Record-breaking
Eurocopter has announced a new pair of speed records set by its hybrid helicopter demonstrator, the X3. Piloted by Hervé Jammayrac, the X3 reached a level flight speed of 255 knots over the south of France on June 7, eclipsing the 250 knots (463 km/h) set by Sikorsky's X2 demonstrator back in 2010. The X3 reached 263 knots several days beforehand, achieved during a dive rather than level flight, also besting the X2's record in descent – by a single knot. Read More
Back in 2009, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) set an endurance record for electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) when its fuel cell-powered Ion Tiger aircraft managed to stay aloft for 26 hours and 1 minute. Now, NRL has announced that the same aircraft has trounced that record, by remaining in flight for 48 hours and 1 minute. Read More
Last December, the team at Switzerland’s Solar Impulse announced that they were planning on flying their record-breaking HB-SIA solar-powered aircraft across the United States this spring. Today, the details of that project were revealed to the public. Read More
Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree is building a special sort of bicycle. He's building it in his own kitchen without a lick of research assistance to inform the design. Why might research assistance be useful? Because with this bicycle, dubbed Beastie, Obree intends not only to break the human-powered vehicle land speed record, but also hopes to be the first person to break 100 mph (161 km/h). But then, Obree's never been one to do things the easy way. Read More
Volkswagen has announced that its 2013 Jetta Hybrid became the fastest hybrid production-based car in the world during Southern California Timing Association’s (SCTA) annual Speed Week. Motor Trend Associate Road Test Editor Carlos Lago was in the driver's seat of the specially-modified compact sedan when it set the new hybrid speed record of 185.394 mph (298.363 km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats, near Wendover, Nevada last week. Read More
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) have achieved a laser shot which boggles the mind: 192 beams delivered an excess of 500 trillion-watts (TW) of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to a target of just two millimeters in diameter. To put those numbers into perspective, 500 TW is more than one thousand times the power that the entire United States uses at any instant in time. Pew-Pew indeed ... Read More
A series of striking illuminated animated mosaics projected onto Buckingham Palace has broken the Guinness World Record for the most artists working on an art installation. Read More
Traveling at 80.74 mph (129.94 km/h) on four wheels won’t usually grab you a Guinness world record, but when that feat is achieved on a vehicle that relies on only leg power and gravity, it’s another story. That’s just what 28-year old Mischo Erban has done in a record-breaking downhill skateboard run at Les Éboulements in Quebec, Canada, this week. Read More
With the age of production electric vehicles still in its relative infancy, it’s not surprising to see new records being claimed on a fairly regular basis. The latest company putting its EV on the world record podium is Renault, which is claiming the world record for the longest distance traveled in 24 hours by a production EV. Read More
Eighty five years ago, Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to successfully fly from New York to Paris non-stop, claiming a substantial cash prize and securing a place in history in the process. Now another world record holder, Chip Yates, has announced plans to take on the same aviation challenge ... but this time the aircraft making the 3,600 mile non-stop flight will be all-electric. The ambitious project is still in its early stages but the Flight of the Century team has already developed a patent-pending battery deployment solution to replenish depleted batteries while the aircraft is in flight. Read More
