A Brief History On September 26, 2008, Yves Rossy, a Swiss former military pilot and aviation inventor, completed an aviation first by flying a jet powered wing across the English Channel. Digging Deeper A fighter pilot for the Swiss Air Force and then an airliner pilot of 747 Jumbo Jets, Rossy later invented and experimented with a variety of man portable flying machines, basically jet pack type rigs and developing carbon fiber wings mounted on his own body. Rossy’s “jet wingpack” consists of a special suit that incorporates a carbon wing of 7.9 feet and four tiny jet engines for…
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A Brief History On September 24, 1929, American hero, James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle made aviation history by becoming the first pilot to take off, fly and land an airplane with no visual contact with the outside, proving that flying “blind” with instruments only was possible. Digging Deeper You may be aware of Doolittle’s most famous exploit, his leading a raid of 16 B-25 bombers off the carrier USS Hornet to bomb Japan in 1942, which earned him the Medal of Honor. Doolittle became an Army pilot during World War I, and between the wars he became a test pilot and…
A Brief History On September 18, 1928, Spanish engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva made a bit of obscure aviation history by becoming the first person to fly an autogyro successfully across the English Channel. Digging Deeper The humble autogyro is one of the oddest flying machines still being used, with an unpowered rotating rotor on top making it look deceptively like a helicopter and a pusher propeller located in the back to provide forward thrust. As the autogiro moves forward, the top rotor turns and supplies lift. Not surprisingly, de la Cierva was the inventor of this wild…
A Brief History On September 13, 1899, New Yorker Henry Bliss, age 69, stepped off a trolley car near Central Park and was promptly struck by an electric automobile, a taxicab in fact, leading to the death of Bliss the following day. Bliss became the first pedestrian traffic fatality in the United States, and of course, the first person killed by an electric automobile. Digging Deeper The driver of the cab was acquitted of manslaughter in court. An odd connection to this tragedy is the stepdaughter of Bliss was later tried and acquitted for the murder of Bliss’s ex-wife by…
A Brief History On September 10, 2008, The Large Hadron Collider was powered up for the first time. Claimed to be the largest scientific experiment ever, the test site consists of a tunnel 17 miles in circumference for the purpose of accelerating and colliding sub-atomic and atomic particles. Digging Deeper Built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, in Switzerland, the project was the culmination of work by over 10,000 scientists from 100 countries, a truly massive project. Built between 1998 and 2008, the machine cost over $9 billion and has worked at an energy level…