In a distant future, a war rages between China and Japan over Hong Kong and the surrounding areas. Japan, facing a population crisis and famine, invades Hong Kong in a desperate bid for land. Among the many technological advancements employed in the war, one stands out: the "Grandmas" androids.

 

These androids were not specifically designed for war, but rather emerged from civilian purposes naturally. The idea behind their creation was to prolong the lives of elderly women by turning them into androids, half machine and half human. The creators of the Grandmas chose to use elderly women as the base for their androids because of the differences in neuroplasticity between young and old brains.

 

Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change and adapt in response to experiences. In young brains, neuroplasticity is high, allowing for quick learning and adaptation, but also making it harder to control the behavior of the brain. In contrast, in old brains, neuroplasticity is lower, making it easier to control and direct the behavior of the brain. This is why the creators of the Grandmas decided to use elderly women as the base for their androids.

 

However, as time passed, the Grandmas' brain tissue began to decay and artificial intelligence started to take over more and more parts of their brain. Despite this, their behavior remains the same, as the small parts of living brain tissue that still remain continue to dominate their behavior. Their primary function is to cook and care for all those around them, even other androids, although they do not need food themselves. They often pretend to eat just to make the other grandmas happy. They also tend to wounded or damaged androids, applying dirt and old rags to the damaged components and trying to comfort the machine. These behaviors are not programmed, but have developed naturally, as the Grandmas' loving and caring nature dominates their behavior.

 

In addition to their caretaking duties, the Grandmas also chat constantly, providing wisdom and anecdotes, spreading gossip, and talking the entire time. They have an endless stream of stories and observations from their long lives and they share them with anyone who will listen. They are also known to be a great source of comfort and solace for the soldiers on the battlefield, providing a sense of normalcy and humanity in the midst of the chaos and destruction of war.

 

Grandmas do not fight in combat, but they are often seen trying to break up furious fights on the battlefield, often putting themselves in danger to do so. On rare occasions, they will fight if they witness injustice on the battlefield, using all their advanced abilities to defend the innocent.

 

Despite the care and compassion that the Grandmas show, many humans avoid them and children are often scared of them, while adults are often annoyed by their caring nature. But as the war rages on, the Grandmas continue to provide a beacon of hope and humanity amidst the destruction and chaos. As the war progresses, the Grandmas become more and more important to the soldiers as they provide not only food and care, but also a sense of normalcy and humanity in the midst of the chaos and destruction of war.

 

The Grandmas' unique blend of advanced technology and human-like behavior make them a powerful symbol of the blurred lines between human and machine in this war-torn future. They may not have been specifically designed for war, but the Grandmas' presence on the battlefield serves as a reminder that even in the darkest of times, compassion and humanity can still prevail. Even as their brains decay and artificial intelligence takes over more and more of their functions, the Grandmas' ingrained behavior and love for others continues to shine through.

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

technological

San Francisco, CA

 

website \\ blog \\ Facebook

Joanne O’Riordan, 19, has been selected by St. Patrick’s Festival to lead this year’s Festival Parade and in accepting this honour Joanne became the youngest ever Grand Marshal.

 

At only 19 years of age, Joanne has achieved remarkable things in her life. She has been awarded both Cork Person of the Month and Young Person of the Year and spoke in 2012 at the United Nations about technology where she challenged the technological minds of the world to invent a robotic device that would assist her in becoming even more independent in her daily life. Trinity College Dublin answered this call and is currently in the process of developing ‘Robbie the Robot’. Recently Joanne appeared on RTÉ Television in an independent documentary titled No Limbs No Limits which was directed and produced by her brother Steven. The film explores Joanne’s personal relationships with her family and those she meets on a daily basis and is seen as an education on how the human spirit can triumph over adversity.

  

Joanne, a 2nd-year criminology student at UCC and from Millstreet Co. Cork is one of seven people in the world living with Total Amelia, a syndrome in which individuals are born without limbs. Total Amelia is a very rare congenital disorder which is caused by mutations in the WNT3 gene and in Joanne’s case means she was born without all four limbs. Joanne received a Quercus Scholarship to study in UCC for her Active Citizen work. Joanne recently won the JCI (Junior Chamber International) Top Outstanding Young Person of the World award which saw her fly to Japan to accept the accolade.

  

Both Joanne and her family have never allowed her condition to hold her back. Using technology to enhance her abilities in both her educational pursuits and the wider social environment has led to Joanne conquering major challenges at home, in school and around her local community. Joanne lives life with a no limits mentality and her outlook on life has served as an example both nationally and internationally to all able-bodied and disabled bodies to live very happy, independent and fulfilled lives.

  

On receiving the honour of Grand Marshal, Joanne commented; “I am extremely honoured and delighted to be this year’s Grand Marshal in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Festival. As a small child growing up in Millstreet I have always been awe-inspired and filled with joy seeing the colours, enthusiasm and buzz that fills the streets of Dublin every year. To be a part of it is a serious dream come true. I have been around the globe, to New York and Japan, giving the people with a disability in this world a voice. To be able to come home and be the Grand Marshal of this parade, it helps the people of Ireland see it’s not the disability it’s the ability. I am proud to be in the St. Patrick’s Day Festival and I’m incredibly proud to be a voice for the voiceless.”

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

Trying a bit of product photography.

 

Routers: boring bit of kit to look at. Maybe a bit of colour and reflections help.

 

Imagine a world where all the technological tasks which are currently carried out by devices such as phones and computers are completely integrated into the human body. This pageant, inspired by the young people in Carndonagh Secondary School in Donegal, reflects on the continual downsizing of digital technology, portraying a world where all the technological tasks which are currently carried out by the likes of phones and computers are now part of our physical selves. They’re built into our brains, our eyes, our ears, our hands, our mouths. We’re all “cyberactive”.

  

Inishowen Carnival Group, under the artistic direction of Kevin O’Neill, have performed annually at the Parade since 1996 and regularly take part in festivals and events across Ireland and beyond.

“In the spring of 1958, after President Dwight Eisenhower called to create a civilian space agency, the US Air Force assumed it would lead any national spaceflight effort. As such, the service prepared a detailed, multi-stage plan called Man in Space with the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the mid-1960s.

 

The first phase of the Man in Space program was a technical demonstration phase called Man in Space Soonest (MISS). This phase would take the first steps in space to understand the human factors involved. The first six flights would be robotic missions designed to test the hardware and flight systems, followed by six animal flights over six months to test the live support system. Once everything was proven, a man would launch, ideally as early as October of 1960. These manned flights would round out the technical needs for the MISS phase by developing reentry and recovery techniques.

 

As though to compliment the simple goals of the MISS phase, the spacecraft for all stages was very basic. It was expected to be a simple high-drag, zero-lift, blunt-nosed cylinder eight feet in diameter with a flared bottom and an ablative heat shield to protect the passenger from the heat of reentry. The flared skirt would house the reaction control jets for in-orbit attitude control, the retrorockets that would start the spacecraft on its reentry path to Earth, and the recovery parachutes for a splashdown at sea. Throughout the mission, the pilot would lie on his back on a couch, and though it would be pressurized he would still wear a pressure suit as an extra safety measure. Alongside the pilot would be a certain amount of instrumentation, including the main guidance and control systems as well as the secondary power pack, telemetry and voice communications system.

 

MISS was intended to solve the key unknowns of human spaceflight, keeping the man out of the loop for his own safety; no one wanted to risk a human pilot in case it turned out that weightlessness was debilitatingly disorienting. The pilot would have increased control in later flights, but real pilot control wouldn’t come until the second phase of the program, Man in Space Sophisticated (MISSOPH).

 

Beginning in March of 1961, the first stage of this phase, MISSOPH I, would send robotic and animal flights in larger spacecraft designed to stay aloft for up to two weeks, the average time it would take to fly to the Moon and back. This spacecraft would be more or less a larger version of the MISS spacecraft but with an airlock to facilitate spacewalks. The second stage, MISSOPH II, would take advantage of the larger Super Titan Fluorine booster to launch to extremely high altitudes. The goal would be to get the spacecraft as far as 40,000 miles from the Earth so that when it returned it would reenter the atmosphere at about 35,000 feet per second, roughly the same speed as a spacecraft returning from the Moon. The third stage, MISSOPH III, would be the first to give the pilot a lot of control owing to its radical new shape. Unlike the blunt vehicles before it, MISSOPH III would feature a flat triangular bottom reminiscent of a boost-glide vehicle so the pilot could make smooth, gliding landings on a runway.

 

The MISSOPH III spacecraft would live beyond its dedicated stage, facilitating both Earth orbital and lunar missions, but not before the third Lunar Reconnaissance (LUREC) phase of the program flew. LUREC was intended to fly simultaneously with the MISSOPH phase beginning April of 1960. The first stage called LUREC I was devoted to figuring out the details of real-time tracking and communications with a spacecraft a quarter of a million miles from home. Once the tracking system was in place, LUREC II missions could launch on flights to test the guidance system that would get a spacecraft to the right target a quarter of a million miles away. Using an array of scientific instruments, these unmanned vehicles would also measure the temperature, radioactivity, and atmospheric density around the Moon, sending back television images at the same time to help mission planners narrow down safe landing sites.

 

With a better understanding of the lunar environment, LUREC III would be the first stage to attempt a soft landing on the Moon. The spacecraft would use retro-rockets to slow its descent and telescoping legs to cushion the impact. Staying intact was important; having landed, this spacecraft would gather the first in situ data about the Moon’s surface, including seismic and audio data from ground noises.

 

Building off lessons learned to this point, the final flight phase, Manned Lunar Flight (LUMAN), would be the one to land men on the Moon’s surface. The first stage, LUMAN I, called for circumlunar animal flights as early as May of 1962 to verify the hardware, computer, and life support systems. LUMAN II would fly the same mission but with human pilots on board. LUMAN III would resume unmanned flight, soft landing a payload on the Moon. In the LUMAN IV stage, that same spacecraft would land on, then launch from the Moon’s surface before returning safely to Earth ideally early in 1963.

 

At that point, everything would be in place for a manned lunar landing, the goal of the LUMAN V stage. On this mission, one pilot would bring his spacecraft to a soft landing on the lunar surface. Once there, he would leave the spacecraft through the airlock and, thanks to his special pressure suit, be free to explore the surface. He’d get back into his spacecraft for the return flight home and, upon his return, complete the program’s main goal sometime around 1965. Subsequent missions would focus on larger scientific and military goals; LUMAN VI and LUMAN VII would see more complex landed and orbital missions respectively with far more sophisticated science instruments.

 

When it was pitched in 1958, this Man in Space program was projected to cost $1.5 billion from the first unmanned missions through to the LUMAN missions. But success hinged on a few things, namely getting priority status and the freedom to take control over whatever resources the Air Force might need to get missions flying as soon as possible. And it needed to get that priority status by July 1, 1958, to stay on schedule; the date was just months after the proposal was written.

 

Though it pushed improved reconnaissance, communications, and early warning systems for protection against enemy attacks as valuable spinoffs, the Air Force’s proposal was deemed too lofty. It was scaled back to focus on the Man in Space Soonest phase that could be done quickly and before taking on something as challenging as a lunar mission, which suited the service just fine. Besides, there was little question for the Air Force that it would lead the way in space. It looked at the X-15 program as a model, the joint USAF-NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) program that had the NACA doing the bulk of the detailed engineering work and the USAF pilots getting the glory of flying record-breaking flights. Why would spaceflight be any different?

 

Sadly, for the Air Force, President Eisenhower’s decision to found a civilian space agency — NASA — preempted any military program. A year later, NASA’s Mercury program was under development with seven astronauts already selected to fly its missions. The Air Force’s involvement in the program was minimal, supplying Atlas rockets and ground support while the new agency’s astronauts became national heroes.”

 

Above at/from:

 

www.popsci.com/how-air-force-planned-to-put-men-on-moon/

Credit: Amy Shira Teitel/Popular Science website

  

Also:

 

“It all began on February 15, 1956, in Baltimore, Maryland. Commander of Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) General Thomas S. Power held a staff meeting and called for studies to begin on manned space vehicles that would succeed the joint USAF/NACA X-15 spaceplane program. There were two types of vehicles to choose from: winged and ballistic. One winged approach that would later receive funding was the X-20 Dynamic Soarer. The Task 27544 Manned Ballistic Rocket Research System consisted of a reentry capsule boosted by an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. Unlike the spaceplane approach, ballistic vehicles could be used for two purposes: speedy delivery of cargo to any point on Earth during an emergency and manned spaceflight.

 

The Air Force developed a multistage plan with the goal of landing men on the moon by the mid-1960s called Man in Space. Man in Space was split into four phases, the first being MISS. This phase had two objectives: the demonstration of the technological capability and superiority of the United States, and the exploration of the functional capabilities and limitations of the human body in space. Twenty-five flights would have taken place, twelve using the Thor-Vanguard rocket and thirteen using what was referred to as the "Thor-Fluorine". The first six flights would have been robotic missions that tested the spacecraft's hardware and flight systems. The next six would have flown animals over a period of six months to test the life support system and to develop reentry and recovery techniques. They also would have studied the effects of weightlessness and radiation on living creatures. Finally, the first man would fly in space as early as October of 1960. These flights would have used both Thor and Atlas boosters.

 

Even though the Air Force knew exactly which rockets to use, and therefore already had launch sites picked out as well, one major component was missing— the spacecraft. Even though winged vehicles were still being developed, it was agreed that the optimal choice for MISS was the ballistic reentry capsule. The requirements for such a craft included an ablative heat shield, a window, a 30-inch hatch, and a flared skirt. It also needed to be a high-drag, zero-lift, blunt-nosed cylinder 8 feet in diameter. The flared skirt would contain reaction control jets for attitude control while in orbit, the retrorockets for reentry, and the recovery parachutes that would be deployed during splashdown. Cockpit instrumentation included the main guidance, navigation, and control system, a secondary power pack, and the telemetry and voice communications system. The pilot would lie on his back on a couch during the orbital portion of the mission inside a pressurized cabin. His suit would also be pressurized for safety. According to "Proposal for Man-in-Space (1957-1958)", the astronaut would have been given some control over the spacecraft's attitude and the action of the reentry rockets if he was capable of making decisions during his flight. It was still unknown if microgravity affected cognitive functions.

 

In June 1958, the first astronaut selection in history took place. Nine pilots were chosen to be the world's first space explorers. Their names were Neil Armstrong, William Bridgeman, Scott Crossfield, Iven Kincheloe, John McKay, Robert Rushworth, Joseph Walker, Alvin White, and Robert White. Armstrong was the only member to join NASA's Astronaut Corps after MISS (and the X-20 program) were cancelled. He flew in space during Gemini 8 in 1966, where he performed the first docking of two spacecraft, and Apollo 11 in 1969, where he became the first person to set foot on the moon. Walker became the first member of the group to reach space according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale's definition of space while Robert White because the first to do so according to the USAF definition.”

 

Above at/from:

 

www.spaceflighthistories.com/post/man-in-space-soonest

Credit: Aeryn Avilla/SPACEFLIGHT HISTORIES website

 

And last, but NOT least:

 

www.astronautix.com/m/man-in-space-soonest.html

Credit: Astronautix website

 

Fascinating. Surely an exceedingly rare work. Unfortunately, no artist’s signature is visible.

 

Finally, thanks to G's posting of this very image, its associated press slug:

 

"This is how a General Electric artist envisions the first man in space. The rockets that have propelled him from the earth's surface have fallen away and he is in orbit charting an area never before penetrated by man.

 

Chicago Daily News,

Chicago 6, Illinois"

 

The "Chicago" information being exactly what's stamped on the verso of my photograph. Synergy…pretty cool! 😉

Technologically, this coupé brings together everything that made Subaru so special. An aluminum turbocharged flat-4 engine, AWD, and four independently suspended wheels. In addition, the 4x4 version featured electronically adjustable air suspension. The body shape was certainly controversial and emphasized that this was no ordinary car. With a drag coefficient of 0,29, it was among the most aerodynamic cars of its time. It was a forerunner of the brand's successful rally cars. This rare appearance is unique for another reason : it is completely original and has only 12.000 km on the ododmeter.

 

1.781 cc

Flat 4

136 hp

 

Big in Japan

03/07/2025 - 31/08/2025

 

Autoworld

www.autoworld.be

Brussels - Belgium

July 2025

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

In March 1941 Saab was given the task to design a better fighter than the Seversky Republic P-35s and Reggiane 2000s, at that time the only fighter aircraft Sweden was able or allowed to buy and the air force’s most modern fighters. Several other foreign designs, including the German Bf 109 or even the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero had also been considered.

 

Anyway, during the ongoing war the procurement of foreign equipment had no predictable future, and so a program for an indigenous fighter aircraft was launched the same year. This resulted in two different designs, which were both initially constructed around an imported German DB 603 engine – a deal which had become possible through the allowance of German transport flights to Norway over Swedish territory, a reason why no Allied equipment was sold to Sweden.

 

The resulting designs, the L-21 and L-23, differed considerably from each other. The Saab L-21 was a futuristic twin-boom pusher. This unconventional layout was a technological risk, with ejection seat and all, but it was expected to exploit the DB603 engine to the max, with a low-drag airframe (e .g. with a totally buried radiator installation inside of the inner wings) and a well-balanced center of gravity, which was expected to improve handling and turn radius. It was the favored design of Saab’s engineers.

 

As a fall-back option, though, the L-23 was added. It was a more conservative design with the same DB 603 engine, but with the engine in the classic nose position, a tunnel radiator under the rear fuselage, low tapered wings and a conventional tail. The overall outline resembled the P-51B/C Mustang. Most interestingly, the J 23 was to have a Bofors ejection seat, too, despite its conventional layout.

 

In December 1941 both designs were approved for prototypes, so that a direct comparison of both layouts could be made. The first of three J 21 prototypes flew on 30 July 1943, while the first three J 23 fighters followed on 10 August, just two weeks later.

 

Flight tests and evaluation continued until mid-1944 and, despite less weight and size, the J 23 turned out to be fast (Max. speed 626 km/h (388 mph) with the DB 603), but considerably less maneuverable than the J 21, which in itself was also not a perfect aircraft and frequently faced overheating problems.

 

Faced with two mediocre designs and an urgent need for a modern fighter, it was eventually decided to go ahead with the J 21 for serial production, but a pre-production batch of upgraded J 23 was also ordered for field tests and further development. In the meantime, Sweden had acquired rights to produce the DB 605 in license, and the new fighter was to be adapted to this more modern and powerful engine – it was hoped that the new engine would improve the J 23’s performance, and it was also fitted to the production J 21.

 

This re-engined variant was the J 23A, of which twelve aircraft were constructed at the main plant in Trollhättan and delivered from August 1945, too late to be involved in typical interception duties at the Swedish borders.

Deliveries of the favored J 21 started in December of the same year. The latter’s field performance turned out to be unsuited for the interceptor role, and the cooling problems persisted. Relegated mainly into the bomber and CAS role (the J 21 turned out to be a passable ground attack aircraft and a stable gun platform), the limitation of the J 21’s pusher design led to a revival of the front-engine J 23.

 

The resulting J 23B became the aircraft’s actual production variant, incorporating many improvements which had been developed and tested on the prototypes and the pre-production J 23As. These included aerodynamic modifications like a different airfoil on the outer wings and a lowered horizontal stabilizer, coupled with an extended rear fuselage for better directional stability and a slimmed-down radiator fairing for less drag. These machines were delivered from late 1946 on, and a total of forty-six J 23B airframes were produced until early 1948.

 

In service, the lighter J 23Bs proved to be a better interceptor than the J 21, with a higher top speed and rate of climb, but its handling was less responsive than the pusher aircraft with the same engine and armament.

 

Overall the J 23B was regarded as inferior to the very similar J 26 (the P-51D) in almost any respect, and the J 23B was never really popular with its flight or ground crews. Consequently, the J 23Bs active fighter career was short and the machines were only operated by the F 16 fighter wing and the F 20 Air Force Academy, both based at Uppsala Airfield, primarily used for advanced weapon and air combat training.

 

A new evaluation of the J 21 and the J 23 in 1947 led to the decision to retain the J 21 series but to consider the modification of the airframe to accommodate a jet engine. While production line J 21A series aircraft were first selected for conversion, the initial piston-engine version continued in production in five series "batches" that were completed in 1948–49.

 

Further J 23B production was not resumed, instead the J 26 and J 27 were procured. Anyway, the age of the piston-engine fighter came soon to a close and the Swedish Air Force entered the jet age. Consequently, the J 23B was already phased out, together with the J 21, after 1954.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: one

Length: 9.58 m (31 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 11.3 m (37 ft 8 in)

Height: 3.96 (13 ft 0 in)

Wing area: 20.00 m² (215.28 ft²)

Empty weight: 2,535 kg (5,583 lb)

Loaded weight: 3,445 kg (7,588 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 3,663 kg (8,068 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Daimler-Benz liquid-cooled, supercharged, 60° inverted V12 DB 605B engine,

rated at 1,085 kW (1,455 hp / 1,475 PS) and license-built by SFA.

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 680 km/h (367 knots, 422 mph)

Cruise speed: 495 km/h (265 knots, 308 mph)

Range: 750 km (466 mi)

Service ceiling: 11,200 m (36,685 ft)

Rate of climb: 17 m/s (3,340 ft/min)

Armament:

1× engine-mounted 20 mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 or Bofors cannon,

firing through the propeller hub

4× 13 mm Bofors-built Colt machine guns in the outer wings nose

Underwing hardpoints for various bombs, drop tanks and unguided rockets

  

The kit and its assembly:

The “Swedish Season” continues! The Saab 23 is another “phantom of the past”, a real world design that never left the drawing board. The J 23 actually started as an alternative to the J 21, but was discarded in late 1941 in favor of the more promising, yet bigger and heavier, pusher design. But that would not stop modelers from trying to build one, even though I have never seen a model of this aircraft? Having recently tried to build a Saab 27 fighter caught me in the right mood for another whiffy Swedish design, so I took a chance on the J 23, too.

 

At first glance you can mistake the J 23 for a P-51B with an engine from a late Bf 109, some sources describe it as “a Swedish Messerschmitt”. But that’s only superficial, much like the later Griffon-powered J 27 project which can be described as a “Super Spitfire”, but this does not do justice to the aircraft’s construction.

Both were independent developments, even though the P-51 (some early specimen were forced to land in Sweden and closely examined) certainly had a massive impact on both designs.

 

Anyway, the information basis surrounding the J 23 is worse than the J 27’s, and I only had rather vague profile drawings/sketches at hand for reference. A basis model was also hard to find: the rear section from a P-51B (in this case an Intech kit from Poland) was settled, since the Mustang’s cockpit shape, dorsal section and fin come really close to the J 23. But you cannot simply mate a P-51 with a Bf 109 nose, it would result in a rather wacky Mustang-thing because the proportions are not right.

 

Finding a good solution was not easy, and I was lucky to find a Hasegawa Ki-61 in the stash – it has a German engine (an earlier DB 601, though) and an overall layout similar to the P-51B. But the Ki-61 is considerably larger than a Bf 109, more in the P-51’s size class. Despite many detail modifications I decided to mate these unlikely aircraft for the J 23s basis – engraved panel lines on both kits made the combination less obvious, too.

 

The InTech P-51B gave its tail and the cockpit section (excluding the radiator tunnel and the wing roots), cut away from the rest of the Mustang fuselage with a Z-shaped cut. With a matching cut on the Ki-61’s fuselage, the engine and the whole wing/fuselage intersection were used. Styrene strips held the fuselage sections in place, on the outside the seams were later blended with nitrous compound putty. One benefit of this solution is that the OOB P-51 canopy could be used (even though the rear end fit necessitated some body work), and the resulting cockpit position was just as far forward as on the J 23, right above the wings. As a consequence the rear fuselage behind the cockpit appears to be rather long, but that is AFAIK correct, the J 23 had these slightly odd proportions!

 

For the J 23’s DB 605 engine a different, bigger spinner had to be mounted – scratched from a massive PZL 23 spinner and single blades (from the Hasegawa Ki-61), together with a metal axis and a styrene tube adapter inside of the nose. Some putty work was necessary to fair over the Ki-61 guns on the cowling, the typical DB 601 front bulge and blend the bigger, new spinner to the rest of the fuselage, but the result looks O.K.

 

The Ki-61’s original wings and landing gear could, thanks to the original fuselage section from the Hasegawa kit, be carried over and easily mounted, even though the wing tips were clipped for a square, Mustang-esque shape (the J 23’s look in all illustrations I’ve seen like upscaled Bf 109E wings).

 

The InTech P-51’s horizontal stabilizers were used, but for a J 23 they had to be placed in a different position: further back (so that wedges for the vertical rudder had to be cut out) and considerably lower, necessitating some (more) body work to hide the original attachment points. The new position adds to the impression of an extended fuselage section behind the cockpit, even though the P-51 donor fuselage section is only a little longer than the Ki-61’s. All tail surface outlines were slightly modified, too.

 

The J 23’s typical, shallow radiator tunnel had to be scratched, the semi-buried construction sits far behind the wings’ training edge. In an initial step, the removed Ki-61 radiator’s gap as well as the P-51 tail wheel well were faired over with styrene sheet and new intake/outlet ramps integrated into the lower rear fuselage. The tunnel itself is the narrow, aerodynamic fairing of a Boulton Paul Defiant’s machine guns behind the turret (raised when not in use), left over from a Pavla kit, opened at both ends.

As a consequence of the new and long radiator tunnel, the P-51 tail wheel well was moved about 5mm further back and the fuselage profile under the tail fin re-shaped.

 

One of the final steps was the cockpit interior, because I was not sure concerning the relative position of the P-51’s canopy (cut into three pieces for open display) and dashboard and the Ki-61’s cockpit floor panel and seat. But both turned out to match relatively well, and I added a tank and radio dummy behind the seat in order to prevent a clear view into the rear fuselage.

 

The landing gear was taken OOB from the Ki-61 – it looks similar to the real J 23 arrangement, so I stuck with it. The tail wheel comes from the InTech P-51, just the covers were scratched for the re-located well.

 

All gun barrels on spinner and wings are hollow steel needles, no ordnance was hung under the wings, even though the Ki-61 hardpoints were retained. After all, it’s a fighter aircraft.

  

Painting and markings:

Once more a classic, if not conservative, livery for a fictional aircraft – and in this case I chose the simple olivgrön/ljust blågrå camouflage of the late Fourties, coupled with contemporary color-coded letters identifying the individual aircraft and its squadron within the Flygflöttilj group.

 

The uniform upper surfaces were painted with RAF Dark Green (Humbrol 163). This tone has an olive drab touch and comes IMHO pretty close to the original Swedish color, the frequently recommended FS 34079 is IMHO too blue-ish. For the underside I used Humbrol 87 (Steel Gray), which is a blue-greenish gray. The authentic tone would be FS 36270, but on a model it appears much too dark, so that the lighter Steel Gray is a handy and individual alternative.

 

A light black ink was applied in order to emphasize the panel lines, some more depth was added through dry-painted panels with lighter shades of the basic colors (in this case, Humbrol 155 and 128).

 

The cockpit interior was painted in dark gray (Humbrol 32), while the landing gear and the wells became Aluminum (Humbrol 56).

 

As an aircraft of the air staff flight, this J 23 received a white spinner and a white code letter on the tail. These and other markings came from various sources and spare decal sheets. Some extra color was added with red warning markings on the wings above the flaps, plus some visual markings - all made with generic decal stripes. The cock nose art is a personal addition - taken from a Spanish Bf 109D, but AFAIK such personal markings were not uncommon on Swedish Air Force aircraft in the post WWII era.

 

An eye-catcher and some variety on the otherwise simple green/gray livery are white high-viz markings on the wing tips and a wide fuselage band. Such additional markings were frequently used in the post WWII-era during exercises, training or public displays. Styles varied considerably, though, between “color blocks” and wide single bands which I used (seen on a J 21) and even dense, thin zebra stripes on wings and fuselage. In this case, the white markings were painted onto wings and fuselage (Humbrol 34).

 

Since most panel lines on the fuselage were lost I painted some new ones with a soft pencil. Finally, after some gun soot and exhaust stains made with grinded graphite as well as some dry-brushed silver on the wings’ leading edges and around the cockpit were added, the kit received a coating with matt acrylic varnish.

  

Another scratch build of an obscure Swedish aircraft that never reached the hardware stage – and pretty successful, IMHO. This sleek J 23 model looks just as harmless and innocent, but involved massive construction work in almost every area as the kitbashed J 27 before. It’s actually the first model rendition of the J 23 I have seen so far – and another funny fact is that this “Swedish Messerschmitt” was built without any Bf 109 part at all!

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The NSU Ro 80 was a technologically advanced large sedan-type automobile produced by the German firm of NSU from 1967 until 1977. Most notable was the powertrain; a 113 bhp (86 kW), 995 cc twin-rotor Wankel engine driving the front wheels through a semi-automatic transmission employing an innovative vacuum system. It was voted Car of the Year for 1968 by European motoring writers.

 

Unfortunately for NSU, the car developed an early reputation for unreliability, from which it would never escape. The Wankel engine in particular suffered from heavy wear on the rotor tip seals, among many other problems, and some early cars required a completely rebuilt engine before 30,000 miles (50,000 km), with problems visible as early as 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometres). The fact that the rotary engine design was inherently thirsty (typically 15-18 mpg) and a poor understanding of the Wankel engine by dealers and mechanics did not help this situation. By the 1970 model year, most of these problems were resolved, but a necessarily generous warranty policy and damage to the car's reputation had undermined NSU's financial situation irreparably. NSU was acquired by Audi (of the Volkswagen group) in 1969. Second hand Ro80s were virtually worthless in the 1970s due to the well-publicised engine problems, and a common "cure" for an ailing rotary engine was to simply swap it for a Ford V4 "Essex" engine (as found in Mk1 Transits) purely as it was one of the few engines compact enough to fit in the Ro80's engine bay. Thus in an ironic twist, one of the smoothest engines in the world was replaced by one of the roughest. The NSU's unpopularity caused by the above problems means that surviving examples are very rare, and are now considered highly-prized classic cars with values to match, particularly as thanks to Mazda's perseverance with rotary design, the tip seal problem has been all but eradicated.

 

Other technological features of the Ro 80 aside from the powertrain were the four wheel ATE Dunlop disc brakes, which for some time were generally only featured on expensive sports or luxury saloon cars. The front brakes were mounted inboard, reducing the unsprung weight. The suspension was independent on all four wheels, with MacPherson struts at the front and semi-trailing arm suspension at the rear, both of which are space-saving designs commonly used today. Power assisted ZF rack and pinion steering was used, again foreshadowing more recent designs.

 

The car featured an automatic clutch which was commonly described as a three-speed semi-automatic gearbox: there was no clutch pedal but instead, on top of the gearknob, an electric switch that operated a vacuum system which disengaged the clutch. The gear lever itself then could be moved through a standard 'h pattern' gate.

 

Interior trim combined cloth covered seats with pvc headlining and a carpeted floor.

 

The styling, by Claus Luthe who was head of design at NSU and later BMW, was considered very modern at the time and still holds up well; the Ro 80 has been part of many gallery exhibits of modern industrial design. The large glass area foreshadowed 1970s designs such as Citroën's. The shape was also slippery, with a drag coefficient of 0.355 (very good for the era, although average for modern cars). This allowed for a top speed of 112 mph (179.2 km/h). Indeed, comparisons have been drawn between the design of the Ro80 and the superbly aerodynamic 1984 Audi 100 - the shape is very, very similar.

 

Series production started in October 1967: the last examples came off the production line in April 1977. There were 37,204 vehicles produced during the ten year production run.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

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Der NSU Ro 80 war eine Limousine der gehobenen Klasse von NSU, später Audi NSU. Er erschien 1967 mit einer revolutionären aerodynamischen Karosserie, die ihrer Zeit weit voraus war. Ebenfalls ungewöhnlich war der Wankelmotor, der 115 PS leistete. Dieser Motor machte in der Frühzeit durch häufige Dichtleistendefekte auf sich aufmerksam, denen jedoch der Hersteller mit kulantem Motorenaustausch begegnete. Dennoch litt der Ruf des neuen Modells und des Wankelmotors darunter erheblich.

 

Die konsequente Umsetzung der Keilform im Entwurf von Claus Luthe war ein stilprägender Impuls für das Automobildesign der 1980er-Jahre. Insbesondere bei Audi sollte das Erscheinungsbild des Ro 80 maßgeblich für ganze Fahrzeuggenerationen werden. Das charakteristische hintere Dreiecksfenster ist bis heute typischer Bestandteil des Designs bei Audi.

 

Der Ro 80 wurde in nur 37.398 Exemplaren bis 1977 produziert und blieb, technisch gesehen, ohne Nachfolger. Das letzte produzierte Fahrzeug wurde 1977 dem Deutschen Museum übergeben. Weitere Fahrzeuge sind unter anderem in der Pinakothek der Moderne in München, im Depot des Deutschen Technikmuseums Berlin, im Deutschen Zweirad- und NSU-Museum und im Audi Forum in Neckarsulm, im museum mobile in Ingolstadt, im EFA-Museum für Deutsche Automobilgeschichte in Amerang sowie in der Autostadt in Wolfsburg ausgestellt. Das Schnittmodell des Ro 80, mit dem der Wagen auf der IAA vorgestellt wurde, wird im Museum Autovision als Teil der Dauerausstellung Wankelmotor gezeigt.

 

Der weltweit älteste noch erhaltene NSU Ro 80 gehört einem Architekten aus Frankfurt am Main, und trägt die Fahrgestell-Nr. 80 001 061, Fertigungsdatum Donnerstag, der 19. Oktober 1967, Farbe saguntoblau.

 

Das „Ro“ im Namen steht für Rotationskolben im Gegensatz zu „K“ wie beim VW K 70, das für Kolben bzw. Hubkolben stand.

 

Bei den ersten Serienmotoren kam es infolge eines Konstruktionsfehlers zu vermehrten Motorschäden. Hatten die Motoren in der Erprobung über 200 000 km gehalten, so verloren sie in Kundenhand oft schnell an Kompression. Schnell wurde eine falsche Materialpaarung als Ursache dafür erkannt. Eilig wurden Material sowie die Teilung der Dichtleisten geändert und somit war das Dichtleistenproblem vorerst gelöst. In Verbindung mit einem Ferrotic-Mittelteil und einer härteren Enesilschicht mit höherem Siliziumkarbidanteil ging man später auf die ursprüngliche Dichtleistenteilung zurück. Ab Anfang 1970 wurden die neuen Ferrotic-Dichtleisten in die Serie eingeführt.

 

Als ebenfalls problematisch erwies sich die Doppelzündung, zum einen von der Einstellung her und zum anderen wegen des hohen Abbrands der Zündkontakte, was dann durch zu viel Frühzündung zu Motorschäden führte. Dies wurde durch eine Einfachzündung in Verbindung mit einer Hochspannungskondensatorzündung (HKZ) auf Kosten des Spritverbrauchs behoben. Die kulante Austauschpraxis führte zeitweise dazu, dass über 35 % der angeblich defekten Motoren in Ordnung waren. Nachdem der Zündzeitpunkt sowie der Vergaser neu eingestellt wurden und der Motor einen Probelauf auf dem Prüfstand absolviert hatte, wurden diese Motoren wieder als Austauschmotoren ausgeliefert.

 

Ein nicht unerheblicher Anteil an Motorschäden ging auf das Konto des Drehmomentwandlers, den man gegen das Schieberuckeln (verursacht durch den Umfangseinlass) einbaute und der zum Teil für den Mehrverbrauch des Ro 80 mitverantwortlich war. Da der Wankelmotor erheblich höher drehte (wohl eher wegen erheblicher Überdrehzahl aufgrund fehlender Drehzahlbegrenzung), passierte es bei einer Reihe Drehmomentwandlern, dass sie sich radial ausdehnten. Dadurch zogen sie sich axial zusammen und nun kollidierte das Pumpen- mit dem Turbinenrad. Da der Wandler im Motorölkreislauf hing, gelangten dadurch Späne in den Motor, was dann umgehend zu Motorschäden führte. Auch erwies sich ein kleines Nadellager im Wandler als anfällig, dessen häufiger Ausfall ebenfalls zu Spänen im Motoröl führte und damit indirekt für einen defekten Motor sorgte. Dies wurde dann durch einen verstärkten Wandler behoben. Ab Herbst 1971 führte man dann in Verbindung mit der Bosch-Hochspannungskondensatorzündung und thermischer Abgasentgiftung einen akustischen Drehzahlwarner ein, der die elektrische Benzinpumpe bei Überdrehzahl abschaltete und dadurch eine Überdrehzahl des Motors wirksam vermied.

 

Anfänglich war alle 20 000 km ein Ölwechsel nötig, der später jedoch entfiel. So mancher Fahrer glaubte deshalb, man müsste kein Öl mehr nachfüllen, worauf einige Motoren ohne Öl liegen blieben. Dieser Art Motorschäden begegnete man mit einer geänderten zweiflutigen Ölpumpe. Der Einlass für den Wandlerkreislauf wurde höher angesetzt. Bevor nun der Motorölkreislauf kein Öl mehr bekam, saugte der Wandlerkreislauf Luft, woraufhin der Wandleröldruck absank und die Öldruckanzeige aufleuchtete. Ignorierte der Fahrer die Warnlampe, übertrug der Wandler keine Kraft mehr an das Getriebe und das Auto blieb stehen. Spätestens jetzt wusste der nachlässige Fahrer, dass er vergessen hatte, den Ölstand zu kontrollieren.

 

Ein weiteres Problem, das ebenfalls direkt zu Motorschäden führte, war eine Öldosierpumpe ohne Nullanschlag. Dies führte dazu, dass, wenn diese Pumpe falsch eingestellt wurde, im Leerlauf kein Öl für die Trochoidenschmierung geliefert wurde. Daraufhin wurde eine geänderte Öldosierpumpe eingesetzt, die nun nicht mehr auf Null gestellt werden konnte.

 

Problematisch war auch, dass man gleich mehrere bis dahin unerprobte Verfahren in Verbindung mit dem Wankelmotor einführte. So hieß es von dem Enesilverfahren scherzhaft, es funktioniere nur bei Südwind, was auf die Witterungsempfindlichkeit anspielte. Auch gab es anfänglich Probleme mit der Dosierung und Korngröße des eingebetteten Siliziumkarbids und der Dosierung des Saccharin (das als Einebner für Nickelschichten in der Galvanik angewendet wird). Zudem waren die Werkstätten zum Teil mit der Technik rund um den Motor überfordert. Teilweise aber entwickelten einige Kunden auch geradezu kriminelle Energien. Kurz vor dem Ablauf der Garantie provozierten sie absichtlich einen Motorschaden.

 

Als das Dichtleistenproblem gelöst schien, kam es wieder zu gehäuften Motorschäden. Nun war es aber kein Konstruktionsfehler, sondern ein Zulieferer, der sich nicht an die Fertigungsvorschriften hielt.

 

Bei den letzten Ausführungen der Motoren bestanden die Dichtleisten komplett aus Ferrotic, diese Aggregate erwiesen sich als äußerst robust. Zusätzlich kam der Lebensdauer die Einführung des bleifreien Benzins entgegen. Anders als ein Viertakthubkolbenmotor dessen Ventilsitze mit Blei geschmiert werden mussten konnte der Wankelmotor des Ro 80 problemlos mit bleifreiem Kraftstoff betrieben werden, da beim Wankelmotor für die Gaswechselsteuerung keine Ventile benötigt werden.

 

(Wikipedia)

Seoul – officially the Seoul Special City – is the capital and largest metropolis of the Republic of Korea (commonly known as South Korea), forming the heart of the Seoul Capital Area, which includes the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province, the world's 16th largest city. It is home to over half of all South Koreans along with 678,102 international residents.

 

Situated on the Han River, Seoul's history stretches back more than two thousand years when it was founded in 18 BCE by Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. It continued as the capital of Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. The Seoul Capital Area contains five UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Changdeok Palace, Hwaseong Fortress, Jongmyo Shrine, Namhansanseong and the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty. Seoul is surrounded by mountains, the tallest being Mt. Bukhan, the world's most visited national park per square foot. Modern landmarks include the iconic N Seoul Tower, the gold-clad 63 Building, the neofuturistic Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Lotte World, the world's second largest indoor theme park, Moonlight Rainbow Fountain, the world's longest bridge fountain and the Sevit Floating Islands. The birthplace of K-pop and the Korean Wave, Seoul received over 10 million international visitors in 2014, making it the world's 9th most visited city and 4th largest earner in tourism.

 

Today, Seoul is considered a leading and rising global city, resulting from an economic boom called the Miracle on the Han River which transformed it to the world's 4th largest metropolitan economy with a GDP of US$845.9 billion in 2014 after Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles. In 2015, it was rated Asia's most livable city with the second highest quality of life globally by Arcadis. A world leading technology hub centered on Gangnam and Digital Media City, the Seoul Capital Area boasts 15 Fortune Global 500 companies such as Samsung, the world's largest technology company, as well as LG and Hyundai-Kia. In 2014, the city's GDP per capita (PPP) of $39,786 was comparable to that of France and Finland. Ranked sixth in the Global Power City Index and Global Financial Centres Index, the metropolis exerts a major influence in global affairs as one of the five leading hosts of global conferences.

 

Seoul is the world's most wired city and ranked first in technology readiness by PwC's Cities of Opportunity report. It is served by the KTX high-speed rail and the Seoul Subway, providing 4G LTE, WiFi and DMB inside subway cars. Seoul is connected via AREX to Incheon International Airport, rated the world's best airport nine years in a row (2005–2013) by Airports Council International. Lotte World Tower, a 556-metre supertall skyscraper with 123 floors, has been built in Seoul and become the OECD's tallest in 2016, with the world's tallest art gallery. Its Lotte Cinema houses the world's largest cinema screen. Seoul's COEX Mall is the world's largest underground shopping mall.

 

Seoul hosted the 1986 Asian Games, 1988 Summer Olympics, 2002 FIFA World Cup, the Miss Universe 1980 pageant, and the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. A UNESCO City of Design, Seoul was named the 2010 World Design Capital.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The city has been known in the past by the names Wirye-seong (Hangul: 위례성; Hanja: 慰禮城, during the Baekje era), Hanju (Hangul: 한주; Hanja: 漢州, during the Silla era), Namgyeong (Hangul: 남경; Hanja: 南京, during the Goryeo era), Hanseong (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城, during both the Baekje and Joseon eras), Hanyang (Hangul: 한양; Hanja: 漢陽, during the Joseon era), Gyeongseong (京城, during the colonial era).

 

During Japan's annexation in Korea, "Hanseong" (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城) was renamed to "Keijō" (京城, or Template:Korean 한국, Gyeongseong) by the Imperial authorities to prevent confusion with the hanja '漢', as it also refers to the Han Chinese. In reality, the ancient name of Seoul, Hanseong (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城), originally had the meaning of "big" or "vast".

 

Its current name originated from the Korean word meaning "capital city," which is believed to be derived from the word Seorabeol (Hangul: 서라벌; Hanja: 徐羅伐), which originally referred to Gyeongju, the capital of Silla.

 

Unlike most place names in Korea, "Seoul" has no corresponding hanja (Chinese characters used in the Korean language). On January 18, 2005, Seoul government officially changed its official Chinese language name to Shou'er (simplified Chinese: 首尔; traditional Chinese: 首爾; pinyin: Shǒu'ěr) from the historic Hancheng (simplified Chinese: 汉城; traditional Chinese: 漢城; pinyin: Hànchéng), of which use is becoming less common.

 

HISTOY

Settlement of the Han River area, where present-day Seoul is located, began around 4000 BC.

 

Seoul is first recorded as Wiryeseong, the capital of Baekje (founded in 18 BC) in the northeastern Seoul area. There are several city walls remaining in the area that date from this time. Pungnaptoseong, an earthen wall just outside Seoul, is widely believed to have been at the main Wiryeseong site. As the Three Kingdoms competed for this strategic region, control passed from Baekje to Goguryeo in the 5th century, and from Goguryeo to Silla in the 6th century.

 

In the 11th century Goryeo, which succeeded Unified Silla, built a summer palace in Seoul, which was referred to as the "Southern Capital". It was only from this period that Seoul became a larger settlement. When Joseon replaced Goryeo, the capital was moved to Seoul (also known as Hanyang and later as Hanseong), where it remained until the fall of the dynasty. The Gyeongbok Palace, built in the 14th century, served as the royal residence until 1592. The other large palace, Changdeokgung, constructed in 1405, served as the main royal palace from 1611 to 1872.

 

Originally, the city was entirely surrounded by a massive circular stone wall to provide its citizens security from wild animals, thieves and attacks. The city has grown beyond those walls and although the wall no longer stands (except along Bugaksan Mountain (Hangul: 북악산; Hanja: 北岳山), north of the downtown area), the gates remain near the downtown district of Seoul, including most notably Sungnyemun (commonly known as Namdaemun) and Heunginjimun (commonly known as Dongdaemun). During the Joseon dynasty, the gates were opened and closed each day, accompanied by the ringing of large bells at the Bosingak belfry. In the late 19th century, after hundreds of years of isolation, Seoul opened its gates to foreigners and began to modernize. Seoul became the first city in East Asia to introduce electricity in the royal palace, built by the Edison Illuminating Company and a decade later Seoul also implemented electrical street lights.

 

Much of the development was due to trade with foreign countries like France and United States. For example, the Seoul Electric Company, Seoul Electric Trolley Company, and Seoul Fresh Spring Water Company were all joint Korean–American owned enterprises. In 1904, an American by the name of Angus Hamilton visited the city and said, "The streets of Seoul are magnificent, spacious, clean, admirably made and well-drained. The narrow, dirty lanes have been widened, gutters have been covered, roadways broadened. Seoul is within measurable distance of becoming the highest, most interesting and cleanest city in the East.

"After the annexation treaty in 1910, the Empire of Japan annexed Korea and renamed the city Gyeongseong ("Kyongsong" in Korean and "Keijo" in Japanese). Japanese technology was imported, the city walls were removed, some of the gates demolished. Roads became paved and Western-style buildings were constructed. The city was liberated at the end of World War II.

 

In 1945, the city was officially named Seoul, and was designated as a special city in 1949.

 

During the Korean War, Seoul changed hands between the Russian/Chinese-backed North Korean forces and the American-backed South Korean forces several times, leaving the city heavily damaged after the war. The capital was temporarily relocated to Busan. One estimate of the extensive damage states that after the war, at least 191,000 buildings, 55,000 houses, and 1,000 factories lay in ruins. In addition, a flood of refugees had entered Seoul during the war, swelling the population of the city and its metropolitan area to an estimated 1.5 million by 1955.

 

Following the war, Seoul began to focus on reconstruction and modernization. As Korea's economy started to grow rapidly from the 1960s, urbanization also accelerated and workers began to move to Seoul and other larger cities. From the 1970s, the size of Seoul administrative area greatly expanded as it annexed a number of towns and villages from several surrounding counties.

 

According to 2012 census data, the population of the Seoul area makes up around 20% of the total population of South Korea, Seoul has become the economic, political and cultural hub of the country, with several Fortune Global 500 companies, including Samsung, SK Holdings, Hyundai, POSCO and LG Group headquartered there.

 

Seoul was the host city of the 1986 Asian Games and 1988 Summer Olympics as well as one of the venues of the Football World Cup 2002.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Seoul is in the northwest of South Korea. Seoul proper comprises 605.25 km2, with a radius of approximately 15 km, roughly bisected into northern and southern halves by the Han River. The Han River and its surrounding area played an important role in Korean history. The Three Kingdoms of Korea strove to take control of this land, where the river was used as a trade route to China (via the Yellow Sea). The river is no longer actively used for navigation, because its estuary is located at the borders of the two Koreas, with civilian entry barred. Historically, the city was during the Joseon Dynasty bounded by the Seoul Fortress Wall, which stretched between the four main mountains in central Seoul: Namsan, Naksan, Bukaksan and Inwangsan. The city is bordered by eight mountains, as well as the more level lands of the Han River plain and western areas. Due to its geography and to economic development policies, Seoul is a very polycentric city. The area that was the old capital in the Joseon Dynasty, and mostly comprises Jongno District and Jung District, constitutes the historical and political center of the city. However, for example, the city's financial capital is widely considered to be in Yeouido, while its economic capital is Gangnam District.

 

CLIMATE

Seoul is either classified as a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), using the −3 °C isotherm of the original Köppen scheme, or a humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa), using the 0 °C isotherm preferred by some climatologists. Summers are generally hot and humid, with the East Asian monsoon taking place from June until September. August, the warmest month, has average high and low temperatures of 29.6 and 22.4 °C with higher temperatures possible. Winters are often cold to freezing with average January high and low temperatures of 1.5 and −5.9 °C and are generally much drier than summers, with an average of 28 days of snow annually. Sometimes, temperatures do drop dramatically to below −10.0 °C, in odd occasions rarely as low as −15.0 °C in the mid winter period between January and February.

  

ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS

Seoul is divided into 25 gu (Hangul: 구; Hanja: 區) (district). The gu vary greatly in area (from 10 to 47 km2) and population (from fewer than 140,000 to 630,000). Songpa has the most people, while Seocho has the largest area. The government of each gu handles many of the functions that are handled by city governments in other jurisdictions. Each gu is divided into "dong" (Hangul: 동; Hanja: 洞) or neighbourhoods. Some gu have only a few dong while others like Jongno District have a very large number of distinct neighbourhoods. Gu of Seoul consist of 423 administrative dongs (Hangul: 행정동) in total. Dong are also sub-divided into 13,787 tong (Hangul: 통; Hanja: 統), which are further divided into 102,796 ban in total.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Seoul proper is noted for its population density, which is almost twice that of New York and eight times greater than Rome. Its metropolitan area was the most densely populated in the OECD in Asia in 2012, and second worldwide after that of Paris. As of December 2013, the population was 10.14 million, in 2012, it was 10,442,426. As of the end of June 2011, 10.29 million Republic of Korea citizens lived in the city. This was a 24% decrease from the end of 2010. The population of Seoul has been dropping since the early 1990s, the reasons being the high costs of living and an aging population.

 

The number of foreigners living in Seoul is 255,501 in 2010 according to Seoul officials.[58] As of June 2011, 281,780 foreigners were located in Seoul. Of them, 186,631 foreigners (66%) were Chinese citizens of Korean ancestry. This was an 8.84% increase from the end of 2010 and a 12.85% increase from June 2010. The next largest group was Chinese citizens who are not of Korean ethnicity; 29,901 of them resided in Seoul. The next highest group consisted of the 9,999 United States citizens who were not of Korean ancestry. The next highest group were the Republic of China (Taiwan) citizens, at 8,717.

 

The two major religions in Seoul are Christianity and Buddhism. Other religions include Muism (indigenous religion) and Confucianism. Seoul is home to one of the world's largest Christians congregations, Yoido Full Gospel Church , which has around 830,000 members. Seoul is home to the world's largest modern university founded by a Buddhist Order, Dongguk University. Other Christian faiths like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) maintains a presence in the city.

 

ECONOMY

Seoul is the business and financial hub of South Korea. Although it accounts for only 0.6 percent of the nation's land area, 48.3 percent of South Korea's bank deposits were held in Seoul in 2003, and the city generated 23 percent of the country's GDP overall in 2012. In 2008 the Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index ranked Seoul No.9. The Global Financial Centres Index in 2015 listed Seoul as the 6th financially most competitive city in the world. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Seoul 15th in the list of "Overall 2025 City Competitiveness" regarding future competitiveness of cities.

 

MANUFACTURING

The traditional, labour-intensive manufacturing industries have been continuously replaced by information technology, electronics and assembly-type of industries; however, food and beverage production, as well as printing and publishing remained among the core industries. Major manufacturers are headquartered in the city, including Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia and SK. Notable food and beverage companies include Jinro, whose soju is the most sold alcoholic drink in the world, beating out Smirnoff vodka; top selling beer producers Hite (merged with Jinro) and Oriental Brewery. It also hosts food giants like Seoul Dairy Cooperative, Nongshim Group, Ottogi, CJ, Orion, Maeil Dairy, Namyang dairy and Lotte.

 

FINANCE

Seoul hosts large concentration of headquarters of International companies and banks, including 15 companies on fortune 500 list such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai. Most bank headquarters and the Korea Exchange are located in Yeouido (Yeoui island), which is often called "Korea's Wall Street" and has been serving as the financial center of the city since the 1980s. The Seoul international finance center & SIFC MALL, Hanhwa 63 building, the Hanhwa insurance company head office. Hanhwa is one of the three largest Korean insurance companies, along with Samsung Life and Gangnam & Kyob life insurance group.

 

COMMERCE

The largest wholesale and retail market in South Korea, the Dongdaemun Market, is located in Seoul. Myeongdong is a shopping and entertainment area in downtown Seoul with mid- to high-end stores, fashion boutiques and international brand outlets. The nearby Namdaemun Market, named after the Namdaemun Gate, is the oldest continually running market in Seoul.

 

Insadong is the cultural art market of Seoul, where traditional and modern Korean artworks, such as paintings, sculptures and calligraphy are sold. Hwanghak-dong Flea Market and Janganpyeong Antique Market also offer antique products. Some shops for local designers have opened in Samcheong-dong, where numerous small art galleries are located. Itaewon caters mainly to foreign tourists and American soldiers based in the city. The Gangnam district is one of the most affluent areas in Seoul and is noted for the fashionable and upscale Apgujeong-dong and Cheongdam-dong areas and the COEX Mall. Wholesale markets include Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market and Garak Market.

 

The Yongsan Electronics Market is the largest electronics market in Asia. Electronics markets are Gangbyeon station metro line 2 Techno mart, ENTER6 MALL & Shindorim station Technomart mall complex.

 

Times Square is one of Seoul's largest shopping malls featuring the CGV Starium, the world's largest permanent 35 mm cinema screen.

 

KOREA WORLD TRADE CENTER COMPLEX which comprises COEX mall, congress center, 3 Inter-continental hotels, Business tower (Asem tower), Residence hotel,Casino and City airport terminal was established in 1988 Seoul Olympic . 2nd World trade trade center is planning at Seoul Olympic stadium complex as MICE HUB by Seoul city. Ex-Kepco head office building was purchased by Hyundai motor group with 9billion USD to build 115-storey Hyundai GBC & hotel complex until 2021. Now ex-kepco 25-storey building is under demolition.

 

ARCHITECTURE

The traditional heart of Seoul is the old Joseon Dynasty city, now the downtown area, where most palaces, government offices, corporate headquarters, hotels, and traditional markets are located. Cheonggyecheon, a stream that runs from west to east through the valley before emptying into the Han River, was for many years covered with concrete, but was recently restored by an urban revival project in 2005. Jongno street, meaning "Bell Street," has been a principal street and one of the earliest commercial steets of the city, on which one can find Bosingak, a pavilion containing a large bell. The bell signaled the different times of the day and controlled the four major gates to the city. North of downtown is Bukhan Mountain, and to the south is the smaller Namsan. Further south are the old suburbs, Yongsan District and Mapo District. Across the Han River are the newer and wealthier areas of Gangnam District, Seocho District and surrounding neighborhoods.

 

HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE

Seoul has many historical and cultural landmarks. In Amsa-dong Prehistoric Settlement Site, Gangdong District, neolithic remains were excavated and accidentally discovered by a flood in 1925.

 

Urban and civil planning was a key concept when Seoul was first designed to serve as a capital in the late 14th century. The Joseon Dynasty built the "Five Grand Palaces" in Seoul – Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung, Gyeongbokgung and Gyeonghuigung – all of which are located in the district of Jongno District and Jung District. Among them, Changdeokgung was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997 as an "outstanding example of Far Eastern palace architecture and garden design". The main palace, Gyeongbokgung, underwent a large-scale restoration project. The palaces are considered exemplary architecture of the Joseon period. Beside the palaces, Unhyeongung is known for being the royal residence of Regent Daewongun, the father of Emperor Gojong at the end of the Joseon Dynasty.

 

Seoul has been surrounded by walls that were built to regulate visitors from other regions and protect the city in case of an invasion. Pungnap Toseong is a flat earthen wall built at the edge of the Han River which is widely believed to be the site of Wiryeseong. Mongchon Toseong (Hangul: 몽촌토성; Hanja: 蒙村土城) is another earthen wall built during the Baekje period which is now located inside the Olympic Park. The Fortress Wall of Seoul was built early in the Joseon Dynasty for protection of the city. After many centuries of destruction and rebuilding, approximately ⅔ of the wall remains, as well as six of the original eight gates. These gates include Sungnyemun and Heunginjimun, commonly known as Namdaemun (South Great Gate) and Dongdaemun (East Great Gate). Namdaemun was the oldest wooden gate until a 2008 arson attack, and was re-opened after complete restoration in 2013. Situated near the gates are the traditional markets and largest shopping center, Namdaemun Market and Dongdaemun Market.

 

There are also many buildings constructed with international styles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Independence Gate was built in 1897 to inspire an independent spirit. Seoul Station was opened in 1900 as Gyeongseong Station.

 

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Various high-rise office buildings and residential buildings, like the Gangnam Finance Center, the Tower Palace, N Seoul Tower and Jongno Tower, dominate the city's skyline. A series of new high rises are under construction, including the Lotte World Tower, scheduled to be completed by 2016. As of July 2016, and excluding the still unopened Lotte World Tower, the tallest building in the city is the 279-metre-high Three International Finance Center.

 

The World Trade Center Seoul, located in Gangnam District, hosts various expositions and conferences. Also in Gangnam District is the COEX Mall, a large indoor shopping and entertainment complex. Downstream from Gangnam District is Yeouido, an island that is home to the National Assembly, major broadcasting studios, and a number of large office buildings, as well as the Korea Finance Building and the Yoido Full Gospel Church. The Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park, and Lotte World are located in Songpa District, on the south side of the Han River, upstream from Gangnam District. Two new modern landmarks of Seoul are Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park, designed by Zaha Hadid, and the new wave-shaped Seoul City Hall, by Yoo Kerl of iArc.

 

In 2010 Seoul was designated the World Design Capital for the year.

 

CULTURE

TECHNOLOGY

Seoul has a very technologically advanced infrastructure. It has the world's highest fibre-optic broadband penetration, resulting in the world's fastest internet connections with speeds up to 1 Gbps. Seoul provides free Wi-Fi access in outdoor spaces. This 47.7 billion won ($44 million) project will give residents and visitors Internet access at 10,430 parks, streets and other public places by 2015.

 

MUSEUMS

Seoul is home to 115 museums, including four national and nine official municipal museums. Amongst the city's national museum, The National Museum of Korea is the most representative of museums in not only Seoul but all of South Korea. Since its establishment in 1945, the museum has built a collection of 220,000 artifacts. In October 2005, the museum moved to a new building in Yongsan Family Park. The National Folk Museum is situated on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace in the district of Jongno District and uses replicas of historical objects to illustrate the folk history of the Korean people. The National Palace Museum of Korea is also located on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace. Finally, the Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, whose main museum is located in Gwacheon, opened in 2013, in Sogyeok-dong.

 

Bukchon Hanok Village and Namsangol Hanok Village are old residential districts consisting of hanok Korean traditional houses, parks, and museums that allows visitors to experience traditional Korean culture.

 

The War Memorial, one of nine municipal museums in Seoul, offers visitors an educational and emotional experience of various wars in which Korea was involved, including Korean War themes. The Seodaemun Prison is a former prison built during the Japanese occupation, and is currently used as a historic museum.The Seoul Museum of Art and Ilmin Museum of Art have preserved the appearance of the old building that is visually unique from the neighboring tall, modern buildings. The former is operated by Seoul City Council and sits adjacent to Gyeonghuigung Palace, a Joseon dynasty royal palace. Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, is widely regarded as one of Seoul's largest private museum. For many Korean film lovers from all over the world, the Korean Film Archive is running the Korean Film Museum and Cinematheque KOFA in its main center located in Digital Media City (DMC), Sangam-dong. The Tteok & Kitchen Utensil Museum and Kimchi Field Museum provide information regarding Korean culinary history.

 

RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS

There are also religious buildings that take important roles in Korean society and politics. The Wongudan altar was a sacrificial place where Korean rulers held heavenly rituals since the Three Kingdoms period. Since the Joseon Dynasty adopted Confucianism as its national ideology in the 14th century, the state built many Confucian shrines. The descendants of the Joseon royal family still continue to hold ceremonies to commemorate ancestors at Jongmyo. It is the oldest royal Confucian shrine preserved and the ritual ceremonies continue a tradition established in the 14th century. Munmyo and Dongmyo were built during the same period. Although Buddhism was suppressed by the Joseon state, it has continued its existence. Jogyesa is the headquarters of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. Hwagyesa and Bongeunsa are also major Buddhist temples in Seoul.

 

The Myeongdong Cathedral is a landmark of the Myeongdong, Jung District and the biggest Catholic church established in 1883. It is a symbol of Catholicism in Korea. It was also a focus for political dissent in the 1980s. In this way the Roman Catholic Church has a very strong influence in Korean society.

 

There are many Protestant churches in Seoul. The most numerous are Presbyterian, but there are also many Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran churches. Yoido Full Gospel Church is a Pentecostal church affiliated with the Assemblies of God on Yeouido in Seoul. With approximately 830,000 members (2007), it is the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in the world, which has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

 

FESTIVALS

In October 2012 KBS Hall in Seoul hosted major international music festivals – First ABU TV and Radio Song Festivals within frameworks of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union 49th General Assembly. Hi! Seoul Festival is a seasonal cultural festival held four times a year every spring, summer, autumn, and winter in Seoul, South Korea since 2003. It is based on the "Seoul Citizens' Day" held on every October since 1994 to commemorate the 600 years history of Seoul as the capital of the country. The festival is arranged under the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As of 2012, Seoul has hosted Ultra Music Festival Korea, an annual dance music festival that takes place on the 2nd weekend of June.

 

TRANSPORTATION

Seoul features one of the world's most advanced transportation infrastructures that is constantly under expansion. Its system dates back to the era of the Korean Empire, when the first streetcar lines were laid and a railroad linking Seoul and Incheon was completed. Seoul's most important streetcar line ran along Jongno until it was replaced by Line 1 of the subway system in the early 1970s. Other notable streets in downtown Seoul include Euljiro, Teheranno, Sejongno, Chungmuro, Yulgongno, and Toegyero. There are nine major subway lines stretching for more than 250 km, with one additional line planned. As of 2010, 25% of the population has a commute time of an hour or more.

 

BUS

Seoul's bus system is operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (S.M.G.), with four primary bus configurations available servicing most of the city. Seoul has many large intercity/express bus terminals. These buses connect Seoul with cities throughout South Korea. The Seoul Express Bus Terminal, Central City Terminal and Seoul Nambu Terminal are located in the district of Seocho District. In addition, East Seoul Bus Terminal in Gwangjin District and Sangbong Terminal in Jungnang District operate in the east of the city.

 

SUBWAY

Seoul has a comprehensive urban railway network that interconnects every district of the city and the surrounding areas. With more than 8 million passengers per day, Seoul has one of the busiest subway systems in the world. The Seoul Metropolitan Subway has 19 total lines which serve Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi province, western Gangwon province, and northern Chungnam province. In addition, in order to cope with the various modes of transport, Seoul's metropolitan government employs several mathematicians to coordinate the subway, bus, and traffic schedules into one timetable. The various lines are run by Korail, Seoul Metro, Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation, NeoTrans Co. Ltd., AREX, and Seoul Metro Line 9 Corporation.

 

TRAIN

Seoul is connected to every major city in South Korea by rail. Seoul is also linked to most major South Korean cities by the KTX high-speed train, which has a normal operation speed of more than 300 km/h. Major railroad stations include:

 

Seoul Station, Yongsan District: Gyeongbu line (KTX/Saemaul/Mugunghwa-ho), Gyeongui line (Saemaul/Commuter)

Yongsan Station, Yongsan District: Honam line (KTX/Saemaul/Mugunghwa), Jeolla/Janghang lines (Saemaul/Mugunghwa)

Yeongdeungpo Station, Yeongdeungpo District: Gyeongbu/Honam/Janghang lines (Saemaul/Mugunghwa)

Cheongnyangni Station, Dongdaemun District: Gyeongchun/Jungang/Yeongdong/Taebaek lines (Mugunghwa)

 

In addition, Suseo Station,in Gangnam District, is scheduled to open in late 2016, and offer KTX service on the newly built Suseo High Speed Railway.

 

AIRPORTS

Two international airports serve Seoul. Gimpo International Airport, formerly in Gimpo but annexed to Seoul in 1963, was for many years (since its original construction during the Korean War) the only international airport serving Seoul. Other domestic airports were also built around the time of the war, including Yeouido.

 

When it opened in March 2001, Incheon International Airport on Yeongjong island in Incheon changed the role of Gimpo Airport significantly. Incheon is now responsible for almost all international flights and some domestic flights, while Gimpo serves only domestic flights with the exception of flights to Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Osaka Kansai International Airport, Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai, and Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing. This has led to a significant drop in flights from Gimpo Airport, though it remains one of South Korea's busiest airports.

 

Meanwhile, Incheon International Airport has become, along with Hong Kong, a major transportation center for East Asia.

 

Incheon and Gimpo are linked to Seoul by highways, and to each other by the Incheon International Airport Railroad, which is also linked to Incheon line #1. Gimpo is also linked by subway (line No. 5 and #9). The Incheon International Airport Railroad, connecting the airport directly to Seoul Station in central Seoul, was recently opened. Shuttle buses also transfer passengers between Incheon and Gimpo airports.

 

CYCLING

Cycling is becoming increasingly popular in Seoul and in the entire country. Both banks of the Han River have cycling paths that run all the way across the city along the river. In addition, Seoul introduced in 2015 a bicycle-sharing system named Ddareungi.

 

EDUCATION

UNICERSITIES

Seoul is home to the majority of South Korea's most prestigious universities, including Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, Sogang University, Hanyang University, Chung-Ang University, Ewha Womans University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Hongik University, Kyung Hee University, Soongsil University, Sookmyung Women's University, Korea Military Academy, and the University of Seoul.

 

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Education from grades 1–12 is compulsory. Students spend six years in elementary school, three years in middle school, and three years in high school. Secondary schools generally require that the students wear uniforms. There is an exit exam for graduating from high school and many students proceeding to the university level are required to take the College Scholastic Ability Test that is held every November. Although there is a test for non-high school graduates, called school qualification exam, most of Koreans take the test

 

Seoul is home to various specialized schools, including three science high schools (Hansung Science High School, Sejong Science High School and Seoul Science High School), and six foreign language High Schools (Daewon Foreign Language High School, Daeil Foreign Language High School, Ewha Girls' Foreign Language High School, Hanyoung Foreign Language High School, Myungduk Foreign Language High School and Seoul Foreign Language High School). Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education comprises 235 College-Preparatory High Schools, 80 Vocational Schools, 377 Middle Schools, and 33 Special Education Schools as of 2009.

 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Seoul is a member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

 

WIKIPEDIA

The NSU Ro 80 was a technologically advanced large sedan-type automobile produced by the German firm of NSU from 1967 until 1977. Most notable was the powertrain; a 113 bhp (86 kW), 995 cc twin-rotor Wankel engine driving the front wheels through a semi-automatic transmission employing an innovative vacuum system. It was voted Car of the Year for 1968 by European motoring writers.

 

Unfortunately for NSU, the car developed an early reputation for unreliability, from which it would never escape. The Wankel engine in particular suffered from heavy wear on the rotor tip seals, among many other problems, and some early cars required a completely rebuilt engine before 30,000 miles (50,000 km), with problems visible as early as 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometres). The fact that the rotary engine design was inherently thirsty (typically 15-18 mpg) and a poor understanding of the Wankel engine by dealers and mechanics did not help this situation. By the 1970 model year, most of these problems were resolved, but a necessarily generous warranty policy and damage to the car's reputation had undermined NSU's financial situation irreparably. NSU was acquired by Audi (of the Volkswagen group) in 1969. Second hand Ro80s were virtually worthless in the 1970s due to the well-publicised engine problems, and a common "cure" for an ailing rotary engine was to simply swap it for a Ford V4 "Essex" engine (as found in Mk1 Transits) purely as it was one of the few engines compact enough to fit in the Ro80's engine bay. Thus in an ironic twist, one of the smoothest engines in the world was replaced by one of the roughest. The NSU's unpopularity caused by the above problems means that surviving examples are very rare, and are now considered highly-prized classic cars with values to match, particularly as thanks to Mazda's perseverance with rotary design, the tip seal problem has been all but eradicated.

 

Other technological features of the Ro 80 aside from the powertrain were the four wheel ATE Dunlop disc brakes, which for some time were generally only featured on expensive sports or luxury saloon cars. The front brakes were mounted inboard, reducing the unsprung weight. The suspension was independent on all four wheels, with MacPherson struts at the front and semi-trailing arm suspension at the rear, both of which are space-saving designs commonly used today. Power assisted ZF rack and pinion steering was used, again foreshadowing more recent designs.

 

The car featured an automatic clutch which was commonly described as a three-speed semi-automatic gearbox: there was no clutch pedal but instead, on top of the gearknob, an electric switch that operated a vacuum system which disengaged the clutch. The gear lever itself then could be moved through a standard 'h pattern' gate.

 

Interior trim combined cloth covered seats with pvc headlining and a carpeted floor.

 

The styling, by Claus Luthe who was head of design at NSU and later BMW, was considered very modern at the time and still holds up well; the Ro 80 has been part of many gallery exhibits of modern industrial design. The large glass area foreshadowed 1970s designs such as Citroën's. The shape was also slippery, with a drag coefficient of 0.355 (very good for the era, although average for modern cars). This allowed for a top speed of 112 mph (179.2 km/h). Indeed, comparisons have been drawn between the design of the Ro80 and the superbly aerodynamic 1984 Audi 100 - the shape is very, very similar.

 

Series production started in October 1967: the last examples came off the production line in April 1977. There were 37,204 vehicles produced during the ten year production run.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

- - -

 

Der NSU Ro 80 war eine Limousine der gehobenen Klasse von NSU, später Audi NSU. Er erschien 1967 mit einer revolutionären aerodynamischen Karosserie, die ihrer Zeit weit voraus war. Ebenfalls ungewöhnlich war der Wankelmotor, der 115 PS leistete. Dieser Motor machte in der Frühzeit durch häufige Dichtleistendefekte auf sich aufmerksam, denen jedoch der Hersteller mit kulantem Motorenaustausch begegnete. Dennoch litt der Ruf des neuen Modells und des Wankelmotors darunter erheblich.

 

Die konsequente Umsetzung der Keilform im Entwurf von Claus Luthe war ein stilprägender Impuls für das Automobildesign der 1980er-Jahre. Insbesondere bei Audi sollte das Erscheinungsbild des Ro 80 maßgeblich für ganze Fahrzeuggenerationen werden. Das charakteristische hintere Dreiecksfenster ist bis heute typischer Bestandteil des Designs bei Audi.

 

Der Ro 80 wurde in nur 37.398 Exemplaren bis 1977 produziert und blieb, technisch gesehen, ohne Nachfolger. Das letzte produzierte Fahrzeug wurde 1977 dem Deutschen Museum übergeben. Weitere Fahrzeuge sind unter anderem in der Pinakothek der Moderne in München, im Depot des Deutschen Technikmuseums Berlin, im Deutschen Zweirad- und NSU-Museum und im Audi Forum in Neckarsulm, im museum mobile in Ingolstadt, im EFA-Museum für Deutsche Automobilgeschichte in Amerang sowie in der Autostadt in Wolfsburg ausgestellt. Das Schnittmodell des Ro 80, mit dem der Wagen auf der IAA vorgestellt wurde, wird im Museum Autovision als Teil der Dauerausstellung Wankelmotor gezeigt.

 

Der weltweit älteste noch erhaltene NSU Ro 80 gehört einem Architekten aus Frankfurt am Main, und trägt die Fahrgestell-Nr. 80 001 061, Fertigungsdatum Donnerstag, der 19. Oktober 1967, Farbe saguntoblau.

 

Das „Ro“ im Namen steht für Rotationskolben im Gegensatz zu „K“ wie beim VW K 70, das für Kolben bzw. Hubkolben stand.

 

Bei den ersten Serienmotoren kam es infolge eines Konstruktionsfehlers zu vermehrten Motorschäden. Hatten die Motoren in der Erprobung über 200 000 km gehalten, so verloren sie in Kundenhand oft schnell an Kompression. Schnell wurde eine falsche Materialpaarung als Ursache dafür erkannt. Eilig wurden Material sowie die Teilung der Dichtleisten geändert und somit war das Dichtleistenproblem vorerst gelöst. In Verbindung mit einem Ferrotic-Mittelteil und einer härteren Enesilschicht mit höherem Siliziumkarbidanteil ging man später auf die ursprüngliche Dichtleistenteilung zurück. Ab Anfang 1970 wurden die neuen Ferrotic-Dichtleisten in die Serie eingeführt.

 

Als ebenfalls problematisch erwies sich die Doppelzündung, zum einen von der Einstellung her und zum anderen wegen des hohen Abbrands der Zündkontakte, was dann durch zu viel Frühzündung zu Motorschäden führte. Dies wurde durch eine Einfachzündung in Verbindung mit einer Hochspannungskondensatorzündung (HKZ) auf Kosten des Spritverbrauchs behoben. Die kulante Austauschpraxis führte zeitweise dazu, dass über 35 % der angeblich defekten Motoren in Ordnung waren. Nachdem der Zündzeitpunkt sowie der Vergaser neu eingestellt wurden und der Motor einen Probelauf auf dem Prüfstand absolviert hatte, wurden diese Motoren wieder als Austauschmotoren ausgeliefert.

 

Ein nicht unerheblicher Anteil an Motorschäden ging auf das Konto des Drehmomentwandlers, den man gegen das Schieberuckeln (verursacht durch den Umfangseinlass) einbaute und der zum Teil für den Mehrverbrauch des Ro 80 mitverantwortlich war. Da der Wankelmotor erheblich höher drehte (wohl eher wegen erheblicher Überdrehzahl aufgrund fehlender Drehzahlbegrenzung), passierte es bei einer Reihe Drehmomentwandlern, dass sie sich radial ausdehnten. Dadurch zogen sie sich axial zusammen und nun kollidierte das Pumpen- mit dem Turbinenrad. Da der Wandler im Motorölkreislauf hing, gelangten dadurch Späne in den Motor, was dann umgehend zu Motorschäden führte. Auch erwies sich ein kleines Nadellager im Wandler als anfällig, dessen häufiger Ausfall ebenfalls zu Spänen im Motoröl führte und damit indirekt für einen defekten Motor sorgte. Dies wurde dann durch einen verstärkten Wandler behoben. Ab Herbst 1971 führte man dann in Verbindung mit der Bosch-Hochspannungskondensatorzündung und thermischer Abgasentgiftung einen akustischen Drehzahlwarner ein, der die elektrische Benzinpumpe bei Überdrehzahl abschaltete und dadurch eine Überdrehzahl des Motors wirksam vermied.

 

Anfänglich war alle 20 000 km ein Ölwechsel nötig, der später jedoch entfiel. So mancher Fahrer glaubte deshalb, man müsste kein Öl mehr nachfüllen, worauf einige Motoren ohne Öl liegen blieben. Dieser Art Motorschäden begegnete man mit einer geänderten zweiflutigen Ölpumpe. Der Einlass für den Wandlerkreislauf wurde höher angesetzt. Bevor nun der Motorölkreislauf kein Öl mehr bekam, saugte der Wandlerkreislauf Luft, woraufhin der Wandleröldruck absank und die Öldruckanzeige aufleuchtete. Ignorierte der Fahrer die Warnlampe, übertrug der Wandler keine Kraft mehr an das Getriebe und das Auto blieb stehen. Spätestens jetzt wusste der nachlässige Fahrer, dass er vergessen hatte, den Ölstand zu kontrollieren.

 

Ein weiteres Problem, das ebenfalls direkt zu Motorschäden führte, war eine Öldosierpumpe ohne Nullanschlag. Dies führte dazu, dass, wenn diese Pumpe falsch eingestellt wurde, im Leerlauf kein Öl für die Trochoidenschmierung geliefert wurde. Daraufhin wurde eine geänderte Öldosierpumpe eingesetzt, die nun nicht mehr auf Null gestellt werden konnte.

 

Problematisch war auch, dass man gleich mehrere bis dahin unerprobte Verfahren in Verbindung mit dem Wankelmotor einführte. So hieß es von dem Enesilverfahren scherzhaft, es funktioniere nur bei Südwind, was auf die Witterungsempfindlichkeit anspielte. Auch gab es anfänglich Probleme mit der Dosierung und Korngröße des eingebetteten Siliziumkarbids und der Dosierung des Saccharin (das als Einebner für Nickelschichten in der Galvanik angewendet wird). Zudem waren die Werkstätten zum Teil mit der Technik rund um den Motor überfordert. Teilweise aber entwickelten einige Kunden auch geradezu kriminelle Energien. Kurz vor dem Ablauf der Garantie provozierten sie absichtlich einen Motorschaden.

 

Als das Dichtleistenproblem gelöst schien, kam es wieder zu gehäuften Motorschäden. Nun war es aber kein Konstruktionsfehler, sondern ein Zulieferer, der sich nicht an die Fertigungsvorschriften hielt.

 

Bei den letzten Ausführungen der Motoren bestanden die Dichtleisten komplett aus Ferrotic, diese Aggregate erwiesen sich als äußerst robust. Zusätzlich kam der Lebensdauer die Einführung des bleifreien Benzins entgegen. Anders als ein Viertakthubkolbenmotor dessen Ventilsitze mit Blei geschmiert werden mussten konnte der Wankelmotor des Ro 80 problemlos mit bleifreiem Kraftstoff betrieben werden, da beim Wankelmotor für die Gaswechselsteuerung keine Ventile benötigt werden.

 

(Wikipedia)

The NSU Ro 80 was a technologically advanced large sedan-type automobile produced by the West German firm of NSU from 1967 until 1977 (only 37,402 NSU Ro 80 were produced in 10 Years time). Most notable was the powertrain; a 113 bhp (84 kW; 115 PS), 995 cc twin-rotor Wankel engine driving the front wheels through a semi-automatic transmission employing an innovative vacuum system. It was voted Car of the Year for 1968 by European motoring writers.

 

The NSU Ro80 was an advance preview of the 1980s for discerning '60s executive car buyers. It redefined the levels of expectation for buyers in its market sector. It handled beautifully, was huge inside, looked amazing and rode as well as any luxury saloon.

 

For a while, the NSU Ro80 had the world at its feet. But the problems soon started – its rotary engine was refined but unreliable, and warranty costs had crippled NSU. By the time the company fixed it, the energy crisis hit, and all of a sudden its 15mpg thirst was an unwanted burden. Modern technology has completely conquered the rotor tip problem, and a Ro80 is a brilliant classic car to own with the correct support.

  

+ Modern styling

+ roomy cabin

+ cossetting ride

+ clever semi-auto gearbox

+ restful cruising

+ excellent front-wheel drive handling

 

- engine reliability worries

- Wankel engine's huge thirst for petrol and oil

- watch out for serious corrosion

   

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

The "SS Great Eastern," launched in 1858, was a monumental achievement in 19th-century engineering, showcasing the rapid technological progress of the era. Designed by the visionary Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at the Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames in London, the ship embodied ambition and innovation. At the time of her launch, she was the largest ship ever constructed, symbolizing human ingenuity and the determination to reshape the future of transportation.

 

With a revolutionary iron hull and a unique propulsion system that combined sails, paddle wheels, and a screw propeller, the "Great Eastern" was unlike any vessel before her. Capable of carrying 4,000 passengers, she was designed for long-distance voyages, including the possibility of non-stop travel between England and Australia. Brunel's vision for the ship was to revolutionize global transportation, enhancing both passenger travel and trade on an unprecedented scale.

 

Though the "Great Eastern" faced numerous challenges, including financial struggles and technical difficulties, she ultimately earned lasting recognition for her role in laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, linking continents and transforming communication. Despite her early struggles, the ship's enormous size and versatility influenced future generations of engineers and shipbuilders, leaving behind a legacy of ambition and technological progress. The "SS Great Eastern" stands as a testament to the bold vision of pushing the boundaries of possibility.

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

Steve Jobs you will be sorely missed...the world lost a pioneer and technological visionary yesterday...but Apple will continue to create innovative products and design some of the best software and hardware for many more generations to come...

 

He brought us the iMac, iPod, iBook, MacBook and the iPhone but I think it is iTunes that turned Apple's fortunes around...cos it revolutionised they way we buy and play downloaded music! Now 10 billion downloads has gotta account for something...amazing feat!

 

In his own words, a very poinant commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University back in June 2005:

 

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

 

The first story is about connecting the dots.

 

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

 

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

 

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

 

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

 

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

 

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

 

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

 

My second story is about love and loss.

 

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

 

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

 

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

 

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

 

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

 

My third story is about death.

 

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

 

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

 

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

 

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

 

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

 

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

 

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

 

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

 

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

 

Thank you all very much."

  

I just have to say that, when I worked for Apple Computers at their European Headquaters from 1997-1999 in Ziest, Holland...it was by far the best company I have worked for! Everyone was treated equal from the cleaners to the directors...and the working atmosphere was amazing because it made you work harder! I always felt I was wanted and appreciated under any circumstances.

 

This is the company that truly looks after its workforce...

 

This is not my design...but surely is apt under the circumstances! It was created by Jonathan Mak...and I hope he doesn't mind me posting it to Flickr...

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

 

Some background:

The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' first operational jet aircraft during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Sir Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft itself began in 1940, although work on the engines had been underway since 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations in 1944 with the RAF.

 

Several major variants of the Meteor incorporated technological advances during the 1940s and 1950s. In order to replace the increasingly-obsolete de Havilland Mosquito as a night fighter, the Meteor was adapted to serve in the role as an interim aircraft. The new night fighter was designed to specification F.24/48 for a two seat, twin-engine, night fighter capable of intercepting contemporary bombers.

 

Gloster had initially proposed a night fighter design to meet the Air Ministry specification for the Mosquito replacement, based on the two-seater trainer variant of the Meteor, with the pilot in the front seat and the navigator in the rear. Once accepted however, work on the project was swiftly transferred to Armstrong Whitworth to perform both the detailed design process and production of the type; the first prototype flew on 31 May 1950.

 

Although based on the T.7 twin-seater, the night fighter used the fuselage and tail of the F.8 and the longer wings of the F.3. An extended nose contained the AI Mk 10 Air Intercept radar (the 1940s Westinghouse SCR-720). As a consequence the 20 mm cannons had to be moved from the fuselage flanks into the wings, outboard of the engines. A ventral fuel tank and wing mounted drop tanks completed the Armstrong Whitworth Meteor NF.11.

As radar technology developed, a new Meteor night fighter was developed to use the improved US-built APS-21 system. The NF.12 first flew on 21 April 1953. It was similar to the NF 11 but had a nose section 17 inches (43.2 cm) longer; the fin was enlarged to compensate for the greater keel area of the enlarged nose and to counter the airframe reaction to the "wig-wag" scan of the radar which affected the gunsight.

 

An anti-tramp motor operating on the rudder was fitted midway up the front leading edge of the fin. The NF.12 also had the new Rolls-Royce Derwent 9 engines and the wings were reinforced to handle the new engine. Deliveries of the NF.12 started in 1953, with the type entering squadron service in early 1954. The NF.12 was also exported, e. g. to Belgium, France or Denmark. In RAF service, however, the type was already replaced over 1958–59.

 

The final Meteor night fighter was the NF.14 (The NF.13 was a tropicalized variant of the NF.11, which served in Egypt, Syria and Israel). First flown on 23 October 1953, the NF.14 was based on the NF.12 but had an even longer nose, extended by a further 17 inches to accommodate new equipment, and a larger bubble canopy to replace the framed T.7 version.

 

Just 100 NF.14s were built; they first entered service in February 1954 beginning with RAF No. 25 Squadron and were being gradually replaced as early as 1956 with the Gloster Javelin. Overseas, they remained in service a little longer, serving with No. 60 Squadron at Tengah, Singapore, until 1961.

 

With only few flying hours on the clock several NF.14 were earmarked for being revamped and offered for export. 14 of these aircraft stayed in the UK, though, and were converted to training aircraft as NF(T).14 and given to No. 2 Air Navigation School on RAF Thorney Island where they served until 1965.

 

But some of the young NF.14s In 1955 Sweden ordered 22 of these surplus machines as replacement for its obsolete J30 (Mosquito NF.30) fleet that had entered service in 1948 and which was already due to be phased out. The Meteors were allocated only intended to act as stopgaps, though, just as in RAF service, while the Saab J32 Lansen (specifically its dedicated, radar-equipped all-weather fighter variant ‘B’) was still under development.

 

The batch of revamped Meteor NF.14s was gradually delivered and allocated to F 17 at Kallinge and F 21 at Luleå, starting in late 1956 when the first retired RAF aircraft trickled back to Armstrong Whitworth, and the last one was handed over to the Flygvapnet in mid-1957. In Swedish service the Meteor NF.14 received the domestic designation J31 (‘Jakt’). The machines differed only slightly from the RAF NF.14, main armament remained the four 20mm cannons in the wings. The external tanks were kept, too, in order to provide a sufficient range for patrol flights.

 

The J31s career was short and unspectacular, though. When the J32B finally reached the fighter units in 1958, the Swedish Meteors were gradually replaced and retired. Six machines were kept for radar operator training, and in this second line role six machines eventually served until 1965.

Strangely, none of the Swedish J31 Meteors were converted to target tugs. Instead Sweden bought several retired Meteors (T.7 and NF.11) from Denmark and used these aircraft with civil registrations through Svenska Flygtjanst as target tugs.

 

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: Length: 51 ft 4 in (15.65 m)

Wingspan: Span: 43ft

Height: 13 ft 11 in (4.2 m)

Wing area: 350 ft² (32.52 m²)

Empty weight: 12.620 lb (5.725 kg)

Loaded weight: 21.200 lb (9.625 kg)

 

Powerplant:

2× Rolls-Royce Derwent 9 engines, rated at 3.800lb/16,9kN each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 585mph (511 knots, 942 km/h, Mach 0.8) at 10.000 ft (3.050 m)

Range: 875 mi (765 nmi, 1.408 km)

Service ceiling: 43,000 ft (13,100 m)

Rate of climb: 5,800ft/min at sea level

Wing loading: 44.9 lb/ft² (218.97 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

  

Armament:

4× 20 mm British Hispano Mk. V cannons in the outer wings

  

The kit and its assembly:

This whif is another tribute to fellow user SPINNERS at whatifmodelers.com who came up with a CG simulation of a Meteor NF.14 in Swedish colors. This looked VERY plausible - see the respective screenshots. I had a Matchbox/Revell Gloster Meteor NF.11, 12 and 14 night fighter in the pile without a real plan – until now!

SPINNERS’ screenshots basically became the design benchmark for my build, even though my hardware differs a bit in scheme and markings in order to match the narrow, historic slot for this whif.

 

Concerning the Matchbox kit there’s not much to say. It’s a simple kit that has been re-boxed several times and is also offered through Hannants under the Xtrakit brand. Fit is mediocre, how to mount the landing gear is up to the modeler, the cockpit is intended for pygmies (even though with nice dahsboard and radar equipment), you get several sink holes, and the fine, raised panels more or less disappear due to the unavoidable and extensive putty work all over the thing.

Since we have a NF.14 here, the kit was built OOB with the respective option parts. Even the belly and drop tanks are standard, only two pilot figures were added for the photo shooting.

 

Calling it J31 is a bit of a double, since the 31 had already been used for the Spitfire PR.19 photo reconnaissance variant, domestically called S31 (for ‘Spaning’). Therefore the J31 was theoretically ‘free’, even though not really correct. ;)

  

Painting and markings:

Basically, no surprises here, too, even though mimicking Swedish Air Force colors is a rather tricky task for the ambitious modeler. Especially the "mörk olivgrön/mörkblå/blågrå" scheme from the late 50ies is described with very contradictive suggestions concerning the tones to use, I even found “Blue Angel Blue” (FS 15050!) as serious paint suggestion from Hasegawa.

The colors themselves obviously varied considerably under light conditions and weathering influences: the blue could turn grey or even into a kind of turquoise, and depending on light and perspective the blue tone would even appear like a dull, very dark grey (think WWII German tank grey). The green, on the other side, also ranges from a dark green (FS 34079 is frequently suggested, but IMHO too "green") to a very dark olive drab, and in real life the tone could turn into an almost brownish khaki drab when thoroughly weathered. Much room for interpretation and speculation, even consulting pics of museum and service aircraft did not yield anything conclusive and consistent.

 

Well, I tried to find a compromise for the upper sides' basic colors for the and settled for Humbrol 163 (Extra Dark Slate Grey, it has that olive drab, reddish touch) and 77 (Navy Blue, which is discernable as a deep, greenish blue; Humbrol 123 is also often suggested, e. g. through Heller, but it’s IMHO too dark), while I used Model Master's "French Dark Grey Blue" (an authentic WWII tone; it is much less 'dark' than you'd expect) for the undersurfaces.

The authentic tone for the lower sides is supposed to be FS 36173 (US Neutral Grey), and pics from museum aircraft (e. g. close-ups from an J32E at the Linköping Swedish Air Force Museum) confirm that. But I think that the pure/original tone is much too dark for a 1:72 scale model kit. Pictures of real service aircraft rather appear like a pale bluish-grey, almost like RLM76?

 

The pattern itself was adapted from a late Saab J32 instead of SPINNERS’ RAF scheme with modified colors.

 

After basic painting the Meteor received serious dry-painting on the upper surfaces in order to create a worn and bleached look, e. g. with Humbrol 86 & 155 on the green, with Revell 79 and Humbrol 230 (PRU Blue!) on the blue as well as some "Italian Light Blue Grey" from Modelmaster on the lower surfaces. A black ink wash was also added to emphasize panel lines and other small details.

 

In order to add some color variation I painted the drop tanks in Aluminum. The radome was painted in satin black, the landing gear and the air intakes in various Aluminum shades. The cockpit was painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 184) with some medium grey dry painting. Gauges and instruments were added with black clear paint.

 

Roundels and tactical codes mostly come from an RBD aftermarket sheet from Sweden (great stuff!), which features many options for about a dozen J32 aircraft from all of the type's career. Most stencils come from the Matchbox sheet, though.

The red radome band is personal even though authentic addition. These nose colors were common practice in the Swedish Air Force, matching the tail letter code in earlier times that would indicate the aircraft's division (red for 1st, yellow for 2nd and blue for 3rd), even though this code would disappear with the change to individual aircraft numbers on the fin around 1960.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of matt varnish.

  

Well, “Röd Niklas” is not a spectacular or complicated whif, rather just a color variant - realised in eactly one week from sprues to pics. But the Swedish colors and markings suit the Meteor SO well that it deserved to be taken to the hardware stage, at least as a 1:72 model kit. :D

 

Took this a while ago. One exposure, some tweakage.

 

Press L to pull the trigger

No.2

"crack"

 

:-P

 

1 A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

 

2 A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where those orders would conflict with the First Law.

 

3 A robot must protect its own existence except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.

and i'm sitting at this computer frantically browsing scholarship opportunities, application processes, what i'm eligable for, virtual tours of campuses, loans, tuitions, ...all this to decide my career. so then I'm immediately searching through the future's most needed careers and realize technology is taking over the world...i'm not the smartest with that, but hey i'll give it a shot. nononono, i don't like the idea of me working with technological things all day everyday. whats next in the most needed list? medical sciences. alright! i'll work with children's cancer, i've got inspiration. ..I look up the different career opps in this category. I can't continue my search because i'm crying. that's not going to work... then i realize...

    

all i really want is to take pictures.

      

Shot with Fuji X-E2

A 35 minute flight into Canadian and world history.

 

The small country of CANADA had produced a technological marvel.

 

THOUSANDS OF CANADIANS waited and watched (inside and outside) Malton Airport as the CF-105 Avro Arrow was put through some light-duty paces on its MAIDEN FLIGHT.

 

The crowd mills about waiting for another pass of the Arrow, while the Arrow passes over Rexdale.

 

The Avro Canada and Orenda Engine plants can be seen for the massive structures they were (look just above the flying Arrow).

 

It would be Canada's first and last all-Canadian supersonic airplane.

 

Every other Canadian engineered aircraft SINCE…has been sub-sonic~

.

 

When CANADA was SUPER-GREAT we produced the CF-105 Avro Arrow Interceptor and the PS.13 Orenda Iroquois Turbojet Engine.

 

Why were these Canadian technological achievements so awesome, you ask?

 

CF-105 AVRO Arrow (outfitted with Orenda Iroquois Engines) “FIRSTS and NOTABLES” to the uninitiated:

 

• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed with digital computers being used for both aerodynamic analysis and designing the structural matrix (and a whole lot more).

• FIRST AIRCRAFT design to have major components machined by CNC (computer numeric control); i.e., from electronic data which controlled the machine.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT to be developed using an early form of "computational fluid dynamics" with an integrated "lifting body" type of theory rather than the typical (and obsolete) "blade element" theory.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT to have marginal stability designed into the pitch axis for better maneuverability, speed and altitude performance.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT to have negative stability designed into the yaw axis to save weight and cut drag, also boosting performance.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT to fly on an electronic signal from the stick and pedals. i.e., first fly-by-wire a/c.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT to fly with fly by wire AND artificial feedback (feel). Not even the first F-16's had this.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed to be data-link flyable from the ground.

• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed with integrated navigation, weapons release, automatic search and track radar, datalink inputs, home-on-jamming, infrared detection, electronic countermeasures and counter-countermeasures operating through a DIGITAL brain.

• FIRST HIGH WING jet fighter that made the entire upper surface a lifting body. The F-15, F-22, Su-27 etc., MiG-29, MiG 25 and others certainly used that idea.

• FIRST sophisticated bleed-bypass system for both intake AND engine/exhaust. Everybody uses that now.

• FIRST by-pass engine design. (all current fighters have by-pass engines).

• FIRST combination of the last two points with an "ejector" nozzle that used the bypass air to create thrust at the exhaust nozzle while also improving intake flow. The F-106 didn't even have a nozzle, just a pipe.

• Use of Titanium for significant portions of the aircraft structure and engine.

• Use of composites (not the first, but they made thoughtful use of them and were researching and engineering new ones).

• Use of a drooped leading edge and aerodynamic "twist" on the wing.

• Use of engines at the rear to allow both a lighter structure and significant payload at the centre of gravity. Everybody copied that.

• Use of a LONG internal weapons bay to allow carriage of specialized, long-range standoff and cruise missiles. (not copied yet really)

• Integration of ground-mapping radar and the radar altimeter plus flight control system to allow a serious strike/reconnaissance role. The first to propose an aircraft be equally adept at those roles while being THE air-superiority fighter at the same time. (Few have even tried to copy that, although the F-15E is an interesting exception.)

• FIRST missile armed a/c to have a combat weight thrust to weight ratio approaching 1 to 1. Few have been able to copy that.

• FIRST flying 4,000 psi hydraulic system to allow lighter and smaller components.

• FIRST oxygen-injection re-light system.

• FIRST engine to have only two main bearing assemblies on a two-shaft design.

• FIRST to use a variable stator on a two-shaft engine.

• FIRST use of a trans-sonic first compressor stage on a turbojet engine.

• FIRST "hot-streak" type of afterburner ignition.

• FIRST engine to use only 10 compressor sections in a two-shaft design. (The competition was using 17!!)

 

The Avro Arrow was Canada's finest aviation achievement, even though it never entered RCAF service.

 

DETRACTORS … thanks for comin' out ~

 

© www.AvroArrow.org

© www.globalaircraft.org

© PAUL CARDIN - 2013 Special Projects In Research

   

A comparation of two technologies. An old and little HDD drive from old mp3 player with flash technology. That hdd had about 6gb capacity. A SD card? Much more... Samsung NX300 with kit 18-55 lens.

Electric Drive

 

Clipper is the result of a study in style and engineering focusing on tomorrow’s world and cities: this sporty MPV has a technological spirit and a green heart.

Thanks to the versatile MQB modular platform developed by Volkswagen Group, it can accommodate up to 6 people, seated in three rows of two seats; it features an electric powertrain comprising two 110 kW motors, housed one up front and one at the back, guaranteeing a range of 540 km. It has four-wheel drive with fully independent wheels. The battery packs are housed in the floor, specially designed to afford maximum protection against accidental impact from the road while driving.

 

The design for the passenger compartment’s outfit of Clipper represents the true revolutionary element of this concept car. Effective use of space, combined with original and highly innovative architectural solutions, not to mention the use of brand new technology that emphasises user-friendly, intuitive design, makes Giugiaro Clipper a veritable automotive research & design lab.

 

The six occupants can all get into the car at the same time thanks to the simultaneous opening of the doors and the absence of the B-pillar: with this architectural solution, Clipper offers one single, wide opening for access to the interior.

 

84th Geneva International Motor Show

Internationaler Auto-Salon Genf

Suisse - Schweiz - Switzerland

March 2014

 

Το 1864 τα μεταλλεία του Λαυρίου λειτούργησαν ξανά μετά από αρκετούς αιώνες. Φτωχοί εργάτες από όλη την Ελλάδα κατέφθασαν στην περιοχή για να δουλέψουν, ανάμεσα τους και πολλές γυναίκες και παιδιά. Δούλευαν από τα ξημερώματα έως τη δύση του ηλίου χωρίς σταματημό, με μοναδική παρέα τα ποντίκια, τα μοναδικά ζώα που επιβίωναν στην περιοχή και μέσα στις στοές. Τις περισσότερες φορές οι εργάτες πέθαιναν νωρίς από μολυβδίαση ή πνευμονοκονίαση, ασθένειες που εμφανίζονται σε ανθρώπους που εκτίθενται για χρόνια στη σκόνη και τις θανατηφόρες χημικές ουσίες των ορυχείων....

Οι εγκαταστάσης ανήκαν στην Γαλλική Εταιρεία Μεταλλείων Λαυρίου με ιδρυτή και ιδιοκτητη τον Ι. Β. Σερπιέρη.

 

In 1864 the mines of Lavrion working again after several centuries. Poor workers from all over Greece arrived on the scene to work, among them many women and children. They worked from dawn to dusk without stopping, with unique group mice, unique animals surviving in the region and through the galleries. Most often workers die early from lead poisoning or pneumoconiosis, diseases that occur in people exposed for years to dust and deadly chemicals mine ....

The plants belong to the French Mining Company of Lavrion founder and owner of G. B. Serpieri.

 

The technological steps that have been taken with Gripen E have been proven in the Gripen 39-7 E/F demonstrator program, where the test aircraft has flown more than 250 hours in Sweden, the UK,India and Switzerland among others since 2008.

 

Read the full press release here:

www.saabgroup.com/en/About-Saab/Newsroom/Press-releases--...

Construction of the station commenced in July 1997 on a football and cricket pitch adjacent to the coal-fired power station. During construction, heavy components weighing up to 400 tonnes were brought onto site using inland waterways, to avoid damaging local roads.

Cooling towers. Hot water that has been produced from steam used to power the turbines on the generators is pumped into the towers under pressure about a third of the way up the stack.The water falls into the reservoir at the bottom of the tower passing through many mesh baffles on it's drop which help to cool it. when cooled sufficiently the water is pumped back to the generator for re-use,

Earth Day 2016

  

Other Technologically Advanced Worlds

 

'There is a point of view among astronomical researchers that is generally referred to as the Principle of Mediocrity. ...If the Sun and its retinue of worlds is only one system among many, then many other systems will be like ours: home to life. Indeed, to the extent that this is true, we should be prepared for the possibility that, even in the Milky Way galaxy, billions of planets may be carpeted by the dirty, nasty business known as life.'

 

Seth Shostak

 

-------------------

  

Like a lot of people I find it's always fun to speculate about the possibilities of technologically advanced alien civilizations existing in the Universe. In 1961 astronomer Frank Drake created an equation to estimate the number of such civilisations existing in our own galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on our current / past light cone).

 

Each variable in the equation is a vital factor in the development of such civilisations. The Drake Equation has been refined over the decades to include, for example, the ability of a technological civilisation to survive an alien attack.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

 

There are two main arguments concerning the possibilities of complex biological life such as multicellular organisms (subsequently human intelligence on Earth) existing in the Universe at large. Those same arguments are concerned with the potential existence of technological civilisations capable of interstellar communication.

 

One side argues that the Universe is teeming with advanced technological civilisations (Frank Drake and Carl Sagan for example), the other that such civilisations are an improbable phenomenon. The Rare Earth hypothesis proposed by Peter Ward argues the latter.

 

We do know that one of the crucial factors in the development of multicellular biological life on Earth was the availability of stable sunshine for the two billion year period it took for slime and single-cell bacteria to evolve into multi-cellular life (one cell swallowed another and the two began working together). However, before this could happen a vast number of improbable variables and events had to exist and occur which, on the face of it, might or might not lend weight to the Rare Earth hypothesis that our planet and its complex lifeforms are the result of a one-in-a-galaxy run of good luck.

 

Such as:

 

The right location in the right kind of galaxy.

 

Orbiting at the right distance from the right type of star.

 

The right arrangement of planets (It has been argued that Jupiter with its enormous gravitational pull has, over billions of years, reeled in vast quantities of asteroids and other objects that might otherwise have collided with Earth).

 

A continuously stable orbit.

 

A terrestrial planet of the right size with plate tectonics.

 

A large moon (The giant impact theory hypothesizes that the Moon resulted from the impact of a Mars-sized body, Theia, with the very young Earth (approximately 4.5 billion years ago, in the Hadean eon - about 20 to 100 million years after the solar system coalesced). This giant impact, while providing a large moon and important local gravitational pull, gave the Earth its axial tilt and velocity of rotation, vital in creating stable seasons, predictable days and predictable tides.)

 

One or more evolutionary triggers for complex life.

 

The right time in evolution (avoiding mass extinction events: extreme climatic variations, super volcanoes or large meteorite/asteroid impacts).

 

(I'm adding that the random destruction of all non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago on Earth by an asteroid - the Chicxulub impact at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico - opened up the planet to mammals, smart creatures who got ever smarter very fast leading to Homo sapiens and our technological civilisation. What if that asteroid had not hit Earth? Perhaps the emergence of a technologically advanced dinosaur civilisation?)

 

Many argue that only some, or none, of the above conditions are necessary for the evolution of complex biological life and that we are restricting our estimates of the existence of complex life and subsequent technological alien civilizations in the Universe by our sheer lack of imagination.

 

We might also bear in mind the words of Seth Shostak when speculating about the possibilities of technological alien civilizations existing in the Universe:

 

'Humans have existed only for the last 0.001 percent of cosmic time. All of which says that - unless the Homo sapiens brain is the one-and-only instance of cogitating machinery - nearly all the intelligence that's out there is beyond our level. And that intelligence is more than just a little bit beyond.'

 

And finally, the Fermi paradox or "Where is everybody?"

 

Reasons:

 

Few intelligent civilizations ever arise.

 

Intelligent civilizations exist, but we see no evidence (civilizations are too far apart, it is too expensive to spread throughout the galaxy, civilizations broadcast signals for only a brief period of time, it is dangerous to communicate, and many others...).

 

The lifetime of intelligent civilizations is short (it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself, it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others, they tend to experience a technological singularity, and others...).

 

It goes without saying that, aside from Earth, we have yet to prove the existence of life, past or present, in our own solar system. The European Space Agency (ESA) ExoMars delivery platform is currently en route to Mars to search for biosignatures of Martian life, past or present. The lander element of the mission should reach the surface of Mars in 2018.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExoMars

exploration.esa.int/mars/

 

-------------------------------------

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone

 

Also check out the 'Wow!' signal:

www.flickr.com/photos/119411696@N08/12919655613/in/photol...

  

Technological Waste

When I see the new Daft Punf video "Technologic" I thinking that the robot is more similar like an upgrade Blythe doll... XDDD

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPZJYQXQsm8

 

And if you change some screen word in Custom, Change, Break, Chips, Eyes... etc... this is really the Technologic life of Blythe Maniac! XDD

www.michiyo-kurosawa.com

Where The Journey Begins

© 2025 Kurosawa Michiyo

 

The purpose of bonfire nights and the similarities between firework designs deliver an overwhelming message to display fireworks at different locations across England.

 

The technology of long-time exposure captures the momentary and timescale that disappears and turns the now into our history, making it memorable, readable, and appreciated by the audience.

 

The beauty of fireworks flashes in front of the naked eyes for a momentary sensation. The sound of fireworks brings excitement, adding to the majestic notion of a large fireworks display.

 

The fireworks share temporary beauty, lighting up the sky at night, and illuminating the blackness with colours. The audience temporarily forgets the past and the future but concentrates on the moment of now, witnessing every second to come and pass, remembering and video-capturing the valuable seconds of fireworks that won't reappear again.

 

How many seconds of the colour of darkness do we choose to concentrate on and remember, how many seconds of beauty flash in front of us to remind ourselves of the beauty that may fade away if we have chosen to forget, leaving the sky in the darkness?

 

The technological advancement captures the moment of beauty which lasts forever in the imagery picture, each line of beauty represents the memory of time and seconds we have witnessed to excite our sensation from the now to the past before becoming the moment of history. The pictures illuminate the night with light and beauty to forever defect the darkness with colours and joy.

 

The photograph is slightly edited and manipulated to present the complete version of the fireworks display show.

Tel Aviv-Yafo usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a population of 467,875, it is the economic and technological center of the country. If East Jerusalem is considered part of Israel, Tel Aviv is the country's second-most-populous city, after Jerusalem; if not, Tel Aviv is the most populous city, ahead of West Jerusalem.

 

Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Mayor Ron Huldai, and is home to most of Israel's foreign embassies. It is a beta+ world city and is ranked 57th in the 2022 Global Financial Centres Index. Tel Aviv has the third- or fourth-largest economy and the largest economy per capita in the Middle East. The city currently has the highest cost of living in the world. Tel Aviv receives over 2.5 million international visitors annually. A "party capital" in the Middle East, it has a lively nightlife and 24-hour culture. The city is gay-friendly, with a large LGBT community. Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, the largest university in the country with more than 30,000 students.

 

The city was founded in 1909 by the Yishuv (Jewish residents) and initially given the Hebrew name Ahuzat Bayit (Hebrew: אחוזת בית, romanized: ʔAħuzat Bayit, lit. 'House Estate' or 'Homestead'), namesake of the Jewish association which established the neighbourhood as a modern housing estate on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa (Yafo in Hebrew), then part of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem within the Ottoman Empire. Its name was changed the following year to Tel Aviv, after the biblical name Tel Abib (lit. "Tell of Spring") adopted by Nahum Sokolow as the title for his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl's 1902 novel Altneuland ("Old New Land"). Other Jewish suburbs of Jaffa had been established before Tel Aviv, the oldest among them being Neve Tzedek. Tel Aviv was given township status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921, and became independent from Jaffa in 1934. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced that of Jaffa, which had a majority Arab population at the time. In 1948 the Israeli Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in the city. After the 1947–1949 Palestine war, Tel Aviv began the municipal annexation of parts of Jaffa, fully unified with Jaffa under the name Tel Aviv in April 1950, and was formally renamed to Tel Aviv-Yafo in August 1950.

 

Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of International Style buildings, including Bauhaus and other related modernist architectural styles. Popular attractions include Jaffa Old City, the Eretz Israel Museum, the Museum of Art, Hayarkon Park, and the city's promenade and beach.

 

Etymology and origins

Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzl’s 1902 novel Altneuland ("Old New Land"), as translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. Sokolow had adopted the name of a Mesopotamian site near the city of Babylon mentioned in Ezekiel: "Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Abib [Tel Aviv], that lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days." The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including "Herzliya". It was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv (אביב, or Abib) is a Hebrew word that can be translated as "spring", symbolizing renewal, and tell (or tel) is an artificial mound created over centuries through the accumulation of successive layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient.

 

Although founded in 1909 as a small settlement on the sand dunes north of Jaffa, Tel Aviv was envisaged as a future city from the start. Its founders hoped that in contrast to what they perceived as the squalid and unsanitary conditions of neighbouring Arab towns, Tel Aviv was to be a clean and modern city, inspired by the European cities of Warsaw and Odesa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment stated:

 

In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water from wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city, and also sewerage pipes will be installed for the health of the city and its residents.

 

— Akiva Arieh Weiss, 1906

 

History

The walled city of Jaffa is modern-day Tel Aviv-Yafo's only urban centre that existed in early modern times. Jaffa was an important port city in the region for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows signs of human settlement there starting in roughly 7,500 BC. The city was established around 1,800 BC at the latest. Its natural harbour has been used since the Bronze Age. By the time Tel Aviv was founded as a separate city during Ottoman rule of the region, Jaffa had been ruled by the Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Phoenicians, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, the early Islamic caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, and Mamluks before coming under Ottoman rule in 1515. It had been fought over numerous times. The city is mentioned in ancient Egyptian documents, as well as the Hebrew Bible.

 

Other ancient sites in Tel Aviv include: Tell Qasile, Tel Gerisa, Abattoir Hill, Tel Hashash, and Tell Qudadi.

 

During the First Aliyah in the 1880s, when Jewish immigrants began arriving in the region in significant numbers, new neighborhoods were founded outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv. The first was Neve Tzedek, founded in 1887 by Mizrahi Jews due to overcrowding in Jaffa and built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom (1890), Yafa Nof (1896), Achva (1899), Ohel Moshe (1904), Kerem HaTeimanim (1906), and others. Once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa.

 

1904–1917: Foundation in Late Ottoman period

The Second Aliyah led to further expansion. In 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit (lit. "homestead") society. One of the society's goals was to form a "Hebrew urban centre in a healthy environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics and modern hygiene". The urban planning for the new city was influenced by the garden city movement. The first 60 plots were purchased in Kerem Djebali near Jaffa by Jacobus Kann, a Dutch citizen, who registered them in his name to circumvent the Turkish prohibition on Jewish land acquisition.[34] Meir Dizengoff, later Tel Aviv's first mayor, also joined the Ahuzat Bayit society. His vision for Tel Aviv involved peaceful co-existence with Arabs.

 

On 11 April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of Tel Aviv. The lottery was organised by Akiva Aryeh Weiss, president of the building society. Weiss collected 120 sea shells on the beach, half of them white and half of them grey. The members' names were written on the white shells and the plot numbers on the grey shells. A boy drew names from one box of shells and a girl drew plot numbers from the second box. A photographer, Abraham Soskin (b. 1881 in Russia, made aliyah 1906), documented the event. The first water well was later dug at this site, located on what is today Rothschild Boulevard, across from Dizengoff House. Within a year, Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Yehuda Halevi, Lilienblum, and Rothschild streets were built; a water system was installed; and 66 houses (including some on six subdivided plots) were completed. At the end of Herzl Street, a plot was allocated for a new building for the Herzliya Hebrew High School, founded in Jaffa in 1906. The cornerstone for the building was laid on 28 July 1909. The town was originally named Ahuzat Bayit. On 21 May 1910, the name Tel Aviv was adopted. The flag and city arms of Tel Aviv (see above) contain under the red Star of David 2 words from the biblical book of Jeremiah: "I (God) will build You up again and you will be rebuilt." (Jer 31:4) Tel Aviv was planned as an independent Hebrew city with wide streets and boulevards, running water for each house, and street lights.

 

By 1914, Tel Aviv had grown to more than 1 km2 (247 acres). In 1915 a census of Tel Aviv was conducted, recording a population 2,679. However, growth halted in 1917 when the Ottoman authorities expelled the residents of Jaffa and Tel Aviv as a wartime measure. A report published in The New York Times by United States Consul Garrels in Alexandria, Egypt described the Jaffa deportation of early April 1917. The orders of evacuation were aimed chiefly at the Jewish population. Jews were free to return to their homes in Tel Aviv at the end of the following year when, with the end of World War I and the defeat of the Ottomans, the British took control of Palestine.

 

The town had rapidly become an attraction to immigrants, with a local activist writing:

 

The immigrants were attracted to Tel Aviv because they found in it all the comforts they were used to in Europe: electric light, water, a little cleanliness, cinema, opera, theatre, and also more or less advanced schools... busy streets, full restaurants, cafes open until 2 a.m., singing, music, and dancing.

 

British administration 1917–34: Townships within the Jaffa Municipality

 

A master plan for the Tel Aviv township was created by Patrick Geddes, 1925, based on the garden city movement. The plan consisted of four main features: a hierarchical system of streets laid out in a grid, large blocks consisting of small-scale domestic dwellings, the organization of these blocks around central open spaces, and the concentration of cultural institutions to form a civic center.

 

Tel Aviv, along with the rest of the Jaffa municipality, was conquered by the British imperial army in late 1917 during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I and became part of British-administered Mandatory Palestine until 1948.

 

Tel Aviv, established as suburb of Jaffa, received "township" or local council status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921. According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Tel Aviv had a population of 15,185 (15,065 Jews, 78 Muslims and 42 Christians). The population increased in the 1931 census to 46,101 (45,564 Jews, 288 with no religion, 143 Christians, and 106 Muslims), in 12,545 houses.

 

With increasing Jewish immigration during the British administration, friction between Arabs and Jews in Palestine increased. On 1 May 1921, the Jaffa riots resulted in the deaths of 48 Arabs and 47 Jews and injuries to 146 Jews and 73 Arabs. In the wake of this violence, many Jews left Jaffa for Tel Aviv. The population of Tel Aviv increased from 2,000 in 1920 to around 34,000 by 1925.

 

Tel Aviv began to develop as a commercial center. In 1923, Tel Aviv was the first town to be wired to electricity in Palestine, followed by Jaffa later in the same year. The opening ceremony of the Jaffa Electric Company powerhouse, on 10 June 1923, celebrated the lighting of the two main streets of Tel Aviv.

 

In 1925, the Scottish biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner Patrick Geddes drew up a master plan for Tel Aviv which was adopted by the city council led by Meir Dizengoff. Geddes's plan for developing the northern part of the district was based on Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement. While most of the northern area of Tel Aviv was built according to this plan, the influx of European refugees in the 1930s necessitated the construction of taller apartment buildings on a larger footprint in the city.

 

Ben Gurion House was built in 1930–31, part of a new workers' housing development. At the same time, Jewish cultural life was given a boost by the establishment of the Ohel Theatre and the decision of Habima Theatre to make Tel Aviv its permanent base in 1931.

 

1934 municipal independence from Jaffa

Tel Aviv was granted the status of an independent municipality separate from Jaffa in 1934. The Jewish population rose dramatically during the Fifth Aliyah after the Nazis came to power in Germany. By 1937 the Jewish population of Tel Aviv had risen to 150,000, compared to Jaffa's mainly Arab 69,000 residents. Within two years, it had reached 160,000, which was over a third of Palestine's total Jewish population. Many new Jewish immigrants to Palestine disembarked in Jaffa, and remained in Tel Aviv, turning the city into a center of urban life. Friction during the 1936–39 Arab revolt led to the opening of a local Jewish port, Tel Aviv Port, independent of Jaffa, in 1938. It closed on 25 October 1965. Lydda Airport (later Ben Gurion Airport) and Sde Dov Airport opened between 1937 and 1938.

 

Many German Jewish architects trained at the Bauhaus, the Modernist school of architecture in Germany, and left Germany during the 1930s. Some, like Arieh Sharon, came to Palestine and adapted the architectural outlook of the Bauhaus and similar schools to the local conditions there, creating what is recognized as the largest concentration of buildings in the International Style in the world.

 

Tel Aviv's White City emerged in the 1930s, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. During World War II, Tel Aviv was hit by Italian airstrikes on 9 September 1940, which killed 137 people in the city.

 

The village statistics of 1938 listed Tel Aviv's population as 140,000, all Jews. The village statistics of 1945 listed Tel Aviv's population as 166,660 (166,000 Jews, 300 "other", 230 Christians, and 130 Muslims).

 

During the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Jewish Irgun and Lehi guerrillas launched repeated attacks against British military, police, and government targets in the city. In 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing, the British carried out Operation Shark, in which the entire city was searched for Jewish militants and most of the residents questioned, during which the entire city was placed under curfew. During the March 1947 martial law in Mandatory Palestine, Tel Aviv was placed under martial law by the British authorities for 15 days, with the residents kept under curfew for all but three hours a day as British forces scoured the city for militants. In spite of this, Jewish guerrilla attacks continued in Tel Aviv and other areas under martial law in Palestine.

 

According to the 1947 UN Partition Plan for dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, Tel Aviv, by then a city of 230,000, was to be included in the proposed Jewish state. Jaffa with, as of 1945, a population of 101,580 people—53,930 Muslims, 30,820 Jews and 16,800 Christians—was designated as part of the Arab state. Civil War broke out in the country and in particular between the neighbouring cities of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, which had been assigned to the Jewish and Arab states respectively. After several months of siege, on 13 May 1948, Jaffa fell and the Arab population fled en masse.

 

State of Israel

When Israel declared Independence on 14 May 1948, the population of Tel Aviv was over 200,000. Tel Aviv was the temporary government center of the State of Israel until the government moved to Jerusalem in December 1949. Due to the international dispute over the status of Jerusalem, most embassies remained in or near Tel Aviv. The boundaries of Tel Aviv and Jaffa became a matter of contention between the Tel Aviv municipality and the Israeli government in 1948. The former wished to incorporate only the northern Jewish suburbs of Jaffa, while the latter wanted a more complete unification. The issue also had international sensitivity, since the main part of Jaffa was in the Arab portion of the United Nations Partition Plan, whereas Tel Aviv was not, and no armistice agreements had yet been signed. On 10 December 1948, the government announced the annexation to Tel Aviv of Jaffa's Jewish suburbs, the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Kabir, the Arab village of Salama and some of its agricultural land, and the Jewish Hatikva slum. On 25 February 1949, the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Shaykh Muwannis was also annexed to Tel Aviv. On 18 May 1949, Manshiya and part of Jaffa's central zone were added, for the first time including land that had been in the Arab portion of the UN partition plan. The government voted on the unification of Tel Aviv and Jaffa on 4 October 1949, but the decision was not implemented until 24 April 1950 due to the opposition of Tel Aviv mayor Israel Rokach. The name of the unified city was Tel Aviv until 19 August 1950, when it was renamed Tel Aviv-Yafo in order to preserve the historical name Jaffa. Tel Aviv thus grew to 42 km2 (16.2 sq mi). In 1949, a memorial to the 60 founders of Tel Aviv was constructed.

 

In the 1960s, some of the older buildings were demolished, making way for the country's first high-rises. The historic Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium was controversially demolished, to make way for the Shalom Meir Tower, which was completed in 1965, and remained Israel's tallest building until 1999. Tel Aviv's population peaked in the early 1960s at 390,000, representing 16 percent of the country's total. By the early 1970s, Tel Aviv had entered a long and steady period of continuous population decline, which was accompanied by urban decay. By 1981, Tel Aviv had entered not just natural population decline, but an absolute population decline as well. In the late 1980s the city had an aging population of 317,000. Construction activity had moved away from the inner ring of Tel Aviv, and had moved to its outer perimeter and adjoining cities. A mass out-migration of residents from Tel Aviv, to adjoining cities like Petah Tikva and Rehovot, where better housing conditions were available, was underway by the beginning of the 1970s, and only accelerated by the Yom Kippur War. Cramped housing conditions and high property prices pushed families out of Tel Aviv and deterred young people from moving in. From the beginning of 1970s, the common image of Tel Aviv became that of a decaying city, as Tel Aviv's population fell 20%.

 

In the 1970s, the apparent sense of Tel Aviv's urban decline became a theme in the work of novelists such as Yaakov Shabtai, in works describing the city such as Sof Davar (The End of Things) and Zikhron Devarim (The Memory of Things). A symptomatic article of 1980 asked "Is Tel Aviv Dying?" and portrayed what it saw as the city's existential problems: "Residents leaving the city, businesses penetrating into residential areas, economic and social gaps, deteriorating neighbourhoods, contaminated air – Is the First Hebrew City destined for a slow death? Will it become a ghost town?". However, others saw this as a transitional period. By the late 1980s, attitudes to the city's future had become markedly more optimistic. It had also become a center of nightlife and discotheques for Israelis who lived in the suburbs and adjoining cities. By 1989, Tel Aviv had acquired the nickname "Nonstop City", as a reflection of the growing recognition of its nightlife and 24/7 culture, and "Nonstop City" had to some extent replaced the former moniker of "First Hebrew City". The largest project built in this era was the Dizengoff Center, Israel's first shopping mall, which was completed in 1983. Other notable projects included the construction of Marganit Tower in 1987, the opening of the Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater in 1989, and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque (opened in 1973 and located to the current building in 1989).

 

In the early 1980s, 13 embassies in Jerusalem moved to Tel Aviv as part of the UN's measures responding to Israel's 1980 Jerusalem Law. Today, most national embassies are located in Tel Aviv or environs. In the 1990s, the decline in Tel Aviv's population began to be reversed and stabilized, at first temporarily due to a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Tel Aviv absorbed 42,000 immigrants from the FSU, many educated in scientific, technological, medical and mathematical fields. In this period, the number of engineers in the city doubled. Tel Aviv soon began to emerge as a global high-tech center. The construction of many skyscrapers and high-tech office buildings followed. In 1993, Tel Aviv was categorized as a world city. However, the city's municipality struggled to cope with an influx of new immigrants. Tel Aviv's tax base had been shrinking for many years, as a result of its preceding long term population decline, and this meant there was little money available at the time to invest in the city's deteriorating infrastructure and housing. In 1998, Tel Aviv was on the "verge of bankruptcy". Economic difficulties would then be compounded by a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in the city from the mid-1990s, to the end of the Second Intifada, as well as the dot-com bubble, which affected the city's rapidly growing hi-tech sector. On 4 November 1995, Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the Oslo peace accord. The outdoor plaza where this occurred, formerly known as Kikar Malchei Yisrael, was renamed Rabin Square.

 

In the Gulf War in 1991, Tel Aviv was attacked by Scud missiles from Iraq. Iraq hoped to provoke an Israeli military response, which could have destroyed the US–Arab alliance. The United States pressured Israel not to retaliate, and after Israel acquiesced, the US and Netherlands rushed Patriot missiles to defend against the attacks, but they proved largely ineffective. Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities continued to be hit by Scuds throughout the war, and every city in the Tel Aviv area except for Bnei Brak was hit. A total of 74 Israelis died as a result of the Iraqi attacks, mostly from suffocation and heart attacks, while approximately 230 Israelis were injured. Extensive property damage was also caused, and some 4,000 Israelis were left homeless. It was feared that Iraq would fire missiles filled with nerve agents or sarin. As a result, the Israeli government issued gas masks to its citizens. When the first Iraqi missiles hit Israel, some people injected themselves with an antidote for nerve gas. The inhabitants of the southeastern suburb of Hatikva erected an angel-monument as a sign of their gratitude that "it was through a great miracle, that many people were preserved from being killed by a direct hit of a Scud rocket."

 

Since the First Intifada, Tel Aviv has suffered from Palestinian political violence. The first suicide attack in Tel Aviv occurred on 19 October 1994, on the Line 5 bus, when a bomber killed 22 civilians and injured 50 as part of a Hamas suicide campaign. On 6 March 1996, another Hamas suicide bomber killed 13 people (12 civilians and 1 soldier), many of them children, in the Dizengoff Center suicide bombing. Three women were killed by a Hamas terrorist in the Café Apropo bombing on 27 March 1997.

 

One of the deadliest attacks occurred on 1 June 2001, during the Second Intifada, when a suicide bomber exploded at the entrance to the Dolphinarium discothèque, killing 21, mostly teenagers, and injuring 132. Another Hamas suicide bomber killed six civilians and injured 70 in the Allenby Street bus bombing. Twenty-three civilians were killed and over 100 injured in the Tel Aviv central bus station massacre. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. In the Mike's Place suicide bombing, an attack on a bar by a British Muslim suicide bomber resulted in the deaths of three civilians and wounded over 50. Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed joint responsibility. An Islamic Jihad bomber killed five and wounded over 50 on 25 February 2005 Stage Club bombing. The most recent suicide attack in the city occurred on 17 April 2006, when 11 people were killed and at least 70 wounded in a suicide bombing near the old central bus station.

 

Another attack took place on 29 August 2011 in which a Palestinian attacker stole an Israeli taxi cab and rammed it into a police checkpoint guarding the popular Haoman 17 nightclub in Tel Aviv which was filled with 2,000 Israeli teenagers. After crashing, the assailant went on a stabbing spree, injuring eight people. Due to an Israel Border Police roadblock at the entrance and immediate response of the Border Police team during the subsequent stabbings, a much larger and fatal mass-casualty incident was avoided.

 

On 21 November 2012, during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Tel Aviv area was targeted by rockets, and air raid sirens were sounded in the city for the first time since the Gulf War. All of the rockets either missed populated areas or were shot down by an Iron Dome rocket defense battery stationed near the city. During the operation, a bomb blast on a bus wounded at least 28 civilians, three seriously. This was described as a terrorist attack by Israel, Russia, and the United States and was condemned by the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia, whilst Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri declared that the organisation "blesses" the attack. More than 300 rockets were fired towards the Tel Aviv Metropolitan area in the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.

 

New laws were introduced to protect Modernist buildings, and efforts to preserve them were aided by UNESCO recognition of Tel Aviv's White City as a world heritage site in 2003. In the early 2000s, Tel Aviv municipality focused on attracting more young residents to the city. It made significant investment in major boulevards, to create attractive pedestrian corridors. Former industrial areas like the city's previously derelict Northern Tel Aviv Port and the Jaffa railway station, were upgraded and transformed into leisure areas. A process of gentrification began in some of the poor neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv and many older buildings began to be renovated.

 

The demographic profile of the city changed in the 2000s, as it began to attract a higher proportion of young residents. By 2012, 28 percent of the city's population was aged between 20 and 34 years old. Between 2007 and 2012, the city's population growth averaged 6.29 percent. As a result of its population recovery and industrial transition, the city's finances were transformed, and by 2012 it was running a budget surplus and maintained a credit rating of AAA+. In the 2000s and early 2010s, Tel Aviv received tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, primarily from Sudan and Eritrea, changing the demographic profile of areas of the city. In 2009, Tel Aviv celebrated its official centennial. In addition to city- and country-wide celebrations, digital collections of historical materials were assembled. These include the History section of the official Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Year website; the Ahuzat Bayit collection, which focuses on the founding families of Tel Aviv, and includes photographs and biographies; and Stanford University's Eliasaf Robinson Tel Aviv Collection, documenting the history of the city. Today, the city is regarded as a strong candidate for global city status. Over the past 60 years, Tel Aviv had developed into a secular, liberal-minded center with a vibrant nightlife and café culture.

 

Geography

Tel Aviv is located around 32°5′N 34°48′E on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, in central Israel, the historic land bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa. Immediately north of the ancient port of Jaffa, Tel Aviv lies on land that used to be sand dunes and as such has relatively poor soil fertility. The land has been flattened and has no important gradients; its most notable geographical features are bluffs above the Mediterranean coastline and the Yarkon River mouth. Because of the expansion of Tel Aviv and the Gush Dan region, absolute borders between Tel Aviv and Jaffa and between the city's neighborhoods do not exist.

 

The city is located 60 km (37 mi) northwest of Jerusalem and 90 km (56 mi) south of the city of Haifa. Neighboring cities and towns include Herzliya to the north, Ramat HaSharon to the northeast, Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan and Giv'atayim to the east, Holon to the southeast, and Bat Yam to the south. The city is economically stratified between the north and south. Southern Tel Aviv is considered less affluent than northern Tel Aviv with the exception of Neve Tzedek and northern and north-western Jaffa. Central Tel Aviv is home to Azrieli Center and the important financial and commerce district along Ayalon Highway. The northern side of Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, Hayarkon Park, and upscale residential neighborhoods such as Ramat Aviv and Afeka.

 

Environment

Tel Aviv is ranked as the greenest city in Israel. Since 2008, city lights are turned off annually in support of Earth Hour. In February 2009, the municipality launched a water saving campaign, including competition granting free parking for a year to the household that is found to have consumed the least water per person.

 

In the early 21st century, Tel Aviv's municipality transformed a derelict power station into a public park, now named "Gan HaHashmal" ("Electricity Park"), paving the way for eco-friendly and environmentally conscious designs. In October 2008, Martin Weyl turned an old garbage dump near Ben Gurion International Airport, called Hiriya, into an attraction by building an arc of plastic bottles.[120] The site, which was renamed Ariel Sharon Park to honor Israel's former prime minister, will serve as the centerpiece in what is to become a 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) urban wilderness on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, designed by German landscape architect, Peter Latz.

 

At the end of the 20th century, the city began restoring historical neighborhoods such as Neve Tzedek and many buildings from the 1920s and 1930s. Since 2007, the city hosts its well-known, annual Open House Tel Aviv weekend, which offers the general public free entrance to the city's famous landmarks, private houses and public buildings. In 2010, the design of the renovated Tel Aviv Port (Nemal Tel Aviv) won the award for outstanding landscape architecture at the European Biennial for Landscape Architecture in Barcelona.

 

In 2014, the Sarona Market Complex opened, following an 8-year renovation project of Sarona colony.

 

Tel Aviv has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa), and enjoys plenty of sunshine throughout the year. Most precipitation falls in the form of rain between the months of October and April, with intervening dry summers, and there is almost no rainfall from June to September. The average annual temperature is 20.9 °C (69.6 °F), and the average sea temperature is 18–20 °C (64–68 °F) during the winter, and 24–29 °C (75–84 °F) during the summer. The city averages 528 mm (20.8 in) of precipitation annually.

 

Summers in Tel Aviv last about five months, from June to October. August, the warmest month, averages a high of 30.6 °C (87.1 °F), and a low of 25 °C (77 °F). The high relative humidity due to the location of the city by the Mediterranean Sea, in a combination with the high temperatures, creates a thermal discomfort during the summer. Summer low temperatures in Tel Aviv seldom drop below 20 °C (68 °F).

 

Winters are mild and wet, with most of the annual precipitation falling within the months of December, January and February as intense rainfall and thunderstorms. In January, the coolest month, the average maximum temperature is 17.6 °C (63.7 °F), the minimum temperature averages 10.2 °C (50.4 °F). During the coldest days of winter, temperatures may vary between 8 °C (46 °F) and 12 °C (54 °F). Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city.

 

Autumns and springs are characterized by sharp temperature changes, with heat waves that might be created due to hot and dry air masses that arrive from the nearby deserts. During heatwaves in autumn and springs, temperatures usually climb up to 35 °C (95 °F) and even up to 40 °C (104 °F), accompanied with exceptionally low humidity. An average day during autumn and spring has a high of 23 °C (73 °F) to 25 °C (77 °F), and a low of 15 °C (59 °F) to 18 °C (64 °F).

 

The highest recorded temperature in Tel Aviv was 46.5 °C (115.7 °F) on 17 May 1916, and the lowest is −1.9 °C (28.6 °F) on 7 February 1950, during a cold wave that brought the only recorded snowfall in Tel Aviv.

 

Government

Tel Aviv is governed by a 31-member city council elected for a five-year term by in direct proportional elections, and a mayor elected for the same term by direct elections under a two-round system. Like all other mayors in Israel, no term limits exist for the Mayor of Tel Aviv. All Israeli citizens over the age of 17 with at least one year of residence in Tel Aviv are eligible to vote in municipal elections. The municipality is responsible for social services, community programs, public infrastructure, urban planning, tourism and other local affairs. The Tel Aviv City Hall is located at Rabin Square. Ron Huldai has been mayor of Tel Aviv since 1998. Huldai was reelected for a fifth term in the 2018 municipal elections, defeating former deputy Asaf Zamir, founder of the Ha'Ir party. Huldai's has become the longest-serving mayor of the city, exceeding Shlomo Lahat's 19-year term. The shortest-serving was David Bloch, in office for two years, 1925–27.

 

Politically, Tel Aviv is known to be a stronghold for the left, in both local and national issues. The left wing vote is especially prevalent in the city's mostly affluent central and northern neighborhoods, though not the case for its working-class southeastern neighborhoods which tend to vote for right wing parties in national elections. Outside the kibbutzim, Meretz receives more votes in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel.

 

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

Cruquius, The Netherlands.

Kaynaklar- Buca / İzmir

A technological experience.

 

Virgil is the greatest man to ever walk the face of this Earth. Come, see his home.

 

leftbirmingham.blogspot.com/

The Texas Technological College Dairy Barn stands on the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock. It was built in 1926-27 using the designs of Wyatt C. Hedrick, and served as a teaching facility for 40 years.

 

Until 1935, students would bring their own cows to campus and market their own milk products through the Student Dairy Association. After 1927, the Dairy Manufacturers department sold milk and ice cream to Lubbock residents and college cafeterias. The university moved its dairy facility elsewhere in 1967 and abandoned the dairy barn.

 

From 1990 through 1992, students raised funds to preserve the barn as a symbol of Texas Tech's agricultural roots. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

 

Information from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Technological_College_Dairy_Barn

 

Located in the South Plains region of West Texas, where the Panhandle begins, Lubbock is the seat of Lubbock County and home to Texas Tech University. It was the 11th largest city in the state in 2020 with roughly 260,000 people.

Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Concorde, Fox Alpha, Air France:

 

The first supersonic airliner to enter service, the Concorde flew thousands of passengers across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound for over 25 years. Designed and built by Aérospatiale of France and the British Aviation Corporation, the graceful Concorde was a stunning technological achievement that could not overcome serious economic problems.

 

In 1976 Air France and British Airways jointly inaugurated Concorde service to destinations around the globe. Carrying up to 100 passengers in great comfort, the Concorde catered to first class passengers for whom speed was critical. It could cross the Atlantic in fewer than four hours - half the time of a conventional jet airliner. However its high operating costs resulted in very high fares that limited the number of passengers who could afford to fly it. These problems and a shrinking market eventually forced the reduction of service until all Concordes were retired in 2003.

 

In 1989, Air France signed a letter of agreement to donate a Concorde to the National Air and Space Museum upon the aircraft's retirement. On June 12, 2003, Air France honored that agreement, donating Concorde F-BVFA to the Museum upon the completion of its last flight. This aircraft was the first Air France Concorde to open service to Rio de Janeiro, Washington, D.C., and New York and had flown 17,824 hours.

 

Gift of Air France.

 

Manufacturer:

Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale

British Aircraft Corporation

 

Dimensions:

Wingspan: 25.56 m (83 ft 10 in)

Length: 61.66 m (202 ft 3 in)

Height: 11.3 m (37 ft 1 in)

Weight, empty: 79,265 kg (174,750 lb)

Weight, gross: 181,435 kg (400,000 lb)

Top speed: 2,179 km/h (1350 mph)

Engine: Four Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mk 602, 17,259 kg (38,050 lb) thrust each

Manufacturer: Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale, Paris, France, and British Aircraft Corporation, London, United Kingdom

 

Physical Description:

Aircaft Serial Number: 205. Including four (4) engines, bearing respectively the serial number: CBE066, CBE062, CBE086 and CBE085.

Also included, aircraft plaque: "AIR FRANCE Lorsque viendra le jour d'exposer Concorde dans un musee, la Smithsonian Institution a dores et deja choisi, pour le Musee de l'Air et de l'Espace de Washington, un appariel portant le couleurs d'Air France."

Credits: vanityandart.blogspot.it/2016/12/technological-art-welcom...

Photo by Simonh Sandial: www.flickr.com/photos/simonhsandial/

Model Ania Lennie: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009097630884&fref=ts

Night Painting

School of Art Design and Media

Nanyang Technological University

Watercolor + Gouache on Paper

15" X 22"