Jump to the Rescue The State of Oregon might be ready to Jump into serving remote areas with a startling type of drop-in emergency vehicle. Jump Aero’s Pulse eight-motor biplane configuration could whisk emergency medical technicians on a flight to patients who could otherwise wait for a half-hour or more before help could arrive. Joshua Kupietzky, writing in Simple Flying, cites five characteristics of the craft that merit attention. “Quick arrival times… Serving a special niche… Battery-powered life-saving impact… Vertical takeoff… Easy to use and maintain.” These features describe many eVTOLs (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft, but the Pulse allows landing in the space that would otherwise be taken up by an ambulance or small fire vehicle. Carrying a trained professional EMT or firefighter to the scene along with an array of emergency gear, Pulse can have said professional giving medical care or putting out fires within minutes of setting down. Because it’s a tail-sitter, the pilot enters …
Al Bowers and the Bell-Shaped Curve
Al Bowers has promoted a different kind of lift distribution curve for wings in his talks at the Experimental Soaring Association’s Western workshop, held every Labor Day weekend at Mountain Valley Airport in Tehachapi, California. Most aerodynamics textbooks model the elliptical lift distribution as an ideal to be achieved in wing design. R. J. Mitchell, designer of the classic Spitfire fighter, incorporated an elliptical planform, which serendipitously allowed room for the Browning machine guns in the capacious inboard sections. What could be wrong with that when the finest sailplanes exploit that same theory in their slender spans? Albion Bowers is retiring Chief Scientist at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base. His experiments with an alternative way of spreading the lift across a wing have inspired several large models of how a wing with a bell-shaped lift distribution curve might appear – and perform. Two years ago, he and Erich Chase, a well-known builder of high-end boats, brought …