
A Plane Hacker - pg
http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/index.html
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petercooper
I'm only saying this because no-one else will, but how many of us thought
"cute chick flying a plane!" then read "barely 11 years old" and almost died
of shame? Anyway, still a great project :) I couldn't even have imagined
flying a plane now, let alone at 11.

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rtra
I wasn't expecting a child with that headgear, so i just passed by noticing a
blond chick and was like "nice..." :-)

~~~
BioGeek
I also liked this picture of a girl with a fitting T-shirt:
<http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/corvair/cc2002/02052770.jpg>

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dcurtis
He suggests his plane gets better gas mileage than his car.

People keep asking, "Where's the flying car?" Well, we have it. It's called an
airplane.

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marvin
Not quite, but almost close enough. You'd have to create a plane which can
take off and land vertically. This can probably be accomplished with a tilt-
rotor design, where some performance tradeoffs will have to be made.

Whoever is capable of creating a cheap general-aviation VTOL aircraft will be
rich. Technology development in aviation moves at a glacial pace, but only
because everyone is afraid to be sued or crash. The "crash" risk can largely
be mitigated with emergency parachutes, whereas the "sue" risk is a question
of politics. Not technology.

One final note - the MPG rating for aircraft only accounts for about half the
running cost of operating an airplane. Engine maintenance is horrendously
expensive, and all too necessary given that small planes only have one of
them.

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jkent
"I'll do 160 mph at 32 mpg at 9500'or 10,500'... so clearly flying is cheaper
than driving, and I don't have to stop and buy lunch!"

Brilliant. Why don't more people do this? (Aside from landing fees and weather
etc, still very cool).

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dhuck
5000 hours just to get the thing in the air - kind of ruins the whole thing
from a purely cost advantage perspective. Just imagine what you could build in
5000 hours...

Not to take any credit from this guy at all. He deserves mad props (heh heh)
for this project. Truly a hacker in every sense of the word.

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dmoney
> Truly a hacker in every sense of the word.

Except the ones that involve computers.

~~~
graywh
Which _is_ the newest form of hacker.

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jcromartie
Also notice that he's a real VW man with that classic Scirocco 16V. What's up
with hackers and VWs?

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djm
Awesome. It's always inspiring when you see somebody making stuff like this
for themselves. Reminds me of something I read last year about a Nigerian
student building helicopters out of old cars - see
[http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-helicopter/nigerian-
man-...](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-helicopter/nigerian-man-builds-
working-helicopters-from-junk-313408.php)

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jobeyonekenobi
I can't quite remember when I saw it, but it was an amazing self build, all
stramlined - even the rivets had been made flush with the body work. I think
it was an employee of Scaled Composites who did it for a learning experience
to pick up credit with work. I remember being pretty amazed. Can I find it
doing a search? Nope. I wish that I could remember just a little more!

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watmough
Hmmm, this makes me want to go pick up a share in a 152 and do some more
flying.

That does look like fun.

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ctkrohn
Awesome. I always wanted a pilot's license, but I've only logged 30mins in the
cockpit alongside an instructor.

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mrdorian
this is the coolest thing a hacker could actually make

~~~
pc
No, that would be a synchropter - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchropter>

