Voice controlled Aircraft - the next generation of aviation?

All of you may be quite familiar with voice recognition technology in computers, and may have even used them in dictating word documents and reports. But now this technology is increasingly being used to aid pilots in aircraft control , and thus , reducing their pilot workload. The initial steps in this direction are being taken in Military aviation by companies like QinetiQ ( The same company which flew the Zephyr. See my earlier post http://airbornegeeks.blogspot.com/2011/02/aircraft-flying-for-5-years-without.html ) in the UK.  Designed to alleviate the problem of pilots spending too much time looking inside the cockpit – a problem exacerbated...

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IAF Chief views Pak FGFA T-50 test flight

The  heat is on. India is taking urgent measures to secure its already "troubled neighbourhood" ,as Home Minister P. Chidambaram put it. The head of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik attended a flight demonstration of the newest Russian fighter aircraft, the Sukhoi T-50 (PKA FA) at Gromov Flight Research Institute at the city of Zhukovsky near Moscow. The demonstration also included a flight of the modernized MiG-29UPG, an upgraded version destined for the Indian Air Force, to introduce an avionics suite common with the MiG29K/KUB carrier-based fighters India is buying for its aircraft carriers.  The...

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Housefly inspired flying machines a.k.a Biomimetics- Part 2

The MFI-insect tries to emulate its biological counterparts through an unconventional approach not followed with other robots of its class ( The MFI-insect is classified as a robot due to the design principles being undertaken ,which are more suitable for robots than aircraft in general) 1) Power Source : Bimorph piezoelectric actuator (mass 11 mg) develops 400 W/kg at 250 Hz. 2) Wings : Carbon fiber reinforced wing has mass less than 0.3 milligrams, and inertia of 10 mg-   mm^2. The MFI project in UC-Berkeley is a highly unconventional one.... You may wonder why a housefly-mimicking robot may be needed , but in case you did`nt know ; this project is being funded by the DARPA. We really do not know for sure what the MFI developers have in mind, but possible applications,...

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Housefly inspired flying machines a.k.a Biomimetics- Part 1

There I am... back from the shady examination halls of the university to the welcome effulgence of the blog airspace...and if you thought AirborneGeeks was lost , the answer is NO :-). Just that we hit an air pocket and are teetering back to normalcy after a bout with turbulence :-). So the thing which interested me for the past few days was biomimetic flight research of flies ......(yes...houseflies ). For starters, biomimetics the science of imitating nature`s solution to various problems and apply them to engineering.Wikipedia defines it as "the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology".Nature has developed a formidable technology of its own and this has...

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