Finally, in 2011, some action. Later this year an American company called Terrafugia will go into “low volume production” on its Transition Roadable Aircraft - a genuine, non-delusional, you-can-actually-buy-it-and-it-actually-flies flying car. It looks a bit like the Ghostbusters’ vehicle with fold-out wings, and will cost something between £125,000 and £160,000. Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich hopes to sell 200 a year.
“A lot of people said they never thought it would fly,” Dietrich has said. “But we have a vehicle right here, right now that drives and flies, and converts between the two in 20 seconds.”
Terrafugia (Latin for “escape from land”) was founded by Dietrich and a team of pilots and aeronautics engineers. Partly funded by the US Department of Defence, they’ve been quietly beavering away on the car in Woburn, Massachusetts since 2006, and are almost ready to start selling.
Owners of a new Transition will need 20 hours of flying time on record before being allowed to unfurl the car’s mechanical wings and take off, but it’s easy to pilot once they do - or so says Colonel Phil Meeter, the first man to fly the Transition in tests over upstate New York in 2009.
On landing he enthused: “My daughter could do this! Anyone can do it!” The retail machine will have a flight range of just less than 500 miles (enough to get from London to, say, Zurich) and will travel at speeds of up to115mph.
This being an American firm, targeting American customers, Terrafugia’s flying car is not without its luxuries. It has touch-screen controls in the cockpit, and the “cargo area holds golf clubs”. With the wings in tucked-up mode the Transition can be filled up in any normal petrol station, and parked in any normal garage. It also has built-in parachutes. But let’s not dwell on that. - Guardian News and Media
The world’s largest bridge stretches more than 26 miles long and is five miles longer than the Dover-Calais crossing and almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. This bridge is also 174 times longer than London’s Tower Bridge over the Thames River.
At the cost of $8.5 billion, the bridge is specifically designed to withstand an earthquake of 8 magnitude and tropical typhoons with winds up to 125mph. Initiated back in 2006 with two separate groups of workers building the different ends of the structure, the six-lane expressway stretches from Qingdao to Huangdao and the Pearl River Delta city of Zhuhai.
Slated to carry over 30,000 cars per day when it opens to commuters at the end of 2011, it is expected that this bridge will dramatically reduce travel distance along the route between Qingdao and Huangdao by 30km (more than 18 miles) and shave about 20 minutes off the total travel time.
Although everything went well when construction was completed in December, there were still concerns.
“The computer models and calculations are all very well but you can’t really relax until the two sides are bolted together. Even a few centimeters off would have been a disaster,” commented one engineer.
Fame however, is fleeting, and this bridge will only remain the world’s largest for a few years when it is expected that its length will be bested by still another Chinese bridge that will link southern Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macau. This one is set for completion in 2016 and will span nearly 50 km (30 miles).
China Sets Record For World’s Longest Sea Bridge
Is there really such a thing as a bridge too far? Author, Cornelius Ryan, used that title for his best selling World War II drama that became a popular movie in the 1970s. There is, however, no allegory intended here in the construction of the three-way Qingdao-Haiwan Bridge, which extends from the bustling eastern Chinese port of Qingdao to the suburb of Huangdao.The world’s largest bridge stretches more than 26 miles long and is five miles longer than the Dover-Calais crossing and almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. This bridge is also 174 times longer than London’s Tower Bridge over the Thames River.
At the cost of $8.5 billion, the bridge is specifically designed to withstand an earthquake of 8 magnitude and tropical typhoons with winds up to 125mph. Initiated back in 2006 with two separate groups of workers building the different ends of the structure, the six-lane expressway stretches from Qingdao to Huangdao and the Pearl River Delta city of Zhuhai.
Slated to carry over 30,000 cars per day when it opens to commuters at the end of 2011, it is expected that this bridge will dramatically reduce travel distance along the route between Qingdao and Huangdao by 30km (more than 18 miles) and shave about 20 minutes off the total travel time.
Although everything went well when construction was completed in December, there were still concerns.
“The computer models and calculations are all very well but you can’t really relax until the two sides are bolted together. Even a few centimeters off would have been a disaster,” commented one engineer.
Fame however, is fleeting, and this bridge will only remain the world’s largest for a few years when it is expected that its length will be bested by still another Chinese bridge that will link southern Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macau. This one is set for completion in 2016 and will span nearly 50 km (30 miles).
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