It'll Never Get Off the Ground, Wilbur!

I guess every generation since 1903 has been astounded at the size of aircraft, wondering how the laws of physics can possibly allow something so large and heavy to get off the ground.  I remember as a boy in the 1970s staring in awe at a Boeing 747 at the San Francisco airport.
Well, 747s are certainly no big deal anymore and these days are used more for cargo than passengers.  Now we have even larger aircraft, carrying more people greater distances, and forcing any rational person to wonder, yet again, how something this size could ever fly.
I got a chance to see one of the new Airbus A-380s up close and personal at the Frankfurt airport recently.  If your jaw doesn't drop when to see one of these behemoths, I think you're just bored with life.  So now the obvious questions about comparisons with 747s.  The 380 is only about 7 feet longer than a 747 and about 16 feet taller.  But the width is hard to believe: the Airbus's wingspan is a full 50 feet longer than the Boeing!  The new double-decker can carry well over 500 passengers, while the older 747, "only" about 340.  One can only wonder how long it takes to get your luggage after landing, you and the other 500 tired fliers... 
One final stat: the maximum take-off weight of the A-380 is 1.2 million pounds.  What hath the Wright Brothers wrought!

The Other Golden Gate

It turns out that Lisbon, Portugal, also has a Golden Gate Bridge (they don't call it that which is good; otherwise, they'd be guilty of what teenagers call "posing," since ours was built long before theirs).  True, they have one thing nearby that ours does not: a memorial to explorers going back as far back as the 16th century.  I guess we'd have to admit that San Fran was not exactly a world hub of exploration 500 years ago...

April 12th Quiz Question Answer

You'll find the quiz question in an earlier post, below.
As an astute reader (you might call him a cheater, in that he lived only a few miles from this odd building for four years!) has correctly noted, this strange contraption is a barge elevator, for lifting or lowering large ships over 250 feet from one canal in central Belgium to another.  Traditional lock-system canals over time could not handle the new, massive ships carrying coal and other cargo across central Europe.   Enter the elevator.  The concept seems just too simplistic to possibly work, but it does: a ship enters a small, deep pool on one side of the elevator, then is lifted/lowered (the water stays in the pool, keeping the ship afloat) well over a dozen stories in just under three minutes.  The gates open up and the barge heads along its merry way once again, no worse for the wear.  Boat traffic actually seems to flow far better via this complicated water route than any cars possibly can on all major roads in Belgium.  I wish I could travel to work every morning via canal...

Right of Way Rules...on the Baggage Carousel

Leave it to the Germans!  It's well known how important their cars are to them, as well as their rather arcane right-of-way rules on the road.  But now they've come up with a way to safeguard another important piece of property using similar ideas: luggage.
At the Munich airport, the baggage carousels appear, at first glance, to be just like any others that you'd encounter at any large airport.  But there is a difference.  Here there are small electronic sensors which monitor bags as they head down the arrival "chute" before dropping onto the oval carousel itself.  When the sensor detects that a bag is already moving counter-clockwise on the carousel as a second bag approaches on the chute, ready to be plopped down on top of the other bag, it actually halts the incoming bag temporarily, putting it in a holding pattern until such time as there is a sufficient gap on the carousel between pieces of luggage to allow the new bag to drop safely without touching any other, earlier-arrived bag.  In effect, the rule of the road is that a bag already on the carousel has the automatic right-of-way over any new bags attempting to enter the "carriageway" from the left.  Just like on the roads.
Amazing...