Powered parachutes are one of the safest ways of taking to the air, the parachute acts like a wing and provides lift but it also provides a huge safety benefit, if anything goes wrong you already have a deployed parachute overhead, so you just drift down to the ground.
This is the first time video was shot from an airborne aircraft, exactly how they mounted the camera to the flimsy Wright Flyer is anybody’s guess. The footage lasts just over 30 seconds and shows the take-off, climb and a bank before cutting out.
Kit planes have always held a certain fascination for me, the idea that a person can order a flat-pack kit on the internet, assemble it in their garage and then take to the skies like a modern day Howard Hughes is so cool it should probably be illegal.
The X-15 Space Plane had a top speed of Mach 6.72 (4,520 mph, 7,274 km/h) a service ceiling of 67 mi (108 km, 354,330 ft) and a blistering climb rate of 60,000 ft/min (18,288 m/min), the space planes were fuelled with liquid oxygen propellant and hydrogen peroxide.
$595,000 USD will buy you a modest suburban house in most parts of America. Well, it could buy you a modest suburban house. Or it could buy you your own private freaking jet. I don’t think it’s a particularly difficult choice, I mean the plane has seats that fold into beds and a kitchenette but the modest suburban house can’t fly. 1-0 to the private jet.
