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AMSOIL Racer
The AMSOIL Racer, also known as the Rutan Biplane Racer and the Rutan Model 68 Racer, was a race tandem wing plane which was designed by Burt Rutan's Rutan Aircraft Factory, and built and flown by Dan Mortensen. It set several speed records, but crashed at the 1983 Reno Air Races. Conception and construction The concept which led to the AMSOIL Racer began in 1979 when race pilot Dan Mortensen approached Burt Rutan about designing an aircraft that would beat the '' Beck-Mahoney Sorceress'', owned by Don Beck and which was dominating the competition at the time. After some research and calculations, Rutan produced three preliminary designs, and the least radical of these was chosen. Like the Model 54 Quickie tandem wing that he had previously designed, the Model 68 (as Rutan designated it) was configured with a canard wing, a main wing and, unlike the Quickie, had additional horizontal flight surface in the form of a T-tail. Rutan sold rights and plans to build two aircraft of th ...
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EAA Aviation Museum
The EAA Aviation Museum, formerly the EAA AirVenture Museum (or Air Adventure Museum), is a museum dedicated to the preservation and display of historic and experimental aircraft as well as antiques, classics, and warbirds. The museum is located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States, adjacent to Wittman Regional Airport, home of the museum's sponsoring organization, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), and the organization's EAA AirVenture Oshkosh event (the world's biggest fly-in and airshow) that takes place in late July/early August. With over 200 aircraft, indoors and outdoors, and other exhibits and activities (including occasional aircraft rides nearby), the AirVenture Museum is a key tourist attraction in Oshkosh and is a center of activity throughout the AirVenture fly-in and airshow each summer. The museum is open year-round with the exception of a few holidays. History EAA founder Paul Poberezny first proposed the EAA Air Museum and Education Center in Augu ...
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Graphite
Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on a large scale (1.3million metric tons per year in 2022) for uses in many critical industries including refractories (50%), lithium-ion batteries (18%), foundries (10%), and lubricants (5%), among others (17%). Graphite converts to diamond under extremely high pressure and temperature. Graphite's low cost, thermal and chemical inertness and characteristic conductivity of heat and electricity finds numerous applications in high energy and high temperature processes. Types and varieties Graphite can occur naturally or be produced synthetically. Natural graphite is obtained from naturally occurring geologic deposits and synthetic graphite is produced t ...
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1980s United States Sport Aircraft
__NOTOC__ Year 198 (CXCVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Gallus (or, less frequently, year 951 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 198 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire *January 28 **Publius Septimius Geta, son of Septimius Severus, receives the title of Caesar. **Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, is given the title of Augustus. China *Winter – Battle of Xiapi: The allied armies led by Cao Cao and Liu Bei defeat Lü Bu; afterward Cao Cao has him executed. By topic Religion * Marcus I succeeds Olympianus as Patriarch of Constantinople (until 211). Births * Lu Kai, Chinese official and general (d. 269) * Quan Cong, Chinese general and advisor (d. 249) Deaths * Li Jue, Chinese warlord and regent * ...
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Homebuilt Aircraft
Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenneth: ''Choosing Your Homebuilt - the one you will finish and fly! Second Edition'', pp. 39–52. Butterfield Press, 1993. Peter M Bowers: ''Guide to Homebuilts - Ninth Edition''. TAB Books, Blue Ridge Summit PA, 1984. Overview In the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, homebuilt aircraft may be licensed Experimental aircraft, Experimental under Federal Aviation Administration, FAA or similar local regulations. With some limitations, the builder(s) of the aircraft must have done it for their own education and recreation rather than for profit. In the U.S., the primary builder can also apply for a repairman's certificate for that airframe. The repairman's certificate allows the holder to perform and sign off on m ...
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Racing Aircraft
Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previously estimated time. History The first 'heavier-than-air' air race was held on 23 May 1909 in aviation, 1909 - the Prix de Lagatinerie, at the Port-Aviation aerodrome (often called "Juvisy Airfield") in Viry-Châtillon south of Paris, France. Four pilots entered the race, two started, but nobody completed the full race distance; though this was not unexpected, as the rules specified that whoever travelled furthest would be the winner if no-one completed the race. Léon Delagrange, who covered slightly more than half of the ten laps was declared the winner. Some other minor events were held before the ''Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne'' in 22–29 August 1909 at Reims, France, Reims, France. This was the first major intern ...
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Lycoming O-320
The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of naturally aspirated, air-cooled, flat four engine, horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, direct-drive engines produced by Lycoming Engines. Introduced in 1953, it is commonly used on light aircraft such as the Cessna 172 and Piper Cherokee, and remains in production as of 2024. Different variants are rated for 150 or 160 horsepower (112 or 119 kilowatts). Design and development The O-320 family of engines includes the carburetor, carbureted O-320, the fuel-injection, fuel-injected IO-320, the inverted mount, fuel-injected AIO-320 and the aerobatics, aerobatic, fuel-injected AEIO-320 series. The LIO-320 is a "left-handed" version with the crankshaft rotating in the opposite direction for use on twin-engined aircraft to eliminate the critical engine. The first O-320 (with no suffix) was Federal Aviation Administration, FAA Type certification, certified on 28 July 1953 to CAR 13 effective 5 March 1952; this same engine was later re-designa ...
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Wake Turbulence
Wake turbulence is a disturbance in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. It includes several components, the most significant of which are wingtip vortices and jet-wash, the rapidly moving gases expelled from a jet engine. Wake turbulence is especially hazardous in the region behind an aircraft in the takeoff or landing phases of flight. During take-off and landing, an aircraft operates at a high angle of attack. This Flight dynamics (fixed-wing aircraft), flight attitude maximizes the formation of strong vortices. In the vicinity of an airport, there can be multiple aircraft, all operating at low speed and low altitude; this provides an extra risk of wake turbulence with a reduced height from which to recover from any upset. Definition Wake turbulence is a type of clear-air turbulence. In the case of wake turbulence created by the wings of a heavy aircraft, the rotating vortex-pair lingers for a significant amount of time ...
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Aileron
An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around the aircraft's longitudinal axis), which normally results in a change in flight path due to the tilting of the lift vector. Movement around this axis is called rolling or banking. Considerable controversy exists over credit for the invention of the aileron. The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss fought a years-long legal battle over the Wright patent of 1906, which described a method of wing-warping to achieve lateral control. The brothers prevailed in several court decisions which found that Curtiss's use of ailerons violated the Wright patent. Ultimately, the First World War compelled the U.S. Government to legislate a legal resolution. A much earlier aileron concept was patented in 1868 by British scientist Matthew Piers Watt Boul ...
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Dick Rutan
Richard Glenn Rutan (July 1, 1938 – May 3, 2024) was an American military aviator and officer, as well as a record-breaking test pilot who in 1986 piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop, non-refueled around-the-world flight with co-pilot Jeana Yeager. He was the older brother of famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan, whose many earlier original designs Dick piloted on class record-breaking flights, including Voyager. Life and career Rutan was born and raised in Loma Linda, California, where he gained an interest in aviation at a young age. He learned to fly at age 15, taking his first solo flight on his 16th birthday, and later attended Reedley Junior College while waiting to report for the military. At Reedley College, he worked with aircraft engines toward getting an official FAA power plant license (also referred to as an Aviation Maintenance Technician). Through his interest in piloting, he went on to earn commercial, instrument, multiengine, seaplane a ...
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Mike Melvill
Michael Winston Melvill (born November 30, 1940, in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a world-record-breaking pilot and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, SpaceShipOne flight 15P, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut, and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's SpaceShipOne flight 16P, flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition. Life and career In 1978, Melvill met aerospace designer and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan when he flew to California to show Rutan the Rutan VariViggen, VariViggen he had built at his home. Rutan then hired him on the spot. In 1982, he was named Rutan's lead test pilot. In 1997, Melvill and Dick Rutan, Burt's brother, flew two Rutan Long-EZ, Long-Eze aircraft that they built side-by-side around the world. T ...
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Mojave Spaceport
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of . It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. The facility covers 2,998 acres (1,213 ha) and has three runways. History In 1935, Kern County, California, Kern County opened the Mojave Airport east of Mojave, California to serve the gold and silver mining industry in the area. The airport had two dirt runways, one oiled, but no fueling or servicing facilities. In 1941, the Civil Aeronautics Board began improvements to the airport for national defense purposes that included two asphalt runways and a taxiway. Kern County agreed the airport could be taken over by the military in the event of war. After the Empire of Japan, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States Marine Corps took over the airpor ...
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Kevlar
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components. Kevlar has many applications, ranging from bicycle tires and sailcloth#Kevlar, racing sails to bulletproof vests, due to its high Specific strength, tensile strength-to-weight ratio; by this measure it is five times stronger than steel. It is also used to make modern marching drumheads that withstand high impact, and for Mooring, mooring lines and other underwater applications. A similar fiber, Twaron, with the same chemical structure was developed by Akzo in the 1970s. Commercial production started in 1986, and Twaron is manufactured by Teijin Aramid. History Poly- ...
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