Vulture - Unmanned Aircraft

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of United States is working to develop an unmanned aircraft that is able to stay in air for a period of 5 years at a time. It is one of the most recent inventions of world.

Officials of DARPA has revealed that this aircraft will be known as VULTURE due to itsPersistent Pseudo-Satellite Capability . It means that this aircraft will be able to fly over a single area, communicating or performing analysis for years at a time.

Major Obstacles in Project:

Even this project looks appealing to many of you, but there are some serious problems or you can say obstacles in achieving this project.

1) First challenge in front of designers is to figure out some Way to Supply Power to this aircraft during long missions.

2) Another problem is that this aircraft will carry a 1000 pound (450 kg) payload in winds at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

3) Designers have also to sort out the problems regarding Deterioration of Materialsduring their long-time exposure to stratospheric flight.
In addition to this there may be many challenges during designing of this aircraft.

Daniel Newman: The Man Behind VULTURE

Daniel Newman is the Project Manger of this ambitious project of NASA. In his words: "We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think of aircraft. Aviation has a perfect record - we've never left one up there. We will attempt to break that record". It looks that its time to get out of the traditional "launch - recover - maintain - launch cycle of aircrafts."

Concept Behind Vulture:

Basically Aircrafts operates just like satellites, but the major difference is that these are not regulated by orbital mechanics. You can understand Vulture as a Pseudo-Satellite, which operates in the stratosphere and not in the low Earth orbit. This would provide a 65 dB upgrading in communications capability and will increase onboard sensor resolution.

Luxuries !!

Cruise Ships - Oasis Class (Oasis of the Seas)

The Oasis class (formerly known as Project Genesis) is a class of Royal Caribbean International cruise ships that are the world's largest passenger ships. Two ships were ordered in February 2006, named Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. Oasis of the Seas was completed and delivered on October 28, 2009, while Allure of the Seas is under construction and is expected to be completed by late 2010.

General Characteristics

Tonnage:	225,282 GT
Length:	360 m (1,181 ft)
Beam:	47 m (154 ft) waterline 60.5 m (236 ft) extreme
Draft:	9,3 m (31 ft)
Capacity:	5,400 passengers double occupancy; 6,296 total

The Oasis class have surpassed the earlier Freedom class as the world's largest passenger ships. At 360 m (1,180 feet) in length Oasis is 21 metres (69 ft) longer than the prior largest passenger ship, the Independence of the Seas and classmates. Oasis also is 8.5 metres (28 ft) wider, and with a gross tonnage of 225,282, is almost 45% larger. Oasis class vessels carry over 5,400 passengers.

Like the Freedom class, the Oasis class ships are built by STX Europe (formerly Aker Yards) in Turku, Finland. The first of the Oasis class, priced at US$1.24 billion (€ 900 million) reportedly is the most expensive commercial ship ever built. The option for a second ship of the class was exercised by Royal Caribbean on April 2, 2007. The second ship is to be delivered by STX Europe in August 2010.

On December 11, 2007, the keel of the first vessel of the class was laid down in Turku. In early 2008, Royal Caribbean ended months of speculation by announcing that their two Oasis class ships would be based year-round at Port Everglades, Florida.

On April 15, 2008, Royal Caribbean held a press conference in New York City to release the first official information and renderings of "Central Park", a 5-deck high area in the middle of the ship, open to the sky and filled with lush tropical gardens, upscale restaurants and shops. The area, one of seven "neighborhoods" onboard the ship, also features the Rising Tide Bar, which will move up and down through 3 decks. There will be 334 staterooms overlooking the Park, 254 with balconies - four of which are wheelchair accessible. Two arched-glass domes in Central Park called the Crystal Canopies will provide sunlight into the ship's inner public spaces.

one of the biggest !

Container Ship - Emma Maersk

Emma Mærsk is a container ship owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. When she was launched, Emma Mærsk was the largest container ship ever built, and as of 2008 the longest ship in use. Officially, Emma Mærsk is able to carry around 11,000twenty-foot equivalent units(TEU) according to the Maersk company's method of calculating capacity, which is about 1,400 more containers than any other ship is capable of carrying.

General Characteristics

Tonnage:	170,974 GT (55,396 NT)
Length:	397 metres (1,300ft)
Beam:	56 metres (180ft)
Draft:	15.5 metres (51ft)
Capacity:	156,907 DWT, 11,000TEU

By normal calculations, Emma Mærsk's cargo capacity is significantly greater than the listed capacity — between 13,500twenty-foot equivalent units(TEU) and 15,200TEU. The difference between the official and estimated numbers is because Maersk calculates the capacity of a container ship by weight (in this case, 14 tons/container) that can be carried on a vessel. For the Emma Mærsk, this is 11,000 containers. Other companies calculate the capacity of a container ship according to the maximum number of containers that can be put on the ship, independent of the weight of the containers. This number is always greater than the number calculated by the Maersk method.

The ship was built at the Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark. In June 2006, during construction, welding work caused a fire within her superstructure. It spread rapidly through the accommodation section and bridge.

Emma Mærsk was named in a ceremony on August 12, 2006. The ship is named after Emma Mærsk, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller's late wife. The ship set sail on her maiden voyage on 8 September 2006 at 02:00 hours from Aarhus, calling at Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Algeciras, the Suez Canal, and arrived in Singapore on 1 October 2006 at 20:05 hours.

Emma Mærsk departed Singapore the next day, headed for Yantian in Shenzhen. She sailed on to Kobe, Nagoya, arrived at Yokohama on 10 October 2006, and returned via Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, the Suez Canal, Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Gothenburg and finally to Aarhus, with arrival at that port 11 November 2006 at 16:00 hours.

She appeared in headlines prior to Christmas 2006, when she was dubbed SS Santa because she was bound for the United Kingdom from China loaded with Christmas goods. The return journey after Christmas 2006 saw her return to southern China, loaded with UK waste destined for recycling in China.

Her appearance in the news prompted China's State Environmental Protection Administration to promise to "closely watch the progress of investigation into the dumping of garbage in south China by Britain". It added that no official approval had been given to any company in the area to import waste.

Emma Maersk's regular round trip involves Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong (westbound), Yantian (westbound), Tanjung Pelepas (westbound), Algeciras (westbound), Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Algeciras (eastbound), Tanjung Pelepas (eastbound), Yantian (eastbound), Hong Kong (eastbound) and Ningbo.