This collection of news chum brings together a bunch of articles that all have to do with travel or things we use when traveling such as maps:
- Bordering on the Crazy. Most of us think of borders as straight lines. Perhaps another line meets them, bringing three entities together. Sometimes it is a form of a +, bringing four entities together. Sometimes it is even weirder than that. This article explores 11 different international border oddities, including multiple levels of enclaves (enclosed countries) and divided villages.
- Art on or In The Road. Canadian artist Roadsworth likes to take existing street and sign markings and turn them into street art. Literally. I find them quite cute, but I wonder if people notice them.
- Las Vegas Remembers. Las Vegas may not be keen on keeping the past (as the hotels go boom!), but it is keen on remembering it. It does this by…. naming streets. You’re familiar with the dead hotels memorialized in street names: Sands, Dunes, Riviera, Sahara, Tropicana (oh, right, that’s not dead yet). It also does it for start associating city — most recently, when it renamed a stretch of Riviera as Elvis Presley Blvd. Elvis Presley Boulevard, formerly Riviera Boulevard, is four-tenths of a mile and runs from the Strip to Paradise Road near the Convention Center and the Westgate. Other streets named after celebrities include Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. drives, all of which meet behind the Mirage. Jerry Lewis Way can be found south of that intersection, also intersecting Dean Martin Drive. Not far from there is Mel Torme Way, off of Spring Mountain Road near Fashion Show. Tony Bennett Way runs east of Paradise in between Twain and Flamingo. Debbie Reynolds Drive is near Convention Center Drive, and Hugh Hefner Drive is just off of Flamingo Road. UNLV’s most famous basketball coach has Jerry Tarkanian Way in the southwest along the 215 Beltway. Wayne Newton Boulevard is near McCarran International Airport. You get the idea.
- Belugas in the Air. Airbus has released photos of the Airbus Beluga XL. This plane, a modified A330, is used to fly aircraft components across Europe for manufacturing. Some think it is pretty. It reminds me of a Pontiac Aztek.
- The Speed of Sound. A bit faster than the Beluga is the Supersonic Jet designed by Industrial Engineer Charles Bombardier. The Paradoxal resembles a stingray, and would not be suitable for autonomous operations. But it would go fast, being outfitted with two rim-rotor rotary ramjet engines that would give it enough power to climb to 60,000 feet and reach Mach 3. At that point, the air-breathing engines would transform into rocket engines by injecting liquid oxygen injected into the gas exhaust port, placing it on a parabolic suborbital path with an apex of 65 kilometers (approximately 40 miles)—a cruising level well above the stratosphere. The plane would be made of standard civil aviation materials using current aircraft manufacturing techniques, and would be compatible with all existing airport infrastructure and services. However…. a few of its mechanisms have yet to be developed: for starters, the proposed R4E engines, though they could be replaced with existing turbines that use afterburners to increase thrust.
- Bye Bye 747. United Airlines has announced that it will be pulling its last 747 out of service this year. The 747 was a revolutionary plane when it was introduced in 1969, but its four engine design makes it a gas guzzler in an era where both fuel consumption and exhaust output must be minimized. Further, the economics are increasingly not there — profits are easier on an appropriately outfitted A330 or 767, and if you need BIG, there’s always the A380 or the 787. The 747 remains a cargo workhorse, given how much it can hold.
