Sakakibara Land Walker/ 1/1 Scopedog Model

Look what we have here: agricultural machinery firm Sakakibara Kikai have made a 2-legged walking robot. I imagine this was just for fun, as I doubt the current design woul dbe very effective for harvesting crops.

http://www.sakakibara-kikai.co.jp/products/other/LW.htm

By the way, it is equipped with guns that fire pink foam balls. Be sure to check out the "walking" movie, as you can see the pilot gets in to the Walker in the same manner you would get into a Scopedog (from Votoms TV anime): step on the foot, climb up the knee, and into the cockpit. :) Of course, the folks at:

http://monkeyfarm.cocolog-nifty.com/nandemo/a_/index.html

..who made the 1/1 scale sheet iron Scopedog (1st pic above) model have thoughfully included the convienent hand and foot holds on the knee,right-front armor skirt, and belly. :P

Supermaneuverability and the Pugachev Cobra

The Cobra maneuver is a pretty impressive display of "supermaneuverability". Some facts of it are detailed here:

http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAFAQ/cobra.html

It was first performed by Russian air force test pilot Viktor Pugachev. Interview with him here: http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/interview-pugachev.html

And despite what he says about the Cobra aiding to wipe out any other craft in a first attack, I'd say that could be true. IF the two planes are shooting bullets at each other. Sadly (for the Cobra) plane-to-plane dogfights basically don't occur except in flight training these days. Most actual airborne combat is all missile nowadays. The combatants may not even have visual contact, relying on powerful radar and long range missiles. There is also the strong possibility that in the near future rich countries like (for now) USA may use more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ucav.htm
and: http://www.uavforum.com/vehicles/overview.htm

Nonetheless (provided they can get foreign buyers), OKB (Opytnoe Konstructorskoe Byuro- "Experimental Design Bureau") Sukhoi has made a pretty amazing plane in the Su-37: http://wmilitary.neurok.ru/su37/su37display.html
and: http://www.sci.fi/~fta/Su-27.htm
...that I'm sure they would love to sell.

Anyway, I have gone link crazy since I figured out how to put them in here. Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I am not in the military, and no one in my family is military. I don't like fighting, and I think war is a bad idea. Sadly, since I am a fan of jets and our crazy "leadership" in USA still thinks military spending is more important than anything else (and reflexively many of our past or present "enemies" [economic or otherwise] have responded in kind by spending as much as they could bear on weaponey as well. ...Thus, most times the coolest jets are fighting jets. I wish it was otherwise. I would love to see what OKB Sukhoi could do if they didn't have to make military planes. Imagine a stuntplane from Sukhoi. :)

Nickel-Based Superalloys

I have been reading about superalloys a bit recently. My main area of interest is single-crystal castings. Since metals have inherent crystal structures, and they tend to cleave along crystal boundaries, it is best to reduce the number of possible cleavage lines in applications that require very high performance. Aircraft turbine engines operate at very high internal temperatures. The use of single-crystal cast turbine blades and other parts (along with hollow, forced-air cooled blades)has resulted in engines capable of much higher performance and efficiency than older engines. Anyway, I sound like a technical manual, so I'll quit for now.

For more on nickel-based superalloys:

http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-trans/2003/Superalloys/superalloys.html

Tweel

OK, I have long thought some sort of solid tire (tyre to the UKites) for cars would be a good solution to blowouts and wear problems, at least in some regards. Of course, the main problem with solid tires is the ride would be very stiff, causing discomfort for riders, and traction problems in certain conditions. I don't want to declare the problem solved, but Michelin seems to be moving towards a possible solution. The tire and wheel are combined, making a "tweel". This is a clever way of handling it, since the shock absorption is still integral to the "tire" part.

See http://www.gizmag.com/go/3603/ for more.

FOR MOSKUN :)

I don't even have anything that is GPS-enabled, but this is pretty cool:

http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery.htm

Make sure that you check out all the galleries! This is the Space Age, people! Satellite tech for making pictures.