Back in 1993, I lived in LA with my friends. We were acting, taking classes, drinking, taking classes, living the ‘Swingers’ beautiful-babies’ lifestyle and taking more classes. Wait – yeah, and we were taking classes. During one of those trips to class, a lecture of craft presented by the all-knowing, all-wonderful, ‘who’s bigger than Madonna? Michael Jackson! Shut up, Mike’ class of Arlene Golonka, I remember my roommate telling me the story of a puported self-healing aircraft. His friend’s dad, who lived in Simi Valley, worked for one of the big aircraft designers. I think it was McDonnell-Douglass but am not positive. His friend said that his dad told him specifically that his company was “…designing an aircraft that would be able to heal itself after being attacked.”
15 years later and that story breaks. Basically, it’s analogous with the timeline of the stealth technology: 1970’s technology, developed in high-secrecy, revealed publicy in the late 1980’s, and now common place. I ALWAYS knew this story would break one day and here it is. However, since the story has now been ‘pandorized from it’s box,’ it must be old news. Interesting stuff, though – a plane that takes two aspirin and calls you in the morning! WOW!
ScienceDaily (2008-05-19) – A new technique that mimics healing processes found in nature could enable damaged aircraft to mend themselves automatically, even during a flight. br />
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As well as the obvious safety benefits, this breakthrough could make it possible to design lighter airplanes in future. This would lead to fuel savings, cutting costs for airlines and passengers and reducing carbon emissions too…<
