Flutterby™! : Autonomous Atlantic crossing

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Autonomous Atlantic crossing

2003-05-16 16:19:18.946369+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Jay had a link to Jeff Raskin's alarmist pointing out that bombs are easy to deliver (lots of holes, a few nuggets, most answered in how-to build your own cruise missile), which mentioned this: 13kg aircraft crosses the Atlantic autonomously. Okay, it's mostly an accomplishment if you look at it from the perspective of garage engineering; there are still cool hobbies doing cool stuff, it isn't all just playing video games.

[ related topics: Robotics Aviation Current Events Cool Technology ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2003-05-19 12:35:41.812425+00 by: petronius

I guess NASA must have all the cool mythological names locked up if other projects are reduced to using the Latvian Goddess of Good Fortune. Also, did you notice that there were no pictures of the Laima on their website? Interesting.

#Comment made: 2003-05-19 22:32:06.000277+00 by: meuon

I was looking for that as well... there are pics of a plane at: http://www.insitugroup.net which may be the same, or completely different.

#Comment made: 2003-05-22 14:57:29.143061+00 by: Drake Freisler

I should point out that the Aerosonde trans-Atlantic flight by Laima was featured on NASA's "Cool Robot of the Week" site back in late August or September, 1998. At the time, the Aerosonde web page had a much bigger photo essay regarding the flight, with lots of pictures of Laima and the other three (doomed) sister craft, as well as the battered little subcompact car that Laima was launched from. The site also had celebratory pictures of the crew at the landing site, and images of the water-logged little plane (Laima flew through moderate to heavy rain for at least half of its flight, and water puddled inside the fuselage).

I was intrigued that most of the pictures of Laima are gone from the initugroup's site. (Laima is not featured on the front page - follow the navigation links to "trans-Atlantic flight" and you'll see a picture of Laima showing her in her current resting place - a flight museum display.