Drive from Europe to the U.S.? Russia proposes world's greatest superhighway

Route as roughly interpreted by CNN. The proposed plan for a massive trans-Siberian highway would link Russia's eastern border with the U.S. state of Alaska.

It could happen if the head of Russian Railways has his way.

According to a March 23 report in The Siberian Times, Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin has proposed a plan for a massive trans-Siberian highway that would link his country's eastern border with the U.S. state of Alaska, crossing a narrow stretch of the Bering Sea that separates Asia and North America.

The scheme was unveiled at a meeting of the Moscow-based Russian Academy of Science.

Dubbed the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TEPR), the project calls for a major roadway to be constructed alongside the existing Trans-Siberian Railway, along with a new train network and oil and gas pipelines.

"This is an inter-state, inter-civilization, project," the Siberian Times quoted Yakunin. "The project should be turned into a world 'future zone,' and it must be based on leading, not catching, technologies."

"Are we there yet?"

The road would run across the entirety of Russia, linking with existing road systems in Western Europe and Asia.

The distance between Russia's western and eastern borders is roughly 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).

Yakunin said the road would connect Russia with North America via Russia's far eastern Chukotka region, across the Bering Strait and into Alaska's Seward Peninsula.

The road would likely enter Alaska some distance north of the town of Nome, where the famed Iditarod sled dog race ends.

How would drivers span the ocean gap between Siberia and Alaska? Ferry? Tunnel? Bridges?

The report didn't offer specifics on the route across the sea.

The shortest distance between mainland Russia and mainland Alaska is approximately 88 kilometers (55 miles), according to the Alaska Public Lands Information Centers.

The main route of the Trans-Siberian railway runs from Moscow to Vladivostok and covers 9,258 kilometers.

A theoretical drive (as fancifully calculated by CNN) from London to Alaska via Moscow might cover about 12,978 kilometers (8,064 miles).

Relatively isolated even by Alaska standards, no road connects Nome with the rest of the state's road system.

About 836 road-less kilometers (520 miles) across desolate terrain separates Nome from the closest major city and road network in Fairbanks, the unofficial northern terminus of the Alaska Highway.

From Fairbanks, Canada and the 48 contiguous U.S. states can be reached by road.

Assuming a road to Nome were ever built (the idea has been studied by the state of Alaska), a fantasy road trip from London to New York might cover a grueling but presumably photo-op-laden 20,777 kilometers (12,910 miles).

Facebook posts from forlorn Siberian rest stops might alone make the trip worthwhile, though the journey would also easily establish irritating new records for "Are we there yet?" gripes from the kids.

Who's gonna pay for this thing?

Yakunin has been described as a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Some sources have speculated that he could be Putin's likely successor as president.

TEPR would reportedly cost "trillions of dollars."

According to Yakunin, however, massive economic returns would more than make up for the massive cash outlay -- about which the report also included no details.

Loss of Control In Flight, Runway Excursions Are Top Bizav Safety Concerns

Loss of control in flight (LOCI) and runway excursions were the uppermost concerns in the NBAAsafety committee’s third annual list of top safety focus areas, released today. In addition, the committee highlighted several other safety hazards, including airspace complexities; birds and wildlife; distraction and technology management; fatigue; ground handling collisions; procedural non-compliance; and single-pilot task saturation.

The list is intended to promote safety-focused discussion and advocacy throughout the business aviation industry, as well as to help the safety committee prioritize NBAA’s resources to help improve safety industry-wide. In developing this year’s list, the committee took a data-driven approach to determine the biggest risks. Thus, the top safety priorities were identified based on an objective analysis that combined data trends, survey results and qualitative input from other NBAAcommittees, industry and regulatory partners and members.

“The results of our data-driven approach to identifying the biggest opportunities for improving business aviation safety are definitive,” said committee chairman Steve Charbonneau. “Loss of control in flight and runway excursions are the deadliest and most frequent business aviation accidents, and also of highest concern to NBAA members. The association is committed to working with industry partners and will dedicate significant resources to develop tools and programs designed to help operators mitigate these risks.”

In the last decade, no type of accident has caused more commercial and business aviation fatalities than LOCI, NBAA noted. The NTSB also targeted the issue on its 2015 “Most Wanted” list of safety improvements, citing it as a possible factor in more than 40 percent of fixed-wing general aviation accidents from 2001 to 2011. Compounding business aviation’s challenge in addressing LOCI is the sector’s wide range of aircraft types and operating parameters, which work against any single solution for reducing LOCI occurrences.

According to the report, runway excursions are the most common type of business aviation accident. Despite efforts to reduce the runway excursion rate, the frequency of this type of accident has changed little over the last decade, hovering around 3.6 per one million flights—some 60 percent higher than the corresponding commercial aviation rate. “While runway excursions are often survivable, they are also preventable, based on well identified risk factors, aircraft performance considerations and recommended defenses, making this type of mishap a logical target of a focused risk-reduction effort,” NBAA said.

“Our analysis elevated the hazard list items as issues that all operators should be vigilant about in their day-to-day operations,” Charbonneau said. “The safety committee is committed to providing information, resources and tools to help the industry mitigate these hazards, and we will be introducing these products throughout the year.”

In developing its 2015 safety advocacy strategy, the safety committee also identified five basic safety elements—dubbed “foundations for safety”—that operators need to support. These include professionalism, safety leadership, risk management, fitness for duty and technical excellence. The committee said each is critically important to address the complex business aviation environment and should form part of an overall systematic approach to safety risk management.

“The foundations for safety should be seen as exactly that: the base that supports all meaningful, beneficial safety efforts,” Charbonneau said. “While NBAA is committed to providing tools and resources to help operators strengthen these foundations and mitigate risk in the areas we’ve identified, we urge everyone to take steps today and examine how they can improve safety in their operations. The most effective safety efforts are proactive. Identifying and acknowledging the risks in your operations is the first step in preventing the next accident.”

Facebook is building a fleet of giant solar-powered drones

Facebook is building a fleet of V-shaped unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, to help the company with its Internet.org project that aims to beam Internet access to the 5 billion people that don't have it yet.

According to а report from The New York Times,, Facebook has a codename for its drone: Aquila, which is also the name of the eagle in Greek mythology that carries Zeus's thunderbolts for him.

 Aquila can reportedly stay in the air for up to three months at a time, and beam high-speed internet from between 60,000 and 90,000 feet in the air. They'll be lighter than a small car, but as long as a Boeing 767.

 The first flights will reportedly begin this summer, although "commercial deployment may take years," the Times notes. Facebook executives are not sure how much the final version of Aquila will cost the company.

Aquila was accomplished via Facebook's acquisition of the drone maker Ascenta in 2014, according to the Times. But now that this project is under Facebook's wing, the company is also looking for partners to help get the project off the ground, in return for allowing those companies to use their data and technology.

The Internet.org initiative, which was created in August 2013, is one of the main ways Facebook looks to spread its influence. By partnering up with mobile companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, and Microsoft, Facebook hopes to eventually offer universal affordable internet access, similar to Google's Project Loon, where high flying balloons beam down WiFi to areas without internet.

“Living in the Age of Airplanes” Is a Visually-Stunning Aviation Film for All Ages

I recently had the opportunity to attend a pre-release screening of National Geographic’s new IMAX film, “Living in the Age of Airplanes.” I first saw the trailer last fall and was immediately excited to see it. Being the aviation geek that I am, I held high expectations, and I’m happy to be able to say they were met.

The project was produced and directed by Brian J. Terwilliger, who is also known for the aviation film “One Six Right.” The runtime of the show was 47 minutes, and the producers maximized every minute with absolutely stunning cinematography, paired with majestic music tracks by Oscar-winning composer James Horner and narration by Harrison Ford. The show opened in the famous “Airplane Graveyard” in Mojave, California, with sad, parted-out 747s as Ford spoke about how air travel is now taken for granted.

Next, we are taken down a timeline of human transportation. Beginning 200,000 years ago, humans had only one mode of transportation – our own two feet. Then roughly 5,000 years ago, the wheel was invented, and we began having animals pull us along. Fast-forward to the 1600s, when sailing ships took us across the seas and expanded our globe. In the 1800s, steam trains, and later, steam ships, propeller planes, and finally, the Jet Age.

Another focus of the film is the importance of the global air cargo network. To demonstrate this, we see a bouquet of long-stemmed roses make its way from the grower in Kenya, to the wholesale market in Amsterdam, to a vase in Alaska in just over seventeen hours. We also see how our homes are a melting pot for produce, garments, and housewares from all over the globe.

In the final scene, we’re given a look at our own perspective as travelers. When we fly, we often sit there without realizing we’re going anywhere, Ford says. But taking a look out the window, from 35,000 feet; we see more of our Earth in one glance than most of our ancestors saw in their whole life. This window seat perspective is what I love most about aviation.

The cinematography alone makes this film worth seeing. A few scenes that come to mind: a United Boeing 777 traversing the taxiways at SFO as the camera ascents straight up to give a view of the whole Bay Area. A montage of Airbus A380s on takeoff. Seaplanes landing on azure waters in the Maldives.

If I could improve anything about the film, it would be two things. First, I wish it were longer. Those 47 minutes really flew by, no pun intended. However, the movie’s reps on Twitter said the run time is right in the “sweet spot” for IMAX films. I would also have liked to see some content on the manufacturing process. So many advances have been made in the past couple of decades, including composite fuselages, glass cockpits, and eco-friendly fuels.

Perhaps a follow-up film will cover how planes are built and tested. I’ve been fortunate to tour the assembly lines where some commercial aircraft are built, and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of knowledge and effort that goes into building planes.

Everyone should see this film. It is appropriate for all audiences, from interested kids to the jaded million-mile flyers. It is my love and fascination of planes, put into images – and it’s incredible.

All photos are screenshots taken from the video, cited to National Geographic. 

Putting Drone Videos on YouTube Is Illegal, Feds Say

The Federal Aviation Administration is still scrambling to decide how to regulate drones in American airspace, but there's at least one thing we know for sure: You're not supposed to use drones to make money. Well, even that isn't as clear as we thought.

This week, Motherboard says, the FAA sent a scary letter to drone lover Jason Hanes, telling him to stop posting his drone videos to his website or he'd be subject to fines. The reason: Those videos are on YouTube, and YouTube has ads, therefore he's using drones to make money.

It's a strange case. Clearly the FAA rules are targeted at business that would use UAVs for a specific commercial purpose, such as Amazon's proposed fleet of delivery drones, or drones that would carry banner ads behind them as they fly over a crowded beach. Hanes would appear to fall into the hobbyist category that the FAA has mostly left alone (as long as those hobbyists keep their aircraft away from football stadia, bridges, and the White House).

Yet his case could have repercussions for all kinds of hobbyist drone pilots who like to share their videos, many of which you've seen right here at PM. Says Motherboard:

Where, exactly, does commercial use begin and hobby use end, for instance? If you fly for fun, but happen to sell your footage later, were you flying for a "commercial purpose?" What if you give it to a news organization that runs it on a television station that has ads on it? What if you upload it to YouTube and Google happens to put an ad on it? What if you decide to put an ad on it?

Legally, it looks like FAA just opened a big ol' can of drones.

Source: Motherboard

Центр Нью-Йорка наводнили полуобнаженные любительницы книг

С приходом весны улицы и парки Нью-Йорка наполняются полуобнаженными любительницами чтения. Девушки отнюдь не банальные эксгибиционистки, они активистки движения OCTPFAS.

Созданное 5 лет назад сообщество Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (OCTPFAS) за эти годы разрослось с 6 человек до нескольких тысяч регулярных участниц. Оно объединяет тех, кто любит совмещать любовь к раздеванию по пояс в общественных местах с чтением литературы.

Все началось с того, что в 1992 года власти Нью-Йорка отменили закон, запрещающий разгуливать топлесс, однако до 2011 года желающих воспользоваться правом ходить с обнаженной грудью не находилось. Все изменилось 17 августа 2011 года, именно тогда небольшая компания обнаженных по пояс юных девушек впервые прошлась по Центральному парку. Тот день стал точкой отсчет для движения OCTPFAS, численность которого увеличивается год от года.

Next stop not New York

There's lies, damned lies, and Ryanair press releases

ON MARCH 16th, Ryanair announced to the world that it was planning to offer transatlantic flights. In a statement it revealed:

The board of Ryanair have approved the business plans for future growth, including transatlantic. We are talking to manufacturers about long-haul aircraft but cannot comment further on this. European consumers want lower-cost travel to the USA and the same for Americans coming to Europe. We see it as a logical development in the European market.

That seemed pretty unequivocal. And reporters, including this one, duly mulled over what such a move might mean—particularly given that the world's largest airline by international passengers has frequently boasted that it wants to shake up the market between Europe and North America by, for example, offering flights for €10 ($11).
Alas someone at the airline seems to have jumped the gun. In a brief statement released to the London Stock Exchange yesterday, the carrier rapidly backtracked:

In the light of recent press coverage, the Board of Ryanair Holdings Plc wishes to clarify that it has not considered or approved any transatlantic project and does not intend to do so.

We are all used to taking statements by the carrier with a pinch of salt. Michael O'Leary, the airline's abrasive boss, often makes wild pronouncements—that he plans to make passengers pay to use the toilets on his aircraft, say, or introduce a standing section. Mostly these tend to be about publicity-seeking rather than firm planning. Even so, this latest climbdown seems very strange.

One theory, as we noted in our earlier article, is that while Ryanair is indeed keen to start flying the Atlantic, it is reluctant to do so under its own brand because of the antipathy with which it is held by many European travellers. The Irish Independent suggests that it therefore might prefer to take a majority stake in a new enterprise, or perhaps launch a subsidiary. Hence the confusion in the earlier statement. If there is a lesson, it is that, despite the good copy that Ryanair affords travel commentators, nothing it says should ever be taken as gospel.