Most of us remember the slow walking zombies on the TV series “The Walking Dead.” The zombies would stagger and stumble as they were attacking the good guys. But there are real life situations that are very similar.
This may surprise younger readers, but there was once a time when the reality programming on The Weather Channel was simply, you know, weather. It used to be no more than a ten-minute wait to “Local on the Eights”, with simple text crawls of local conditions and forecasts that looked like they were taken straight from the National Weather Service feed. Those were the days, and sadly they seem to be gone forever.
In electrical engineering, live-line working is the maintenance of electrical equipment, often operating at high voltage, while the equipment is energized. In the 1960s, methods were developed in the laboratory to enable field workers to come into direct contact with high voltage lines. Such methods can be applied to enable safe work at the highest transmission voltages.
A lineman wearing a Faraday suit can work on live, high-power lines by being transported to the lines in a helicopter. Wearing the suit, they can crawl down the wires. The strong electric field surrounding charged equipment is enough to drive a current of approximately 15 μA for each kV·m−1 through a human body. To prevent this, hot-hand workers are usually required to wear a Faraday suit. This is a set of overalls made from or woven throughout with conducting fibers. The suit is in effect a wearable Faraday cage, which equalizes the…
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The first documented usage of rabbit head tail codes on military aircraft dates back to 1953 with Marine Squadron VMCJ-2 “The Playboys”. This squadron, based in MCAS Cherry Point, continues to uphold the tradition of the bunny on combat deployments to overseas location. Additionally, the US Air Force incorporated the image on the SR-71 Blackbird.
The most notable, and famous, use of the bunny image came from the Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four (VX-4) based out of NAS Point Mugu, CA. This squadron is charged with the operational testing of advanced aircraft systems. In this capacity, the rabbit head adorned the tail of some of the Navy’s most legendary fighter jets including the F-4 Phantom II, F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet and the newest F-18 E/F Super Hornet. According to Navy lore the first rabbit appeared on the black F-4 Phantom II in 1969 during night testing and was referred to either as “Black Bunny” or “Vandy One”.
That same year, Playboy Enterprises bought a black Douglas DC-9 known as the “Big Bunny”. Shortly after this, a famous picture started to circulate featuring the Navy’s “Black Bunny” at NAS Point Mugu, CA in October 1971. The squadron received a letter from Playboy Enterprises, Inc stating that the bunny head was unofficial and warned of potential legal action. However, Playboy Enterprises stated no legal action would be taken if the squadron used an official Playboy stencil to ensure authenticity and accuracy. Thereafter official stencils were delivered to the Navy to match Playboy’s own design.
F-14 Tomcat
Tomcat with the bunny.
F-14 Tomcat and F-4 Phantom
F-18 Super Hornet
SR-71 Blackbird
I would need at least 4 beers in my system before I would walk on this bridge.
Arouca 516 is a suspension bridge located in the municipality of Arouca, in the North Region and the Aveiro District in Portugal. The bridge has a length of 516 m (1,693 ft). The bridge is suspended 175 m (574 ft) above the Paiva River, which it spans. Its name is a reference to its extension in meters (516) and the municipality where it is located (Arouca).
Its length exceeds by 16 m (52 ft) the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge, opened on 29 July 2017, with a length of about 500 m (1,600 ft) and connecting Grächen and Zermatt in Switzerland.
Construction of the bridge started in May 2018. It is a hanging bridge which is supported by two V-shaped concrete towers. The bridge opened on 29 April 2021 to residents of the municipality…
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