New Florence. New Renaissance.

Mobility trends

Highly recommend this issue. The cover itself gives you an idea on how we will move around in the future - the last mile and much farther.

Book table. Then buy ticket.

There are many motivations for traveling: taking advantage of a school vacation or holiday break or pursuing cultural enrichment in an unfamiliar city. But for passionate eaters like Ms. Martins, there’s no better reason to jump on a plane than a meal at a bucket-list restaurant.

For dining obsessives of this ilk, the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants list serves as a travel punch-card — a roster of upscale restaurants that beg to be tried. The 2019 list will be announced at the end of June, and although the awards have been criticized for, among other things, their large number of corporate sponsors, a dearth of female chefs, and the ease with which restaurants and others can game the vote, they remain a global benchmark.

New York Times

 

Last year's list

 

 

Electrifying Aviation

MagniX's approach is to build an electric motor for standard aircrafts that fly nine to 15 passengers on standard, 100- to 1,000-mile routes, and that take off and land at standard airports. "So the only thing that's different is, instead of being gas-guzzling, emissions-creating aircraft," he says, "they don't need any fuel and don't create any emissions."

Earlier this fall, MagniX passed a critical milestone: powering a propeller on a Cessna "Iron Bird" with the company's 350-horsepower, all-electric motor powered exclusively by battery.

Pacific Standard

 

 

 

New toys for the Blue Angels

It will cost the U.S. Navy nearly $90 million to design and implement necessary modifications to the aircraft, including smoke generators and adjustments to the aircraft’s flight control software. Super Hornets destined for the Blue Angels also will feature changes to allow pilots “more situational awareness and faster access to critical flight information.” However, the warplanes will lose none of their lethal punch. The Blue Angels are required to make sure their jets can be ready for combat within 72 hours.

Blue Angel pilots will continue to fly without the G-suits that other military pilots wear into battle. Designed to counteract the pooling of blood in the body that could cause pilots to black out during extreme, high-G maneuvers, the suits interfere with the unique flight control setup on team aircraft. Each team fighter jet is fitted with a 40-pound tensioned spring to the flight controls, requiring constant pressure by the pilot throughout the flight. This removes any possibility of play in the controls, allowing pilots to fly within inches of one another.

Popular Mechanics

 

 

National Parks as Movie Stars

A gallery of movies which feature National Parks via the Travel Channel

 

like Arches National Park in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade

 

Moonshot of the 19th Century

Promotory Point, UT was the site of the dramatic completion, 150 years ago today, of the first transcontinental railroad, which linked the Union Pacific on the east and the Central Pacific on the west. A giant crowd gathered to witness the final ceremonies. Following prayers and brief but grandiloquent speeches, the president of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, using a silver sledgehammer, nervously drove the last spike, made of gold, into a polished California laurel tie. A Western Union telegraph apparatus was connected along with the spike, so that Stanford's final strokes were instantly heralded in all cities of the United States. Two locomotives, Jupiter and 119, crept forward until their noses touched, and a cheering crowd confirmed a single-word telegram: "Done."

Encycolpedia.com

The 1912 mile railroad constructed between 1863 and 1869 was an amazing achievement. This site has a lot of history about the bravery and ingenuity during the construction. 

Before its completion "a journey across the continent to the western states meant a dangerous six month trek over rivers, deserts, and mountains.  Alternatively, a traveler could hazard a six week sea voyage around Cape Horn, or sail to Central America and cross the Isthmus of Panama by rail, risking exposure to any number of deadly diseases in the crossing.

Image Credit - Wikipedia

 

 

Peak Car?

While there continues to be exciting news about EVs and AVs, the overall market for vehicles is also going through plenty of disruption and innovation

BusinessWeek says

Auto sales in the U.S., after four record or near-record years, are declining this year, and analysts say they may never again reach those heights. Worldwide, residents are migrating to megacities—expected to be home to two-thirds of the global population by midcentury—where an automobile can be an expensive inconvenience. Young people continue to turn away from cars, with only 26 percent of U.S. 16-year-olds earning a driver’s license in 2017, a rite of passage that almost half that cohort would have obtained just 36 years ago, according to Sivak Applied Research. Likewise, the annual number of 17-year-olds taking driving tests in the U.K. has fallen 28 percent in the past decade.

The recent Lfyt IPO filing says

We believe that the world is at the beginning of a shift away from car ownership to Transportation-as-a-Service, or TaaS. Lyft is at the forefront of this massive societal change. Our ridesharing marketplace connects drivers with riders and we estimate it is available to over 95% of the U.S. population, as well as in select cities in Canada. In 2018, almost half of our riders reported that they use their cars less because of Lyft, and 22% reported that owning a car has become less important.

Mission 66 - reinventing the National Parks

Thanks to the foresight of our ancestors, our descendants should continue to enjoy our many National Parks for generations.

USA Today on Mission 66

However, the parks were in terrible shape in the years leading up to 1956, when Mission 66 was implemented. It became a national scandal of sort, with op-eds, editorials and essays being published with regularity lamenting the lack of parking space, neglected visitor amenities and outdated facilities. Bathroom lines were long, traffic jams were a necessary evil and many could not find overnight accommodations. NPS Director Newton Drury noted that “Facilities and services to the public during 1945-46 were not – and could not be – up to the usual park standards.”

How to solve these problems created a conundrum for the NPS until 1954, when three years into his tenure as NPS director, Conrad L. Wirth proposed a 10-year capital campaign to bring the national parks into the modern era by 1966, the 50th anniversary of the NPS. The name, Mission 66, evoked a sense of immediacy felt during World War II and encouraged urgent action.

The hour long video below has lot more detail on Mission 66

 

 

The future at Delta airlines

For example, as Hauenstein proposes, your "journey" would include not just the flight, but airport transfers and even luggage delivery--so that you could seamlessly book a trip from your home in Atlanta to your hotel in Los Angeles--and have your luggage delivered to you, so you never even have to go to the baggage claim.

"[We want] your luggage to find its way to your mode of transportation, and show up at your hotel or place of residence," Hausenstein said. "If you use Lyft for ride-sharing, if you use Hilton or Marriott as your preferred hotel vendor, we need to know that. Then, we can provide you a curated experience from start to finish. That's where we're headed."

Inc

video of CEO Ed Bastian with another look at the future at Delta

 

Big Data of Flying Weather

Stevens mined records from 1973–2017 and collected hourly measurements of weather conditions—including temperature, dew point, cloud ceiling, and visibility—at the 30 busiest airports in the United States. He then used these conditions to calculate the number of IFR hours each airport experienced per year. His motivation for the study was partly personal—he’s a private pilot. “I’m forced to think about the weather every time I go flying,” he said.

More than half the airports saw at least a 25 percent decrease in their number of IFR hours between 1973 and 2017. Stevens noted the largest change at San Francisco International Airport: In the 1970s, SFO experienced roughly 1,500 IFR hours per year. In the last few years, that number has dropped to below 500.

Air and Space

here is what IFR flying feels like - nice if we can be spared this kind of flying