Tag: Flying

It seems there are drones of every shape and size on the market these days, and while the larger models are designed primarily for aerial photography, the smaller models are mostly just for fun. TRNDLabs makes a number of small drones, with the SKEYE Pico Drone being the smallest of the bunch, measuring just 0.87″ square, and weighing just 0.25 ounce.

Like the Wright brothers before him, this man has a serious need to fly. Some might call him adventurous. Others would call him innovative. I call him crazy. The custom-built aircraft you see here is called “The Swarm,” but I call it, “Let me off ths crazy thing!”

I love Star Wars and have since the ’80s when all I ever wanted for Christmas was all the toys – all of them. I never understood why Santa couldn’t get that right. I mean, I got the Ewok treehouse play set, but no Ewoks and no walker to crush with tree trunks.

These days, everybody stores their videos “in the cloud.” Now some clever folks in the UK are actually projecting video on real clouds. Recently, on the clouds floating over Nottingham, England, residents saw the spooky green image of a man riding a horse in the night sky.

Growing up, I had a subscription to the magazine of the Boy Scouts called Boys’ Life. The only part of that magazine I have any recollection of was all the wacky ads in the back for things like x-ray glasses and hover machines built using vacuum cleaner parts.

Despite feeling like a bit of a dork, I rather enjoyed riding a Segway. That said, I still had to contend with crowded sidewalks and hazards on the ground while riding one. If the guys behind AirBoard have their way, we could soon be hovering in the air instead of riding on bumpy sidewalks.

It’s the end times! No, not really. Just humans doing what they do and creating some really awesome stuff or just being stupid, depending on your perspective. Check out this video from Brazilian shirt store Camisaria Colombo, who attached a bunch of headless 2D mannequins with their clothes to hexacopters, and then launched them sky-high.

I want to fly this radio-controlled Millennium Falcon so bad. Look at that badass bright afterburner. The aircraft was made by redittor Olivier-FR and it may not look like much, but it’s got it where it counts.

This terrifying video illustrates what happens when drones go in for the kill. This UAV has been armed with roman candles, which look every bit as scary as real bullets. It also looks super fun. As long as you are the one controlling the drone and not the poor sap getting hit with fire.

One of the coolest things about the Avengers movie was the massive flying helicarrier that had all the people and aircraft aboard. That was awesome and I would love to see that happen in the real world.

NASA is getting really metal, as of late. Mars is boring, so we should actually be going to Venus which is full of ultra-high pressures, searing temperatures, and a thick layer of clouds that are made mostly of sulfuric acid.

Wait. This is what trees do after Christmas? They fly away? I’d better anchor my tree down so I can enjoy it for a few more weeks. You better nail yours down too, because if Otto Dieffenbach’s tree can fly like this, they might all take off.

Scientists from the NASA AMES Research Center and Stanford University are working on an interesting new drone that is designed to be biodegradable. The idea is that if the drone is on a mission watching someone on the down low and crashes, it will melt away into the environment.

Most drones are a variant on a multi-rotored helicopter. The quad-rotors are the most common, but professional photographers like the octo-rotors more. Still, there are a lot of other ways to beat the air into submission and fly, including the good old standby of be light, have wings, and flap them a lot.

Malloy Aeronautics in the UK is developing a flying quadcopter designed for human riders. Right now they are testing a 1/3 scale model proof-of-concept vehicle called the Drone 3 that has a robot riding it. Now imagine a full scale version of this thing chasing you down with a larger robot and outfitted with lasers.

Like Amazon, it appears Google has been mulling the use of drones to deliver goods. The company recently unveiled its Project Wing, a system that uses drones with the goal of delivering goods within two minutes after an order is placed.