MartinW

Do you think the experts at Amazon, not to mention Swiss Post, will have considered the economics carefully and deemed it less than ludicrous? Clearly they are decent business men, as the company is rather successful! Amazon have spent a lot of dosh on this, employing staff, a big chunk of their research and development budget, building new warehouses closer to customers to the tune of $14 million. I don't think Amazon have ever claimed that the majority of us will be getting parcels dropped on our drives courtesy of drones, so yes, it will be a more expensive service, reserved for small pac

When we look for life out there, we look for "life as we know it", simply because that's the kind of life we could most easily recognise. There could be other kinds of life that don't require the conditions we deem essential for life to exist. In regrd to "life as we know it" on the surface or Pluto, we would have to say no. The surface pressure on Pluto is one million to 100,000 times less than on Earth. Also, when Pluto is in Perihelion what atmosphere there is freezes solid. Liquids and gasses on the surface freeze solid too. Inside the planet is a different story, even before

I disagree, double negatives are the true evil.

You're an awesome white van man Wain. Just unfortunate that we often encounter the dodgy ones. Like any profession the bad ones give the occupation a bad name. It's bloody tailgating that angers me. It's like some people are so dim that they are oblivious to the concept of stopping distance. Round by my its teenage girls that seem the worst.

The dwarf planet, not the Disney character. "Bedice" [not bedrock] mountains 11,000 feet high, smooth surface despite being in the vicinity of the Kuiper belt indicating geological activity. Back to the drawing board geophysicists! First close up images from 12,500km. 3 billion mile, 9 year journey, and images like this...

May be, good suggestion.

In the UK we call them, "crazy lorry, tailgating idiot, company rep, maniac lane changer, white van nutter man roads." Its a long name, but very appropriate. Bloody good piloting I say. How he swerved at that speed without loosing control was impressive. Some might say he should have gone elsewhere, risking his life instead of road users, but the outcome was good so who cares.

Good grief, narrowly missed the cars. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/heart-stopping-moment-skydiving-plane-lands-6068941 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZuu2kCWagM

Couldn't see the probe deployed either. So no intention to refuel.

Looks like Sikorsky are emphasising the civilian role from what I've read, while still hoping for military interest. To be fair to them, the X3 has now been scraped, as it's amassed all the data it was supposed to. Obviously a future variant using this technology will be similar, but I wouldn't expect it to be identical. May be that some of your points will be addressed.

In my quest to find interesting aircraft to crumble your cookie, I came across this. One huge ducted fan. Fantastic visibility from the bubble cockpit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVr3u6E66EM Or perhaps you prefer Project Zero. Two ducted fans one in each wing and electric power. http://www.agustawestland.com/about-us/driving-innovation/advanced-concepts/project-zero

Could be. But the banking manoeuvres look regular and deliberate, rather than due to turbulence from the tanker.

Naughty boy. I was basing my new turbo electric nano tech zero point energy electro super plane on those figures. I have it partly built in my shed. It utilises the new particle discovered at the LHC, pentaquarks. But that's a secret.

From what I've read so far, the next step is to build a two seater (side by side) which could be sold by the end of 2017 ( what Pipistrel Aircraft is already selling today with their Alpha Electro ) The aim seems to be the market of pilot schools and glider towing. Estimates are said to be 21.000 planes worldwide by 2017. Yep, I read that too. In fact I believe Airbus have plans to build a factory in southwest France to build the two seat version. They are breaking ground next year. They expect it to enter production in late 2017 or early 2018. 21,000 sales over the next 10 years seems ver

Yes they will, the privilege of wealth. And the folks with the deep wallets are a minority. So it matters not so much what they favour. The majority of the population have smaller wallets. The vast majority aren't celebrities, and we don't run governments. Thus, for the vast majority of us low cost is where it's at. Thus the product we buy will be slower and more fuel efficient, performance takes second place. Lets just say that these days, the vast majority of us are heading more toward the moped side of your transport curve than the Ferrari side. We need "adequate" performance for our need

And more and more of us are prioritising economy over performance these day. Cameron, Branson, Madonna might not, but the airlines do, and we do when we pay our ticket price. Rather a lot of passengers happily fly around in slow but efficient Dash 8 Q400's and similar. We also fly around in big jets that have had rather a lot of effort put into making them as efficient as possible to the detriment of speed. I mean we all know how airlines love to save fuel by limiting speed don't we. They love their low cost index entries in their FMC's. Yep, I dare say that ultimately hybrids will provide

Yep, absolutely. The E-Fan is merely an experimental machine. As you say, just a baby step toward greater things. As we said in the other thread, the E-Fan is a step on the way to a hybrid that will ultimately be more efficient than the aircraft we have now. So you won't get the super efficient all electric machine you mention until battery technology markedly improves. It'll be a hybrid the next step. Ultimately Airbus are aiming for a hybrid-electric regional airliner or helicopter. http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/innovation-environment/airbus-e-fan-the-future-of-electric-aircraft/

Nah, probably not. Just looking at his contrivance in regard to crossing the channel is enough to give anyone a brown trousers day. If I were Siemans, I'd be troubled by my product crossing the Atlantic in that too. The E-Fan undoubtedly has lots of fancy kit to ease any concerns Siemans might have. Looks like he cheated anyway, as he used a conventional aircraft some of the way... or something like that. Detail's still to emerge.

Nice work Airbus. Apparently the E-Fan costs as little as £10 an hour to fly. Unfortunately for Airbus though, it seems French pilot, Hugues Duval, beat them to the record by flying not just one way but back again! Seems he may have cheated though. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33473969

I am. And it's fantastic news you are getting great performance. That's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Don't know if you've ordered yet, but if you haven't... You may wish to wait one month. Skylark is released early August. Will be 15% faster than the best of the CPU's available now. I'll be waiting for Skylark. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/unlocked-intel-skylake-s-processors-reportedly-coming-august-5th/

Which make the PSU? Go for a quality manufacturer. The cheap dodgy ones rarely perform as they should. Which "liquid cooler"? They are quieter, and less leak prone than they used to be, but you would be wise to choose carefully.

You can have too much power if you don't wish to waste money. Whacking a 1500 watt PSU in a basic PC would be nuts. You'd be surprised how low you can actually spec a PSU, as long as it's a quality PSU from the likes of Seasonic, Enermax, Corsair etc. In reality though it gives us peace of mind and one or two other advantages if we spec a bit higher. Makes sense to not push the PSU to the max by having spare capacity. Plus the fact the PSU fan tends to run slower and quieter. We need to consider present requirement, future upgrades, and factors like Capacitor degradation. Plenty of calcu

All modern CPU's do. Dependant on the CPU, above about 95 degrees, it will throttle back to avoid damage. When the CPU reaches TJ Max [TJunction Max] it will shut down to prevent damage. TJ max for my 3770k for example is 105 degrees. That's Based on core temperature, not CPU temperature. Some utilities measure CPU temp. For the enthusiast, always rely on core temp, RealTemp or CoreTemp are the temp measuring utilities preferred.

With air cooling, or all in one water coolers, or full blown water cooling loops, you are limited by ambient temperature. Unless of course you go nuts and run the water from your loop through one of the freezers available, or opt for a Tec/Peltier. When we compare CPU cooler efficiency, we look at delta temperature. Delta temperature is the number of degrees above ambient temperature. If you have an overclocked CPU that runs at 75 degrees under load at 20c ambient, then it will run at 95c if the ambient climbs to 40c, and the CPU, dependant on model, will throttle back and then shut down whe