maninthejar
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The Return of the Blimp
Mammoth-sized blimps may work well as advertising tools, but soon they could be doing a lot more work than that. Aerospace and defense corporation Boeing and Canadian company SkyHook International are working together to create a 302-foot-long airship with rotors that can haul heavy loads—double the capacity of the biggest helicopter—across remote regions at a lower fuel and environmental cost.
7.11.2008 at 04:11pm - Comment by maninthejarWe have a rather nasty problem in Canada with a bug called the pine beetle. It kills pine trees not directly but by infecting them with a fungus. This has very little effect on the lumber in the trees. Vast areas of dead trees are found in BC and Alberta. This machine would make harvesting those trees possible without having to carve roads through the wilderness. It's heavy lifting and dead-on-target positioning capabilities also make it a great tool for fire fighting. This is doubly important, because those dead trees are extremely flammable.
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December 2009: Best of What's New
In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.
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