Luke Geissbühler and sons (“the Brooklyn Space Program”) launch a Go Pro Hero HD video camera (with iPhone for geo-location) into space attached to a weather balloon. The project was FAA-approved and the camera safely retrieved after falling the 100,000 feet back to Earth. Close to half a million views over the past fortnight. (via John August)
Cory Doctorow’s new TSA logo. Get the t-shirt.
From Paul Octavious’s photoset JFK ✈ SFO (via Hayden Hunter):
I took a series of images from above while flying coast to coast. I kept snapping away and couldn’t believe what was down there to photograph. The landscapes around the US are so amazing from above.
“Landings” by Branislav Kropilak, a series of time-lapse airplane landing photos. (via Garrett Murray)
Then, I heard it — the click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?
— From a short piece by an unknown SR-71 pilot on being the fastest guys in the sky. (via Craig Hockenberry)
Yankee Gal is a short film created by freelance animators Antoine Perez, Céline Desrumaux, Francois Pons and Gary Levesque during a course at Supinfocom animation school in 2008.
This Hudson River water landing thing is just an elaborate promotion for the season premiere of Lost, right?
— John Gruber on Twitter. Fuck Yeah Sharks has the black humour too.
Tilt-shift photograph by Vincent Laforet taken at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport on 1 June 2006 for his “Summer in the City” series. (via Smashing Magazine)
The cockpit warning system sounded again, this time with a long ‘bong’ that no one present could recall having heard before. This was the ‘all engines out’ sound, an event that had never been simulated during training. Seconds later, most of the instrument panels in the cockpit went blank as the right-side engine also stopped and the 767 lost all power. … They immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines stopped, only to find that no such section existed.
— From the story of Air Canada Flight 143, dubbed the Gimli Glider, which ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet. The subsequent investigation revealed corporate failures and a chain of minor human errors which combined to defeat built-in safeguards. (via Andrew Pile)
