Retro Thing

Book Your Flight On A Zeppelin NT

The 75 meter long Zeppelin NT (New Technology) made her maiden voyage on September 18, 1997.

The modern Zeppelin NT is filled with helium, and the airframe is constructed from aluminum and carbon fiber. The entire lifting structure weighs approximately 1000 kg (2200 lbs). It requires only a 3 person ground crew for normal operation and the enormous vehicle can carry a total payload of 1900 kg (4180 lbs). The cabin comfortably seats 2 flight crew and 12 passengers, and the three Textron Lycoming IO-360 engines can propel the craft at up to 125 km/h (77 mph). The Zeppelin NT has a maximum endurance of approximately 24 hours with a range of up to 900 km (559 miles).

The Zeppelin name is synonymous with rigid airships, and a total of 119 of these beautiful craft were built between 1900 and 1938. The most successful was the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, which managed an astounding around-the-world journey in October 1929. LZ 127 went on to cover a total distance of about 1.7 million miles over the course of 590 flights, including regular transatlantic service.

The Zeppelin name is also synonymous with the fateful crash of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey in May 1937. The aircraft was engulfed with flames in a mere 34 seconds, a disaster that may have been caused by leaking hydrogen from a torn gas bag combined with an inflammable outer coating.

Ironically, the Hindenburg disaster was caused by politics, rather than technology. The original design called for the craft to be filled with nonflammable helium, but a US export embargo prevented the Germans from obtaining the gas. Politics also led to the end of the original Zeppelin line. The Nazi regime regarded airships as having limited military capabilities, and the Luftwaffe grounded the remaining fleet at the outbreak of WWII. The aircraft were destroyed for parts in 1940.

The company founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin still exists today, having diversified into a multinational automotive supplier that employees more than 53,000 people in 25 countries.

I've saved the best news for last, of course. The 2008 flying season starts on March 15th, and a 30 minute flight over Friedrichshafen is priced at 200 euros ($300). Longer trips are also available, including an unforgettable loop over Lake Constance in southern Germany.

Visit the official Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH site
My First Zeppelin Flight [with great photos]

Rotorway A600 Talon Helicopter Kit

RotorWay had been manufacturing recreational kit-built helicopters for forty years. They moved into a brand new manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona earlier this year and recently unveiled the A600 Talon, their latest homebuilt kit. The Talon is no toy - the company has sold over 800 helicopter kits and this design incorporates dozens of improvements to the company's proven Exec 162F model.

The 2-seat A600 Talon has a cruise speed of 100 mph, a service ceiling altitude of 10,000 ft and a two-hour range. Customers can choose between two RotorWay-built power plants: the standard RI 600N (147 HP) or the supercharged RI 600S (167 HP). RotorWay lists a minimum build time of 300-450 hours, but expect the process to take longer than planned.

This machine is a complete redesign that incorporates a state-of-the-art glass cockpit by MGL Avionics, Kevlar skid shoes, inertia seat belts, a reinforced tail boom with shaft driven rotor, and a next-generation FADEC electronic engine control system with full component redundancy. In the event of a malfunction, a redundant system is engaged automatically. Useful load is 535 lbs, including a 100 lb baggage compartment. The new aircraft also boasts a larger landing gear that offers easier access to the optional accessory pod.

The introductory price for the A600 is $97,500. The machine is sold as four sub-kits, allowing you to spread the purchase across months or even years. RotorWay also offers excellent on-site flight training to ensure that your first flight isn't your last.

Visit the RotorWay International site for more information

Helisport Mosquito - Build your own personal helicopter

Early 20th century visions of the future usually showed cheerful citizens zorching around the sky in personal aircraft; usually little airplanes or blimps, but also helicopters. It's a good thing that particular future never came to pass, because rush hour accidents would be spectacularly lethal and even a massive SUV can't compare to a helicopter's excessive fuel consumption.

Still, the future has arrived... sort of. The $28,500 Helisport Mosquito XE ultralight helicopter is an amazingly cool little single-seat aircraft. It's a mere 20 ft long and weighs only 298 lbs. It's powered by an MZ202 2-cylinder 2-stroke engine and has a maximum speed of 75 mph and the ability to hover in ground effect at 8,000 ft (estimated). The Mosquito is built from a kit that's delivered in five sub-groups: airframe and construction plans, control system, drive system, engine system, and rotor system. An information pack is available from the manufacturer for $25 (Canadian), including a DVD, sample drawings and specifications.

The company gives a $2000 rebate to builders who complete flight training before purchasing the rotor system kit - this is an excellent idea from a safety perspective, since teaching yourself to fly a helicopter would probably be a messy experience. To get an idea how nimble this little vehicle is, check out the video (and yeah, I find it slightly scary).

More on the Helisport Ultralight Mosquito Helicopter

Darth Vader's Disembodied Head

It struck me this afternoon: Star Wars now qualifies as Retro sci-fi.

Oddly enough, this came as a complete surprise because the film was - for better or worse - one of the defining moments of my childhood: I couldn't believe the stunning special effects or the otherworldy sets and creatures. I was awed by the medieval romance of lightsabers and tempted by both sides of the force. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of Star Wars action figures. The film made the cheesy special effects in Doctor Who harder to watch than ever. Heck, I wasn't even old enough to realize that the dialog was exquisitely hokey (especially Luke's wamprat-like whining).

All of this is a rather roundabout attempt to justify this post. It's a hot air balloon shaped like Darth Vader's helmet, designed by a team headed by Belgian Star Wars fan Benoît Lambert. It was inflated for the first time on March 8, 2007 -- although a few tweaks were required to make it look just right. It measures 26 m (86 ft) high, weighs around 260 kg (640 lb) and accommodates two passengers and a pilot. Let's hope he doesn't follow up with a gigantic Jabba the Hutt dirigible.

The 'official' Darth Vader Balloon Site

Schweizer 1-26: Birth of the One-Design Sailplane

Paul Schweizer's sailplane designs have introduced thousands of pilots to the sport of soaring. My favorite is the little 1-26 single-seat glider. Its short wingspan makes it wonderfully nimble and truly fun to fly and it offers adequate performance and safe handling for low-time pilots. The intent was to create a "one-design" class, much like in sailing where yachtsmen compete in more-or-less identical craft. The prototype was completed in early 1954 and offered either as a $1465 kit or fully assembled for $2150. The aircraft proved popular, with seven hundred 1-26's manufactured over the course of a quarter century.

The one-design philosophy was successful, spawning the birth of the 1-26 Association and annual championships. While the aircraft is easy to fly, it offers moderate performance and demands considerable skill from the pilot to complete lengthy tasks, especially in comparison to the new generation of carbon-composite sailplanes that seem to stick to the sky.

The 1-26 is almost Soviet in its rugged simplicity: a fabric covered tube fuselage with detachable aluminum wings is designed to be assembled from its trailer in a mere half hour (although you'll need a handful of people and a few wrenches). The design encourages gentle landings, because if you hit the ground hard the entire airfield hears the wings flex with a sound not unlike dropping a pair of oil barrels. It's also a good aircraft to reinforce the importance of a tight five-point harness: I'm just under six feet tall and there's only an inch or two of clearance between my head and the canopy - a little turbulence is enough to bump my noggin unless I'm well cinched down. Many 1-26's are still in the air at soaring clubs around the world and I heartily recommend taking one for a spin (literally).

Paul Schweizer recalls the development of the 1-26
Learning to Glide
Soaring Society of America
British Gliding Association
Soaring Association of Canada

Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works

In my career I can't say that I've worked on anything as crucial as a military jet or anything else typical of the Lockheed-Martin Corporation, but I have been on teams sometimes referred to as a "skunk works".  I knew that this meant we were working on a project that was secret from the rest of the company (mostly to keep our work from the prying eyes of the marketing guys looking for something new to sell), but I never knew the true origin of the term.

The nickname "skunk works" came from the Li'l Abner comic strip, referring to a secret still churning out moonshine whose chief ingredients were ground up boots and dead skunks.  The staff at Lockheed-Martin must have felt kinship with the bootleggers of this roadkill-based homebrew, and adopted the name for their unconventional secret projects within the firm.

Back in the 40's Lockheed-Martin had a design group that were autonomous within the company.  They had control over their own budgets, staff, procedure, and were able to jet through the bureaucracy that plagues any large organization.  Through this radical approach, this secret group within Lockheed-Martin was able to deliver essential technology faster than ever.  They continue to operate to this day.

We've all had to deal with the rules and regs of a large organization.  My experience has usually been that these often random edicts throw more roadblocks before the creative process than the actual challenge of the project itself.  It's an enlightened company that shakes things up by creating a radical splinter group within the enterprise charged with actually getting work done.

Over time, Lockheed-Martin's Skunk Works established some great rules for how to run a project, and many of them are still useful today.  See if you agree by reading the rules after the jump.

Brand new Soviet-era military training aircraft

Richard Van Luven dropped us a line recently to share one of his discoveries:

"While wasting my time looking through vintage aircraft information (a new habit of mine for which your site is entirely to blame) I came across some information on the Yakovlev Yak-52, a Soviet trainer from the 1970s.  The nifty thing about this particular piece of aerospace engineering is that it is still available for sale, nearly unchanged from the original (it is produced out of Romania by Aerostar). 

The plane has apparently become so popular within the export market, that a 'westernized' variant is now in production, very intelligently tagged the Yak-52W.  While it may be a new aircraft, retro-features include a radial 9-cylinder engine, a wood and glass-fibre prop, an optional tail-dragger configuration, and styling typical of the Yakovlev name.  Aerobatic features and equipment have also been included.There is a used one in the US that is asking $95,000, so I would imagine that this plane new falls between 'small air force budget' and 'if you have to ask, you're not worthy'."

I did a bit of digging, and it appears that the Yak-52W retails for a more-or-less reasonable €155,000. That's not bad for an aerobatic vehicle with a 400 HP radial power plant and the feel of a classic warbird. The taildragger variant is known as the Yak-52TW.

The Aerostar Yak-52W product page
Their Australian dealer

The Hummel Bird: Here am I sitting in a tin can

Futurists in the mid-twentieth century loved to dream up worlds filled with incredibly convenient personal aircraft. If that vision had come to pass, I suspect vehicles like the Hummel Bird would have been manufactured by the millions.

This tiny 13 1/2 foot long aluminum homebuilt aircraft is often powered by a modified VW bug engine (once plentiful, inexpensive and conveniently air-cooled). With a 37 hp engine the aircraft cruises at  slightly more than 100 mph (161 kph).  It requires only 300 ft (92 m) for takeoff and weighs a mere 300 lbs (136 kg) empty. There's only room for a reasonably slim pilot in the compact cockpit.

Morry Hummel worked in the Curtis Wright experimental department during WWII. He learned to fly after the war and his first design was based on the Windwagon by Gary Watson. Hummel purchased a set of plans in 1979 and set about modifying it as a taildragger with larger bulkheads and a full canopy. The aircraft was completed in 1982 and dubbed the "Hummel Bird" in a Sport Aviation article. The name stuck.

In 1999, four years after a serious aircraft accident, 84 year-old Hummel set about designing the Ultra Cruiser - an all metal ultralight aircraft. It first flew in 2000. Plans and parts for the Hummel Bird are available from the Hummel Aviation website, along with parts and kits for his popular Ultra Cruiser. I can only hope that I have such a productive retirement!

The official Hummel Aviation site
The images are of Dave King's aircraft [Holobrook Ultralight Club, Australia]

Mikael Carlson Flying Machines

Swedish 737 pilot Mikael Carlson grew up building aircraft. He started by crafting model planes and moved on to build his first full-sized machine - a replica of a Swedish 1919 Tummelisa military biplane - at the age of 23. It took seven years. Instead of taking advantage of advances in technology, he used the original engine and authentic materials.

His most remarkable machines are his two genuine Bleriot XI monoplanes. Louis Bleriot made the XI famous by flying it across the English channel. Carlson reminds us that is was also the first airplane to cross the Alps and fly a loop. The little Bleriot was quite popular and was used as a flight trainer in Sweden between 1913 and 1919. Carlson found his first Bleriot in the late 1980s - disassembled in a barn. He restored it to original flying condition and it flew again in 1991. Both aircraft are equipped with original 1908 Gnôme-Omega 50 hp rotary engines, which develop a then-massive 50 HP. They cruise at a sedate 42 knots (78 kph).

Mikael Carlson Flying Machines

de Havilland Comet: The Dawn of the Jet Age

Most of us take massive jetliners for granted, but the ability to zorch from one continent to another is only about 50 years old.

The four engine de Havilland Comet (named after their 1930s racing aircraft) first flew on July 27, 1949, ushering in a new age of sleek and speedy transportation. The aircraft entered commercial service in January 1952 and quickly became a favorite of elite travelers, capable of cruising at over 400 mph (twice the speed of propeller driven aircraft).

The original design could seat a maximum of 44 passengers and carried a cockpit crew of four (pilot, co-pilot, navigator and engineer). Alas, the aircraft started to experience inexplicable in-flight failures in May of 1953. It took several more crashes before investigators were able to pin the blame on metal fatigue: the design required an extremely thin metal skin to compensate for the low thrust generated by the four Ghost 50 Mark I turbojet engines. The fuselage surrounding the Comet's large rectangular windows proved susceptible to cracking after many thousands of pressurized flights. The end result was explosive cabin decompression that led to rather nasty structural failure in mid-flight -- definitely not a good way to earn repeat business.

The design problems were eventually resolved and the Comet 4 entered service in 1958 with round windows, a strengthened fuselage, and high output Rolls-Royce Avon engines that dramatically increased cargo capacity and speed. Sadly, the damage to the Comet's reputation was irreparable and the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 went on to dominate the airline industry throughout the 1960s.

Chasing the Sun: The de Havilland Comet [PBS]
Photos are from the British Airways Museum Collection

Homemade 747 Flight Simulator

Believe it or not, you're looking at a homemade Boeing 747-400 simulator. Australian Matthew Sheil started work on this beauty in 1998 and it's now mounted on a motion platform that features three McFadden 310A Motion Systems for added realism (as if duplicating every switch and panel in a 747 cockpit wasn't realistic enough).

An attached PC runs Aerowinx Precision Simulator software to provide authentic 'glass cockpit' instrumentation. Where possible, the machine is built using genuine Boeing parts, such as modified 737 control yokes and a center panel that prominently features throttles from an early 747. I wonder if Sheil and crew eat airline food during their "flights?"

Homemade 747 Simulator (site prefers IE, via Red Ferret)

Build your own personal blimp

Skyacht Inc. is a little company formed in 2002 to create a new type of aircraft they call a "personal blimp." It's actually a motorized hot air balloon featuring a nylon fabric envelope over an aluminum and steel frame. The Skyacht measures an impressive 105 ft in length and 70 ft in diameter, with an open-air cockpit that seats two.

The unique thing about this enormous aircraft is its patented collapsible structure that can be easily  deflated and folded for storage, much like a hot air balloon. And -- like a balloon -- lift is provided by heated air rather than expensive and impractical helium or potentially explosive hydrogen.

The Skyacht is currently undergoing tethered testing, with its first free flight scheduled for August 2006. The prototype is powered by a tail-mounted 24 HP gasoline engine that's capable of propelling this monster at a maximum speed of 12 mph (in other words, you'll need absolutely calm weather unless you want to float off on a moderately terrifying cross-country adventure).

Future plans call for the installation of electric propulsion, which should result in almost silent controlled flight -- an absolute dream. That said, I have an overwhelming desire to build a little biplane for an early morning strafing run.

More about The World's First Practical Personal Blimp

An airborne workhorse

The Cessna 172 is one of the most popular light planes in the world. Over 42,500 of these capable four-seat aircraft were produced between 1968 and 1985, and you can usually find a handful on the ramp at flight training schools across North America and around the world.

Many pilots learn to fly the 172 because of its solid construction and easy handling. The high-wing design offers an unobstructed view of the world below and the tricycle landing gear is far easier to handle for student pilots than a "taildragger" design.

The 172 was produced in a variety of models sporting a range of avionics and powerplants. The most popular was the four cylinder 160-HP Lycoming O-320 powered 172N. It has a maximum crusing speed of 122 knots (226 kph), a service ceiling of 14,500 ft and a maximum range of 750 nautical miles (1390 km) with optional extended-range tanks. Chances are you'll need a pitstop well before your aircraft will.

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk (airliners.net)

The Experimental Aircraft Association

If you're intruigued by the kit aircraft that occasionally appear on these pages, you should join the Experimental Aircraft Association. The EAA was founded in 1953 by a group of aviation enthusiasts interested in building their own aircraft. They now boast over 170,000 members worldwide, and you don't need to be a pilot to join:

Today, tens of thousands of homebuilt aircraft fly throughout the world. A significant number of homebuilt aircraft have flown around the globe and one, the Voyager in 1986, was the first airplane ever to fly around the world non-stop on a single tank of fuel."

Annual membership starts at $40 and includes a subscription to EAA Sport Aviation magazine or EAA Sport Pilot.

All about the Experimental Aircraft Association

A Seriously Zippy Homebuilt Aircraft

The Lancair PropJet is an incredibly fast home-built aircraft. It cruises at a jaw-dropping 370 mph (595 kph), powered by a 750 HP Walter 601E turbine. She can travel 1400 miles (2,254 km) without refueling and the cabin seats four with room for up to 150 lb of baggage. The airframe is constructed from advanced composite materials (translation: lightweight and really strong). The climb rate of this machine is phenomenal, too: up to 7000 feet per minute (solo).

A fast-build kit costs a mere $129,500 (cough... cough...) and you'll need a high-performance endorsement before even thinking of getting behind the controls of this little rocket. Oh, and don't forget to pack your platinum credit card when you fly -- the fuel tank holds a whopping 125 gallons (473 L).

Lancair Propjet High Performance Kit Aircraft