Month: June 2010
Mice weather for surfing
Shane Wilmott, 39, has built boards for eight-month-old pets Peanut, Rocket, Skidmark and Charcoal.
He trains them first in the bath, then tugs them behind a remote-controlled boat in his swimming pool to get them used to the swells.
After that they hit the sea – with Shane, of Queensland’s Gold Coast in Australia, keeping an eye out for predators. He said: “People can’t believe it. They see the boards but don’t realize there are mice riding the waves.”
Perception of spouses
Thanks Mike N
Home shopping ladder bloopers
Thanks Klaw
Flying car gets OK from FAA
The Transition was designed as a “light sport” aircraft, the smallest kind of private aeroplane under FAA classification, with a maximum weight of 1,320lb. But the manufacturers found it impossible to fit the safety features – airbags, crumple zones and roll cage, for instance – that are required for road vehicles into that weight.
Uniquely, however, the FAA has granted the Transition an exemption – allowing it to be classified as a light sport aircraft despite being 120lb over the limit.
Light sport aircraft licenses require just 20 hours’ flying time, making them much easier to obtain than full private licenses.
The two-seater Transition can use its front-wheel drive on roads at ordinary highway speeds, with wings folded, at a respectable 30 miles per gallon. Once it has arrived at a suitable take-off spot – an airport, or adequately sized piece of flat private land – it can fold down the wings, engage its rear-facing propeller, and take off. The folding wings are electrically powered.
Its cruising speed in the air is 115mph, it has a range of 460 miles, and it can carry 450lb. It requires a 1,700-foot (one-third of a mile) runway to take off and can fit in a standard garage. … The car is expected to retail at $194,000.