Posts by Dave Clarke
UAM Word of the Day/Year/Decade: Lithium
In the 1967 Oscar-winning film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman received a one-word piece of advice from his father’s friend at his high school graduation party: “Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” The film, were it to be remade today, might give a recent college grad a different one-word recommendation: Lithium. (If a few words of…
Are Ornithopters a Birdbrained Idea or Smart UAM?
When you think “Renaissance Man,” you will likely conjure Leonardo da Vinci. Sculptor-extraordinaire, painter of masterworks, and yes, even a designer for a flying machine centuries before the Wright Brothers cracked the code to modern aviation. Leonardo imagined and sketched flying machines with the pilot prone, standing, and using his arm and leg strength to…
eVTOL UAVs to Take on Jaws as Shark-Spotters
It’s been 45 years since film director Steven Spielberg frightened beachgoers and boaters out of the oceans with his iconic, shark-fest thriller, Jaws. Now, scientists at the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) may have found a way, using artificial intelligence (AI) and UAVs (drones), to spot sharks, track…
Texas UASWERX
So, you’re developing an eVTOL or an hybrid eVTOL, or perhaps a flying car of a different breed altogether. You’ve designed the airframe, the interior, avionics, propulsion system, landing gear, and built your prototype — everything you need to get this unmanned bird airborne and ready for certification from the regulators. But, that’s where things…