Telluride, Colorado, is nothing if not an outdoor playground. Paragliding, in particular, is a summer recreational activity for locals and visitors alike. Check out this clip from the Telluride Air Force Hangliding and Paragliding Club featuring an epic ride over snow-covered peaks and through the clouds. Things culminate with several swoops over town, before a graceful landing in the high school playing field. If you make it out to Telluride for a flight of your own, try and time it to coincide with sunset.
Classic Italian car race comes to California
Fans of classic cars and rally enthusiasts take note: “the most beautiful road race in the world” is coming to California. The Mille Miglia, the Italian car race that elevated driving to an art, will makes its American debut in California from October 25-29 in advance of the Santa Barbara Concours d’Elegance. In the spirit of the legendary Italian race, which followed scenic routes that circled from Brescia to Ferrara and Rome to Florence, Mille Miglia North America will begin and end in Santa Barbara, in between making a 1,000-mile loop along California’s coastline. Cities and sites along the route include San Luis Obispo, Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey, San Francisco, and Napa.
All cars racing in the Mille Miglia North America will date from 1927 to 1957, the time period during which the original race was run. Cars expected to participate include vintage models of Aston Martins, Alfa Romeos, Fiats, a 1952 Jaguar XK120, a 1957 Thunderbird, and more. The public can get a glimpse of the classic cars at car shows in Santa Barbara before and after the race. And, of course, there will be spectator spots along the route when the race is underway. Stay tuned to the Mille Miglia website [www.millemiglianorthamerica.com] for more information on spectator locations as they become available.
[Image credit: Flickr user Roberto Ferrari]
Fifty years ago today: youngest person in space throws up
Fifty years ago today, Gherman Titov became the second man to go into orbit. The first was Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961. Titov was also Soviet, and flew aboard the Vostok-2 mission.
While Gagarin launched into enduring fame and became one of my personal heroes, Titov has been largely forgotten. That’s a shame, because his flight included a number of records and advanced our knowledge of conditions in zero gravity.
Unlike Gagarin’s single-orbit flight, which was largely to see whether the Soviet Union could get a man into space, Vostok-2 on 6 August 1961 was intended to test how well someone could deal with zero gravity for 24 hours. Major Titov was chosen for the task. He was only 25 years old and is still the youngest person ever to have gone into space.
It didn’t all go well. Early in the flight Titov became space sick and while trying to eat lunch on his sixth orbit around the Earth he threw up. The effects of this in a small capsule in zero gravity must have been unpleasant to say the least. Titov was made of tough stuff, though, and took the manual control of the capsule for a time and also snapped a picture of the Earth from space, the first human being to do so. Ten-and-a-half hours into the flight he felt good enough to fall asleep.
That’s probably the most amazing part of the story. I can’t imagine actually falling asleep when Earth is shining outside my window. Perhaps the adreneline rush finally wore off and Titov conked out due to sheer exhaustion. He slept for eight hours. When he woke up he still didn’t feel a hundred percent but was able to keep his breakfast down. After 17 orbits he reentered the atmosphere and safely landed.
One interesting footnote to the flight is that the Soviets made all the radio frequencies between Vostok-2 and ground control public, so that the whole world could listen in as the capsule passed overhead and could track it using directional antennae. This kept anyone from claiming the flight was faked. Conspiracy theorists have been saying ignorant things about the space program for a long time now.
For more information and some cool images, check out the great website Space History Notes and their article on Vostok-2.
Image of Maj. Titov and Vostok 2 patch courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
BBC presenter spots UFO near Stansted airport
A BBC sports presenter claims to have seen a UFO near Stansted Airport early this morning, the BBC reports.
Radio 5 presenter Mike Sewell says he was driving early this morning about 15 miles from Stansted Airport in Hertfordshire, England, when a bright light descended towards the road before banking to the left and then circling over a field. It was disc shaped with several lights flashing around the edge. During the interview, UFO expert Timothy Good said he “knew for a fact” that experimental spacecraft have been developed with the help of aliens, and that this might be one of them.
Sewell doesn’t mention taking any photographs with his mobile phone, and of course Good doesn’t give any hard evidence to back up his claim. So could this be a hoax? I doubt Sewell would stick his professional neck out by lying to reporters from his own news agency. Perhaps he hallucinated? Perhaps it was some strange electrical phenomenon?
The proximity to Stansted raises the possibility that it was indeed some sort of experimental aircraft, but we don’t have to go so far as Good does and spin tales about aliens. I met a reporter who once saw what he was convinced was a UFO flying over the New Mexico desert. He described it as a black triangle unlike any aircraft he had ever seen. He became a UFO believer until the first photos of the Stealth bomber were released, and then he knew what he had seen.
Have you ever had a strange encounter near an airport? Tell us what you saw in the comments section!
[Photo of “unusual atmospheric occurrence observed over Sri Lanka” courtesy UK Ministry of Defence. This is not the object Sewell claims to have seen.]
easyJet plans routes from London Southend Airport
London Southend Airport doesn’t look like much. Compared to major London airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick and Stansted, it isn’t much, yet starting next spring this little airport will be a new easyJet destination. EasyJet will be running 70 flights a week from there to Alicante, Barcelona, Ibiza, Malaga and Majorca, Belfast, Amsterdam, and Faro.
It’s a 50-minute train ride to Liverpool Street station, which makes it just as convenient as the Big Three airports and more convenient than Luton. City Airport also serves London but is mostly for business travelers rather than holidaymakers.
A new train station and control tower have recently been completed and Southend’s runway will be lengthened by 300 meters to accommodate bigger planes.
Being one of the smallest airports in the UK is an advantage, Southend’s managers say. They claim that check-in and security run much faster than the crowded major airports.
Have you used Southend airport? Tell us how it compares to London’s other airports in the comments section!
[Photo courtesy Terry Joyce]