Feature Channels: Aviation and Aeronautics

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Study shows how aerosols interacting with clouds can be accurately captured by sparse set of representative particles.

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Students from James Madison University (JMU) will be tackling air travel security issues for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate as part of their spring semester of the Hacking 4 DefenseTM (H4D) class.

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Ice accumulation on aircraft wings is a common contributing factor to airplane accidents. Most existing models focus on either ice that freezes as a thin film on the airfoil, or immediately after it impacts the wing. Researchers have announced a new model, accounting for a combination of these forms, that they hope will melt our misunderstanding of ice accretion. They discuss their model in this week’s Physics of Fluids.

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Technology that allows for digital deforestation has uncovered thousands of new Maya structures previously undetected beneath smothering vegetation. Ithaca College anthropologist Thomas Garrison is featured in a new National Geographic documentary.

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A Missouri S&T student recently became one of the first members of the public to get an inside look at the cockpit of a new Boeing aircraft and to test its advanced training system.Katie Frogge of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a sophomore majoring in aerospace engineering at Missouri S&T, was one of five students from universities and high schools in the St.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Southern Research for an award of up to $5.9 million to advance production of high-performance, low-cost carbon fibers from biomass.

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Overtrust frequently occurs with autonomous vehicles and robots—and it can have serious physical, and even fatal, consequences for humans in both the military and society, but Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, is investigating the factors that cause overtrust, and developing techniques that will allow autonomous systems to recognize it and prevent it, thanks to funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

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NASA has selected an APL proposal to send an innovative, instrumented rotorcraft to Saturn's largest moon for further development.

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Starting today, private and recreational pilots across the country can access the new online Mayo Clinic BasicMed Course, a free education program for pilots pursuing medical qualification through FAA BasicMed.

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As part of a multi-institution Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study focused on unmanned aerial systems, researchers at The Ohio State University are helping quantify the dangers associated with drones sharing airspace with planes.

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The holiday season is filled with travel as many families drive or fly to spend time with loved ones, but traveling with a disability can create unique challenges for some families.

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UAH master’s student Ethan Hopping, who now works at Blue Origin, and UAH professor Dr. Gabe Xu partnered to design and test a Hall-effect thruster with a 3-D printed channel and propellant distributor.

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Xiaocheng Jiang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering at Tufts University, has been awarded an early-career award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his work developing graphene-based microfluidics for ultra-high-resolution, dynamic bio-imaging.

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There will more than 28.5 million passengers traveling during the 12-day Thanksgiving season according to Airlines for America (A4A). Knowing what are the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ choices is a valuable tool for any traveler, so Dr. Charles Platkin, the director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center and editor of DietDetective.com. once again studied the best ‘Calorie Bargains’ and “Calorie Rip-offs” at 35,000 feet.

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The fluffy dandelion seed head infuriates gardeners, but delights physicists. That’s because those seeds may lend key insights into the physics of parachutes, useful for designing small drones, or micro air vehicles. An interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Edinburgh will present their findings on the topic at the 70th meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov. 19-21. Investigators reveal why, at low Reynolds numbers, the rules for big parachutes don’t apply to small dandelions.

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Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

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Rhythmic patterns and precise motions are key elements of proper swimming, and comparable demonstrations of this pattern repetition and power usage can be seen in a microscopic swimmer -- the amoeboid cell. The cell swimming shapes are now predictable to new levels of precision, thanks to advanced 3-D modeling. Researchers generated a 3-D model of an amoeba practicing pseudopod-driven swimming; they discuss their work in a cover article in this month’s Physics of Fluids.

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Compared to wind and solar energy, wave energy has remained relatively expensive and hard to capture, but engineers from Sandia National Laboratories are working to change that by drawing inspiration from other industries. Sandia’s engineering team has designed, modeled and tested a control system that doubles the amount of power a wave energy converter can absorb from ocean waves, making electricity produced from wave energy less expensive.

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The University of Colorado Boulder broke ground today on a new $82.5 million aerospace engineering building complete with an indoor flight environment for unmanned aircraft that will ensure the nationally ranked program continues to drive innovation into the future.

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Breakthrough Cuttable, Flexible, Submersible and Ballistic-Tested Lithium-ion Battery Offers New Paradigm of Safety and Performance

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A recent study by researchers at NASA and Binghamton University, State University of New York, could lead to a drastic decrease in flight times. The study, funded in part by the U.S. Air Force, is one of the first steps toward the creation of planes able to move at hypersonic speeds, five to 10 times the speed of sound.

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Explosives trace detection experts from industry, academia, and government laboratories will gather to discuss advances in trace detection technologies.

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The U.S. Department of Commerce announced that UTEP has been awarded a $500,000 grant to create and expand cluster-focused proof-of-concept and commercialization programs through the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program.

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A partnership comprising nine universities in Alabama, including The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) as the lead institution, has been awarded a $20 million, five-year grant by the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

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Virginia Tech’s world-renowned injury biomechanics group and its FAA-approved UAS test site in Blacksburg, Virginia, have just released the first peer-reviewed academic study to offer quantitative data on injury risk associated with potential drone-human collisions.

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UAB will be a fundamental player in the Alabama jurisdiction of the program, which has just five awardees, with primary goals of improving scientific research and building workforce capacity.

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Joe Nichols, of the University of Minnesota, is using ALCF resources to create high fidelity simulations of jet turbulence to determine how and where noise is produced. The results may lead to novel engineering designs that reduce noise over commercial flight paths and on aircraft carrier decks.

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A University of Delaware professor’s small business is helping the Air Force bring its testing technology up to speed with the rapid advance of infrared sensor technology – research that could help today's troops take advantage of a new generation of weapons.

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The Mayo Clinic Division of Preventive, Occupational and Aerospace Medicine has announced that pilot Jeff Skiles will be the speaker at the fourth J. Richard Hickman Jr., M.D., M.P.H., Lectureship.

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To ensure continued safety in our increasingly populated skies, a team of universities and private industry has been awarded a three-year, $4.4 million NASA grant to continue researching and enhancing aeronautical communications.

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Johns Hopkins researchers have set a new delivery distance record for medical drones, successfully transporting human blood samples across 161 miles of Arizona desert. Throughout the three-hour flight, they report, the on-board payload system maintained temperature control, ensuring the samples were viable for laboratory analysis after landing.

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Johns Hopkins APL researchers created a fixed-wing, unmanned vehicle that could autonomously operate underwater and then propel itself fast enough to make the transition into the air, becoming an autonomous flying aerial vehicle.

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Airline prices are holding at lower levels than last year, but demand is strong and seats will fill quickly. Book your holiday air travel early this year to get the seat options and times you want. That's the advice from Dean Headley, Airline Quality Rating (AQR) co-author and associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University.

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During major epidemics, cramped airplane cabins are fertile ground for the spread of infection, but new research suggests changing routine boarding protocols could be a key to reducing rampant transmission of disease.

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Starting Tuesday, Sept. 5, Pittsburgh International Airport will become the first U.S. airport to allow non-fliers regular access into it gate-side terminal areas since security measures changed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Dean Headley, co-author of the national Airline Quality Rating at Wichita State University, says he's glad someone is testing the concept, but isn't convinced how practical it will be for other airports.

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Sandia National Laboratories has successfully demonstrated a new, more environmentally friendly method to test a rocket part to ensure its avionics can withstand the shock from stage separation during flight.

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A new Bowling Green State University study aims to provide information and guidance to help communities and even major airports get and keep passenger routes. The project will develop research into the use of incentives by airports and communities to attract and retain air service.

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The Southern Research-developed stabilized telescopes with sensitive, high-speed, visible-light and infrared cameras flew aboard NASA WB-57F research aircraft to gather data during the total solar eclipse.

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The Dragonfly mission concept would use an instrumented, radioisotope-powered, dual-quadcopter to explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan, one of our solar system’s “ocean worlds.”

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OPEN PRESS: DHS S&T will officially kick off its partnership with Mississippi for test and evaluation of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) Tuesday, August 22, at the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, Mississippi.

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The design of aeroplane wings and storing organs for transplant could both become safer and more effective, thanks to a synthetic antifreeze which prevents the growth of ice crystals, developed by researchers at the University of Warwick.

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Iowa State's Anupam Sharma is running computer simulations to learn how owl wings manipulate air flow, pressure and turbulence to create silent flight. He and his partners hope their studies will produce practical ideas for making quiet aircraft and wind turbines.