hour an a half on a fully charged battery. Its transmitter is quite weak, so Spence has to hold a receiving antenna to his cheek to get a clear signal. He muses that he should build a Seven of Nine-style eyepiece to house it. He’s experimenting with a new prototype that has a stronger transmitter, other frequencies and a booster on the receiver.

“Unlike you humans, I can continue to upgrade,” Spence quips. “Yes, I’m a cyborg. But I think that any technology—even clothing—makes people cyborgs.”

Spence loves to ham it up as Eyeborg , installing a red, laser-like LED light in one version of the prototype and pulling on a 1970s track suit to become Steve Austin (see the video below). But he’s serious about using his camera eye to get Internet users to view the world through his eye, and is developing an Eyeborg app that may feature augmented reality functions.

“In today’s world, you have Facebook and camera eyes,” he says. “Tomorrow, we’ll have collective consciousness and the Borg. It’s a collective robot consciousness. I believe that’s a genuine modern concern.”

Eyeborg seems content to lead us into our robot future.

Updated 06/14/10 to clarify development timeline.