The vehicle pictured above consists of a kite, a cabin and a keel, and should be able to take you across the Atlantic Ocean. The 157 m2 kite should produce enough power to make you go 90 km/h, the cabin seats two, and the keel makes sure you can actually steer the thing. The only catch is that the Hydrokite so far only exists in the minds of former astronaut and kite nut Wubbo Ockels and ten of his students at the TU Delft.
At 90 km/h you should be able to reach New York from Amsterdam in four days and 1 hour, which would break the old record with three hours, although Kennislink doesn’t say what record that would be (sailing? flying? kiting?).
Laurens Alblas, one of the students, told Kennislink that it will probably “take a couple of years before a control system for kites is developed. But once we have such a system, and assuming we can find sponsors, we will build the Hydrokite and we will try and break the record.”
A UK film distributor has started a contest that will see its winner flown to Amsterdam, by plane that is, to collect a bag of marijuana. The distributor, Revolver Entertainment, is holding the contest to promote its film The Wackness.
Writes Revolver:
Yes, you heard us correctly! We’re offering the chance for you to win a fabulous weekend break for 2 to the city of smoke itself, the beautiful Amsterdam. But that’s not all… the lucky winner will also be able to pick up a complimentary bag of skunk from legendary Amsterdam café, Hill Street Blues.
Hidden within one of the first 1,000 DVDs of The Wackness is a Golden Ticket. Find the Golden Ticket and you win! It’s that simple.
A baby was born on New Year’s Eve on Northwest Airlines Flight 59 from Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam to Boston, USA, reports Fox News. Phil Orlandella, spokesperson for Logan International Airport, said that a doctor and paramedic who happened to be on board assisted with the birth. Upon arrival the baby was treated as a Canadian citizen, as it was born while flying over Canada.
I would assume that births in airplanes to the US are rare, as women who are more than 32 weeks pregnant a rarely allowed to fly on American flights.
Welcome to this big blue marble, baby, and a happy new year to you, and also a happy new year to all our readers!
Dutch guitar giant Jan Akkerman, former astrounaut Wubbo Ockels and Delft University all worked together to come up with this tiny concert in the Stadspark of Groningen last year. The reason? The electrical power was delivered by a prototype of a so-called Laddermill, an invention by Wubbo Ockels that is currently being developed at the university of Delft, and that consists of a chain of kite-wings that act as kites when going up, and as wings when going down.
Laddermills should be able to deliver from kilowatts to megawatts of power, enough to provide neighbourhoods and cities with electricity. According to the Guardian, laddermills are especially useful in The Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Ireland “thanks to the high-speed jet stream.”
If you’ve never heard of Akkerman before, check Youtube for “focus hocus pocus.”
Flying cars are a thing that overenthusiastic inventors have been promising the world for almost as long as the automobile itself exists. The last of these inventors are the Dutch company PAL-V. They’ve got a hunch that thanks to relaxed regulations and improved technology, their motor-cycle-with-roof cum gyrocopter might just succeed this time around. I especially love their use case. If business were this brisk, you probably would not need a flying car.
A UK film distributor has started a 
A baby was born on New Year’s Eve on Northwest Airlines Flight 59 from Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam to Boston, USA, 
Flying cars are a thing that overenthusiastic inventors have been promising the world for almost as long as the automobile itself exists. The last of these inventors are the Dutch company 