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MacCready Solar Challenger
The Solar Challenger was a solar-powered aircraft designed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment. The aircraft was designed as an improvement on the Gossamer Penguin, which in turn was a solar-powered variant of the human-powered Gossamer Albatross. It was powered entirely by the photovoltaic cells on its wing and stabilizer, without even reserve batteries, and was the first such craft capable of long-distance flight. In 1981, it successfully completed a 163-mile (262 km) demonstration flight from France to England. History The Solar Challenger was designed by a team led by Paul MacCready as a more airworthy improvement on the Gossamer Penguin, directly incorporating lessons learned from flight testing the earlier aircraft.Solar Challenger - Exclusiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experimental Aircraft
An experimental aircraft is an aircraft intended for testing new aerospace technologies and design concepts. The term ''research aircraft'' or '' testbed aircraft'', by contrast, generally denotes aircraft modified to perform scientific studies, such as weather research or geophysical surveying, similar to a research vessel. The term "experimental aircraft" also has specific legal meaning in Australia, the United States and some other countries; usually used to refer to aircraft flown with an experimental certificate. In the United States, this also includes most homebuilt aircraft, many of which are based on conventional designs and hence are experimental only in name because of certain restrictions in operation. , US Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved 2018-01-12 < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Manston
Royal Air Force Manston or more simply RAF Manston is a former Royal Air Force station located in the north-east of Kent, at on the Isle of Thanet from 1916 until 1996. The site was split between a commercial airport Kent International Airport (KIA), since closed, and a continuing military use by the Defence Fire Training and Development Centre (DFTDC), following on from a long-standing training facility for RAF firefighters at the RAF Manston base. History First World War At the outset of the First World War, the Isle of Thanet was equipped with a small and precarious landing strip for aircraft at St Mildreds Bay, Westgate, on top of the chalk cliffs, at the foot of which was a promenade which had been used for seaplane operations. The landing grounds atop the cliff soon became the scene of several accidents, with at least one plane seen to fail to stop before the end of the cliffs and tumble into the sea which, fortunately for the pilot, had been on its inward tide. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teflon
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off from DuPont, which originally invented the compound in 1938. Polytetrafluoroethylene is a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high- molecular-weight polymer consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine. PTFE is hydrophobic: neither water nor water-containing substances wet PTFE, as fluorocarbons exhibit only small London dispersion forces due to the low electric polarizability of fluorine. PTFE has one of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid. Polytetrafluoroethylene is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is non-reactive, partly because of the strength of carbon–fluorine bonds, so it is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals. When used as a lubricant, PTFE reduces fric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delrin
Polyoxymethylene (POM), also known as acetal, polyacetal, and polyformaldehyde, is an engineering thermoplastic used in precision parts requiring high stiffness, low friction, and excellent dimensional stability. Short-chained POM (chain length between 8 and 100 repeating units) is also better known as paraformaldehyde (PFA). As with many other synthetic polymers, polyoxymethylenes are produced by different chemical firms with slightly different formulas and sold as Delrin, Kocetal, Ultraform, Celcon, Ramtal, Duracon, Kepital, Polypenco, Tenac and Hostaform. POM is characterized by its high strength, hardness and rigidity to −40 °C. POM is intrinsically opaque white because of its high crystalline composition but can be produced in a variety of colors. POM has a density of 1.410–1.420g/cm3. Typical applications for injection molding, injection-molded POM include high-performance engineering components such as small gear wheels, Glasses, eyeglass frames, ball bearings, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nomex
Nomex is a trademarked term for an inherently flame-resistant fabric with meta-aramid chemistry widely used for industrial applications and fire protection equipment. It was developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967. The fabric is often combined with Kevlar to increase its resistance for breakage or tear. Properties Nomex and related aramid polymers are related to nylon, but have aromatic backbones, and hence are more rigid and more durable. Nomex is an example of a '' meta'' variant of the aramids (Kevlar is a '' para'' aramid). Unlike Kevlar, Nomex strands cannot align during filament polymerization and have less strength: its ultimate tensile strength is . However, it has excellent thermal, chemical, and radiation resistance for a polymer material. It can withstand temperatures of up to . Production Nomex is produced by condensation reaction from the monomers ''m''-phenylenediamine and isophthaloyl chloride. It is sold in both fiber and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kevlar
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components. Kevlar has many applications, ranging from bicycle tires and sailcloth#Kevlar, racing sails to bulletproof vests, due to its high Specific strength, tensile strength-to-weight ratio; by this measure it is five times stronger than steel. It is also used to make modern marching drumheads that withstand high impact, and for Mooring, mooring lines and other underwater applications. A similar fiber, Twaron, with the same chemical structure was developed by Akzo in the 1970s. Commercial production started in 1986, and Twaron is manufactured by Teijin Aramid. History Poly- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Specific Strength
The specific strength is a material's (or muscle's) strength (force per unit area at failure) divided by its density. It is also known as the strength-to-weight ratio or strength/weight ratio or strength-to-mass ratio. In fiber or textile applications, tenacity is the usual measure of specific strength. The SI unit for specific strength is Pa⋅ m3/ kg, or N⋅m/kg, which is dimensionally equivalent to m2/s2, though the latter form is rarely used. Specific strength has the same units as specific energy, and is related to the maximum specific energy of rotation that an object can have without flying apart due to centrifugal force. Another way to describe specific strength is breaking length, also known as self support length: the maximum length of a vertical column of the material (assuming a fixed cross-section) that could suspend its own weight when supported only at the top. For this measurement, the definition of weight is the force of gravity at the Earth's surface (stand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnets
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, cobalt, etc. and attracts or repels other magnets. A permanent magnet is an object made from a material that is magnetized and creates its own persistent magnetic field. An everyday example is a refrigerator magnet used to hold notes on a refrigerator door. Materials that can be magnetized, which are also the ones that are strongly attracted to a magnet, are called ferromagnetic (or ferrimagnetic). These include the elements iron, nickel and cobalt and their alloys, some alloys of rare-earth metals, and some naturally occurring minerals such as lodestone. Although ferromagnetic (and ferrimagnetic) materials are the only ones attracted to a magnet strongly enough to be commonly considered magnetic, all other substances respond weakly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stabilizer (aircraft)
An aircraft stabilizer is an aerodynamic surface, typically including one or more movable control surfaces, that provides longitudinal (pitch) and/or directional (yaw) stability and control. A stabilizer can feature a fixed or adjustable structure on which any movable control surfaces are hinged, or it can itself be a fully movable surface such as a stabilator. Depending on the context, "stabilizer" may sometimes describe only the front part of the overall surface. In the conventional aircraft configuration, separate vertical (fin) and horizontal (tailplane) stabilizers form an empennage positioned at the tail of the aircraft. Other arrangements of the empennage, such as the V-tail configuration, feature stabilizers which contribute to a combination of longitudinal and directional stabilization and control. Longitudinal stability and control may be obtained with other wing configurations, including canard, tandem wing and tailless aircraft. Some types of aircraft are st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Air And Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, its main building opened on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976. In 2023, the museum welcomed 3.1 million visitors, making it the list of most-visited museums in the United States, fourth-most visited museum in the United States and List of most-visited museums, eleventh-most in the world. The museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all of its spacecraft and aircraft on display are original primary or backup craft (rather than facsimiles). Its collection includes the Apollo 11 Command module Columbia, Command Module ''Columbia'', the Mercury-Atlas 6, ''Friendship 7'' capsule which was flown by John Glenn, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
