Aerocar 2000
The Aerocar 2000 was a proposed flying car under development in the early 2000s in the United States. The Aerocar 2000 was designed by Ed Sweeney, who was inspired by Moulton Taylor's Aerocar of the 1950s (and is the owner of the only still-flying example of this vehicle). The Aerocar 2000 consisted of a removable wings, tail, and powerplant "flight module" added to a modified Lotus Elise roadster. Comparison to original Aerocar In conception, this was far closer to the AVE Mizar of the early 1970s than to Taylor's designs, the vehicle portions of which were purpose-designed and built. Another difference with the original Aerocar (and similarity to the Mizar) is that the flight module is not designed to be taken away from the airfield. Finally, while the Aerocar used the one engine to drive both the road wheels and the propeller, the Aerocar 2000 (again like the Mizar) uses two separate engines. In the Aerocar 2000's case, the flight engine is a twin-turbocharged V-8 motor from a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lotus Elise
The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. The Elise has a fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chassis that provides a rigid platform for the suspension, while keeping weight and production costs to a minimum. It is capable of speeds up to . The Elise was named after Elisa Artioli, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli who was chairman of Lotus and Bugatti at the time of the car's launch. Production of the Elise, Exige and Evora ended in 2021, to be replaced by a new family of models. Series 1 The 1996 Lotus Elise weighed . Because of this low weight, it was able to accelerate 0- in 5.8 seconds despite its relatively low power output of . Braking and fuel consumption are also improved by the car's reduced weight. Cornering is helped by a low center of gravity height of 470 mm (18½"). Series 1 was designed by Julian Thomson, then ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flying Car (aircraft)
A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes used to include hovercars and/or VTOL personal air vehicles. Many prototypes have been built since the early 20th century, using a variety of flight technologies. Most have been designed to take off and land conventionally using a runway. Although VTOL projects are increasing, none has yet been built in more than a handful of numbers. Their appearance is often predicted by futurologists, and many concept designs have been promoted. Their failure to become a practical reality has led to the catchphrase "Where's my flying car?", as a paradigm for the failure of predicted technologies to appear. Flying cars are also a popular theme in fantasy and science fiction stories. History Early 20th century In the late 1800s, American immigrant Gustav ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boys' Life
''Scout Life'' (formerly ''Boys' Life'') is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Its target readers are boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18. The magazine‘s headquarters are in Irving, Texas. ''Scout Life'' is published in two demographic editions. Both editions often had the same cover, but are tuned to the target audience through the inclusion of 16–20 pages of unique content per edition. The first edition is suitable for the youngest members of Cub Scouting, the 6-to-10-year-old Cub Scouts and first-year Webelos Scouts. The second edition is appropriate for 11-to-18-year-old boys and girls, which includes second-year Webelos through 18-year-old Boy Scouts, Varsity Scouts and Venturers. If the subscription was obtained through registration in the Boy Scouts of America program, the publisher selects the appropriate edition based on the scout's age. In June 2007, ''Boys' Life'' garnered four Distinguished Achievement Awards conferred by t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moulton Taylor
Moulton B. "Molt" Taylor (September 29, 1912 – November 16, 1995) was an American aeronautical engineer famed for his work designing, developing, and manufacturing on a small scale one of the first practical flying cars, the Aerocar. Life and career Taylor was born in Portland, Oregon and studied engineering at the University of Washington. After graduation, he was accepted into the United States Navy as a pilot during World War II, and spent much of the war working on the Navy's Gorgon missile program, for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit medal. Shortly after the war, he designed his first flying car, the Aerocar, and founded Aerocar International in Longview, Washington, to develop, manufacture and market the aircraft. Taylor came up with the idea for the Aerocar in 1946, after meeting inventor Robert Edison Fulton Jr. and noticing the flaws in his Airphibian roadable aircraft design. To date, Taylor's Aerocar remains the closest that any such design came to act ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aerocar
Aerocar International's Aerocar (often called the Taylor Aerocar) was an American roadable aircraft designed and built by Moulton Taylor in Longview, Washington in 1949. Although six examples were made, it never entered large-scale production. It is considered one of the first practical flying cars. Design and development Taylor began designing a roadable aircraft in 1946. During a trip to Delaware, he met inventor Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who had designed an earlier roadable airplane, the Airphibian, with detachable wings. Taylor's prototype, the Aerocar, utilized folding wings that allowed the road vehicle to be converted into flight mode in five minutes by one person. When the rear license plate was flipped up, the operator could connect the propeller shaft and attach a pusher propeller. The same engine drove the front wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. When operated as an aircraft, the road transmission was left in neutral (though backing up during taxiing was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Popular Mechanics
''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation of all types, space, tools and gadgets are commonly featured. It was founded in 1902 by Henry Haven Windsor, who was the editor and—as owner of the Popular Mechanics Company—the publisher. For decades, the tagline of the monthly magazine was "Written so you can understand it." In 1958, PM was purchased by the Hearst Corporation, now Hearst Communications. In 2013, the US edition changed from twelve to ten issues per year, and in 2014 the tagline was changed to "How your world works." The magazine added a podcast in recent years, including regular features ''Most Useful Podcast Ever'' and ''How Your World Works''. History ''Popular Mechanics'' was founded in Chicago by Henry Haven Windsor, with the first issue dated January 11, 1902. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AVE Mizar
The AVE Mizar (named after the star Mizar) was a roadable aircraft built between 1971 and 1973 by Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE) of Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. The company was started by Henry Smolinski and Harold Blake, both graduates of Northrop Institute of Technology's aeronautical engineering school. Development Prototypes The prototypes of the Mizar were made by mating the rear portion of a Cessna Skymaster to a Ford Pinto. The pod-and-twin-boom configuration of the Skymaster was a convenient starting point for a hybrid automobile/airplane. The passenger space and front engine of the Skymaster were removed, leaving an airframe ready to attach to a small car. AVE planned to have its own airframe purpose-built by a subcontractor for production models, rather than depending on Cessna for airframes. By mid-1973, two prototypes had been built and three more were under construction. One prototype was slated for static display at a Van Nuys Ford dealership, owned by AVE p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lotus Esprit
The Lotus Esprit is a British sports car that was built by Lotus Cars at their Hethel factory in England between 1976 and 2004. It was among the first of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's polygonal "folded paper" designs. Background In 1970 Tony Rudd, who had arrived at Lotus the previous year, proposed two new model development projects. The first, Project M50, resulted in the 1974 Elite. The second, Project M70, meant to develop a successor to the Europa which, like the Europa, was to be a two-door fixed-head mid-engine coupé. A meeting between Colin Chapman and Giugiaro was arranged in 1971 by designer Oliver Winterbottom, who also suggested that Giugiaro use his Maserati Boomerang concept as the inspiration for the new Lotus. Work began on the new car in mid-1971 with production of a 1:4 scale model. According to Italdesign, Chapman was disappointed with the wind-tunnel test results with the model and halted the project, but the Italian coachbuilder pressed on and built a f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chevrolet Sprint
The Suzuki Cultus is a supermini car produced by the Japanese manufacturer Suzuki from 1983 to 2016. The nameplate is currently used as a rebadged second-generation Suzuki Celerio in Pakistan since 2017. It was first presented at the 25th Tokyo Motor Show, formally introduced to Japan in 1983 and ultimately sold in seven countries across three generations and marketed worldwide as the Suzuki Swift for the first two generations. An alliance formed in 1981 between General Motors, Suzuki and Isuzu allowed GM to market the Cultus as a captive import internationally under more than a dozen nameplates including the Geo Metro, Chevrolet Sprint, Pontiac Firefly and Holden Barina. It was also known as the M-car within GM. Offered across its lifespan in four body-style variations with engines from the Suzuki G engine family, the second generation Cultus still remained in production in Pakistan until late 2016. The Cultus family of vehicles has been marketed in Asia, Australia, Europe, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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V8 Engine
A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and used in cars and speedboats but primarily aircraft; while the American 1914–1935 ''Cadillac L-Head'' engine is considered the first road going V8 engine to be mass produced in significant quantities. The popularity of V8 engines in cars was greatly increased following the 1932 introduction of the ''Ford Flathead V8''. In the early 21st century, use of V8 engines in passenger vehicles declined as automobile manufacturers opted for more fuel efficient, lower capacity engines, or hybrid and electric drivetrains. Design V-angle The majority of V8 engines use a V-angle (the angle between the two banks of cylinders) of 90 degrees. This angle results in good engine balance, which results in low vibrations; however, the downside is a larg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MT-Propeller
MT-Propeller Entwicklung GmbH, founded in 1980 by Gerd Muehlbauer, is a manufacturer of composite propellers for single and twin engine aircraft, airships, wind tunnels and other special applications.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook'', page 84. BAI Communications. The company headquarters is located at Straubing Wallmuhle Airport in Bavaria, Germany. History In 2010 the company developed a special propeller design for restorations of the North American F-82 Twin Mustang The North American F-82 Twin Mustang is the last American piston-engined fighter ordered into production by the United States Air Force. Based on the North American P-51 Mustang, the F-82 was originally designed as a long-range escort fighter .... Applications Factory installed Installed under an STC Installed on unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) See also * List of aircraft propeller manufacturers References External links *{{Official website, http://www. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Homebuilt Aircraft
Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenneth: ''Choosing Your Homebuilt - the one you will finish and fly! Second Edition'', pp. 39–52. Butterfield Press, 1993. Peter M Bowers: ''Guide to Homebuilts - Ninth Edition''. TAB Books, Blue Ridge Summit PA, 1984. Overview In the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, homebuilt aircraft may be licensed Experimental under FAA or similar local regulations. With some limitations, the builder(s) of the aircraft must have done it for their own education and recreation rather than for profit. In the U.S., the primary builder can also apply for a repairman's certificate for that airframe. The repairman's certificate allows the holder to perform and sign off on most of the maintenance, repairs, and inspections themsel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |