Uh huh
So that review of the high powered lasers on El Reg a couple of weeks back was *entirely* a coincidence.
The University of Southern Indiana's second attempt to claim PARIS's Guinness World Record for the highest launch of a paper plane ended dramatically on Saturday when the Geronimo aircraft (pictured below) disintegrated at around 107,000ft (32,612m). The Geronimo paper plane On 27 October, the uni's first pop at the record …
Accepted engineering practise would be to build in a safety margin.
Given the weight difference between a 4gig and 32gig SD card is negligible, they're a bit daft not to go for the bigger card.... If they were already using the largest card available, increasing the shooting interval would have been a good idea.
And why stop shooting when it reaches altitude? That misses all the "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!" shots on the way back down again!
They may have planned that the camera had sufficient battery and memory card storage for the trip for HD video footage. However , they may have overlooked the small detail regarding the 4.3gig maximum single file size of FAT32.
(I overlooked this last week when recording an event. 40-odd minutes at 640 res was enough to do the trick.. so if they went HD .......)
I'm thinking of El Reg teaming up with the guys from Top Gear for a spectacular paper plane throwing event. Think along the lines of the Robin Reliant Rocket, only instead of a Robin it's a massive paper airplane launched instead......
Or the Japanese could beat us all, a quick call to the man on the ISS "would you mind throwing a paper airplane next time your EVA?"
a quick call to the man on the ISS
The big problem there will be the reentry speed. I'm genuinely curious whether a paper airplane could handle that, slowing down sufficiently from whatever drag there is at >100km altitude, before hitting more serious air density, or not.
@Stoneshop - does the paper airplane actually need to survive for the record to stand, or is the record simply the highest altitude launch of a paper airplane? The boffins whose paper plane just blew up could (I think) claim the record if they can prove that the paper airplane was released intact so just by releasing the plane from the ISS should be more than enough to hold the record.... pretty much forever and kill the patents on paper airplane technology that El Reg have.
I don't think there is any point in the exercise unless the paper plane survives more or less intact, at least until it hits the ground (or a building, tree or something else more or less at the ground level). Planes that burn up in the stratosphere do not count.
It would also be cheating to use governement-subsidised launch platforms...
Have to say that the Indiana plane doesn't look half as well designed or assembled as the Vulture's. The stabilisers in particular look weak and the irregular surface can't have done much for clean airflow. I have to suspect the Indiana team were more interested in achieving a clean launch and grabbing the record rather than producing a design that would glide and land successfully.
Why didn't Felix Baumgartner take a paper aeroplane up with him, then throw it out at 128,000 feet?
I realise that a manual PARIS release would not count for the record attempt, but valuable data on low pressure flight characteristics, as well as giggles, could have been obtained.
[Quote from last news article]
> "I don’t think that is such a good idea, compound release aids are very smooth at releasing bow strings and can hold 80 lbs + of draw weight without issue but even with something like a Tru Ball – which uses ball bearings on the end of the jaws – I don’t think they will survive the environment without locking solid, I’d be very worried about the cold. Plus, for obvious reasons the pull of most release aids tends to be fairly light and the sear quite sensitive to knocks and buffeting."
I do believe I have missed out on a lucrative career as a space plane / archery integration engineer. I’m now going to spend at least the next hour mixing the Schadenfreude feeling of smugness that I was right and sadness over the failure of some good ol’ fashion paper based boffinry.
If I remember correctly I too, commented that a bow release was not appropriate - something of the same basic nature would work if engineered for the the tiny load and high vibration, and balanced appropriatly, but a stock release could never be adjusted correctly.