Yes, that's a 747 landing right on the beach.

Oddly enough, there has never been a major incident at the airport!

Check out the site for video and more dangerous airports.

Filed under: 747, beach, dangerous airports, and travel

The world's largest general aviation show in Oshkosh, MN, wraps up this week. Here's a best in show roundup from Popular Mechanics. I liked the Cirrus single-engined personal jet, but John Travolta's antique 707 is pretty cool too.

Filed under: oshkosh, general aviation, airplane, and jet

As the peons of air travel become less and less comfortable, more and more imagination gets poured into new amenities for the top 1% of air travelers.

Such as the lucky few who get to fly First Class on Emirates Air's new Airbus A380 jets ... five minute showers! Hardly sounds as luxurious as the real thing on ground, which can last considerably longer, but still an intriguing treat.

But no, you can't share the shower with a special friend ... it can only fit a single person. Or can it? We look forward to the experimentation.

Filed under: air travel, showers, first class, and emirates air

This compressed air powered car is a cool innovation from India. You can fill the tank at filling stations with special compressed air pumps for about $2 or fill it with a home air compressor in about four hours. It doesn't say how much that is, but it sounds comparable to an electric car which is very, very cheap.

How cheap? At $2 to fill up and a 125 mile range, it would cost about $0.016 per mile in fuel. A Toyota Prius feels like a fuel hog - at $4 per gallon and 50mpg, it would cost $ 0.08 per mile in fuel.

And if you didn't guess already, compressed air is, well, compressed air and so there is no tailpipe and no emissions. Cost in India is about $12,700.

Unfortunately this car is made of extremely lightweight materials that would not be durable in crashes and so it's unlikely to be legal in the US.

At least not yet.

Filed under: air, car, green, energy, and electric

In the shape of a dragon, this design shows the modernist genius of Sir Norman Foster, Architect.

Reaction from passengers is said to be positive, which is a big change from some other terminals, such as the UK's Terminal 5.

More pictures at the link.

Filed under: airport, norman foster, and china

Here's an idea in sync with the times - an airship with solar panels that can drop down power to the ground, anywhere it would be needed. The possibilities in politically sensitive areas, such as Myanmar, where aid is tough to provide seem unlimited. Imagine an airship giving direct aid to the Tsunami victims, bypassing the government. It would create an enormous amount of good will the government would be unable to counteract.

The airship has solar cells on top of it, so it can provide electricity from anywhere sunlight can be found low enough for it to route its giant power cords down to the ground.

Power to the people, and clean solar power at that.

Cool.

Filed under: power, solar, airship, and blimp

Here's something crazy for the day: A private, people-powered zeppelin.

Video of it flying at the link.

Filed under: zeppelin, airship, aircraft, and flying

The second of our two reassembling robots at first looks quite mundane - a normal looking kitchen chair.

Pull it apart and it automatically reassembles itself and becomes a "normal" chair once more.

You'll never look at your kitchen furniture the same way again ...

Filed under: kitchen chair and reassembles

Looking oddly like space alien headquarters or deep-freeze pods for spacemen, these new Delta seats look like they will give flyers a bit of privacy, comfort and a better shot at some sleep during those monotonous overnight flights.

They look like a really interesting design, trying to use some of the unused space defined by the airplane's contours to give a bit more room.

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until 2010 to give them a try.

And no more $12,900 fares (see below for that story).

Filed under: delta, tourist class, seats, airplane, airline, and flying

This is a trailer for a longer documentary, but it's fairly long and gives a beautiful overview of the event.

Plenty of great still pictures too.

Filed under: SR-71, airplane, and rc

that a trip via Singapore Air's new Suites class couldn't fix.

Determined to provide the ultimate in luxury, Singapore's new class brings a virtually full-sized bed, gourmet cuisine and champagne, a 23" LCD TV, complete privacy and oh so much more to your flying experience.

I must admit that with this kind of service on tap I would be looking forward to the long flight instead of dreading it.

But I'm sure you're guessing this experience might be just a shade expensive.

Well, it costs about $1,600 to fly from LAX to Cebu City in the Philippines via Cathay Pacific economy class.

The same flight on Singapore Air "Suites or First" class is just $12,971.30.

Yes, you could buy a small car for that much.

View the video walkthrough to see how the other 0.001% lives. Although I can't help but wonder if a lot of their potential audience is flying their own Gulfstream IV nowadays ...

Filed under: singapore air, the only way to fly, first class, and suites class