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Videos

Sneak peek: Disney’s upcoming “Planes”

Disney has released a sneak peek of its upcoming movie “Planes,” a 3D animated comedy adventure featuring a plane named Dusty who has dreams of competing as a high-flying air racer. However, Dusty is not built for racing and is also afraid of heights – forcing him to turn to a seasoned naval aviator for help in qualifying to take on the defending champ of the race circuit.

Planes is actually a spin-off of the 2006 animated film Cars (and the 2011 animated sequel Cars 2) plus its intended to be the first film in a trilogy; but while Pixar Animation Studios was the production team for Cars, Planes will be produced by DisneyToon Studios.

DisneyMovieTrailers already has this sneak peek of Planes posted on YouTube:

However and judging by the comments posted on YouTube, those who watched the trailer are, well, less than thrilled by what they saw – to put it politely (I guess everyone is a critic!)

Disney’s “Planes” is set to take off in US theaters in August. So I guess we will have to wait until then to see if Planes will soar or quickly crash back to earth at the box office with a thud!

Video: St Maarten-like plane spotting on Skiathos in Greece

European plane spotters don’t have to travel all the way to St Maarten in the Caribbean to see the very low-altitude flyovers that the Princess Juliana International Airport on the island is famous for because the airport on the Greek island of Skiathos offers identical approaches. In fact, Skiathos Airport “Alexandros Papadiamantis” (IATA: JSI, ICAO: LGSK) has been called the “2nd St Maarten Princess Juliana Airport” or the “European St Maarten” as you can watch the aircraft land from a coastal road at the end of its 5,341 foot runway – which can accommodate aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 757-200.

To appreciate the action on Skiathos, check out this 60-minute video compilation of landings and takeoffs from the airport:

Cool video: Flying robots or drones working together

Hat tip to David Cenciotti and his Aviationist blog for posting a video of the “Feedback Control and the Coming Machine Revolution” presentation by Professor Raffaello D’Andrea from ETH Zurich about the future capabilities of machines. The lecture is around 23 minutes long with the flying robots or drones making their debut at around the 9 minute mark when Raffaello explains how they work.

However, the most interesting point in the lecture comes at around the 19 minute mark when the three drones throw a ball in the air and move to intercept it. This shows how drones can be programmed to work together to accomplish tasks beyond their individual capabilities:

Time lapse video of the HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first of two islands being installed

Hat tip to the Aviationist Blog for finding and posting this time lapse video of the installation of the HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first of two islands that was put together by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance – the coalition of several ship building companies delivering the UK’s latest aircraft carrier flagships:

The island had been constructed in Portsmouth and brought to Scotland by barge. Both carriers (the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales) are being built in a modular fashion (a construction method already being used to build cruise ships and other large ocean going vessels) at several yards all over the UK and then  shipped to Rosyth, Scotland, for final assembly into an aircraft carrier.

The Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers will be the biggest and most powerful surface warships ever built for the Royal Navy and will have 679 permanent crew who could potentially see deployments for as long as 9 months. You can learn more about these ships on the Aircraft Carrier Alliance’s webpage or its YouTube channel.