If you’ve enjoyed the short clips I’ve shared on the University of Maryland students and their Gamera II human-powered helicopter, you’ll appreciate this news story and interview that gives more details on the heli’s construction as well as how they recruited their “meat motor” pilots (their term!).

This micro UAV can fly and hover using its four-wing design. The brainchild of engineers at Georgia Tech, the TechJect Dragonfly is 6 inches long, weighs around 25 g (0.88 oz) and is powered by a 250mAh lithium polymer battery that provides hover times of 8-10 minutes and a hybrid (hover/flight) time of 25 to […]

Our sincere thanks to all military veterans, whether they’re active duty, retired, reservists, National Guard, National Air Guard and more. You are the backbone of these United States, and we appreciate all that you have sacrificed for God and country. Happy Veterans Day.  

How cool is this?  To celebrate the 12th anniversary of astronauts living and working on the International Space Station, NASA is launching a new service to alert people when they can see the orbiting lab from their backyard! Sign up at Spot the Station and they will email or text you with a few hours’ […]

Not only is this video fun to watch, it will make you feel good about humanity as well. In it, a pilot in a full-size helicopter saves an Hangar 9 P-51. Thanks to Failz4fun for posting it and to contributor Rich Uravitch for bringing it to our attention. (Note: this video contains language inappropriate for children.)

At the Helicopter Scale Masters in Sacramento earlier this month, competitors tested their piloting skills by manevuering their scale helis over a pool and picking up water with an underslung bucket. As YouTube poster Flynlyons notes, “Trying to hover a RC helicopter in one spot for more than a few seconds is rather difficult to […]

Deadlines can take a toll on even the most dedicated editor, which is why taking short breaks throughout the day is important to managing stress. What better way to relieve work tension than by dropping ping-pong balls on my unsuspecting coworkers? This iOS-controlled flyer is just the ticket, with a 30-foot range and flight times of […]

This news story from Gizmag takes a look at Harvard’s amazing Robobee, a tiny air vehicle that uses its wings to take off and maneuver. Don’t miss this video! Harvard researchers are getting closer to their goal of developing a controllable micro air vehicle called the Robobee. The tiny robot was already capable of taking […]

This bidirectional flying wing looks like science fiction, but it could be the airliner of the future … and it could get us to our destinations a lot more quickly! Check out this story from Technewsdaily: The supersonic, bidirectional flying wing idea comes from a team headed by Ge-Cheng Zha, an aerospace engineer at the […]

  The new remote-control surveillance aircraft, a collaboration between Surf Life Saving Queensland and hi-tech firm V-TOL Aerospace, was set to take to the air at North Stradbroke Island today. A trial over Flinders Beach, between Adder Rock and Amity Point, was planned to test the unmanned aerial vehicle, which can be fitted with a […]

Here’s an interesting story out of the University of Virginia, where engineering students used 3D printing technology to create an RC aircraft: 3D printers are already being used to create machine parts and small toys, but engineers have now used the technology to build an entire vehicle: a plastic, unmanned airplane that actually flies. The plane, […]

Here’s a great new video from PBS News of a Scan Eagle being caught in the wire, a deceptively simple way of recovering a UAS to a moving ship. It really is the benchmark UAS fixed wing system. ScanEagle launches autonomously and uses a patented no-nets recovery solution for recovery. The system recovers with its wing […]