Telstar Logistics

All Hail the World's First Monster Truck Backflip!

In the annals of humanity's noteworthy accomplishments, let us now add another historic feat: This week in Las Vegas, driver Ryan Anderson completed the world's first monster truck backflip during Monster Jam 2011. 

 

Add to Wishlist: One British Aircraft Carrier, Good Condition

It can make 30+ knots. It has sleeping accommodations for more than 1000 people. And it can function as your own personal floating airport.

If you've ever fantasized about owning your own aircraft carrier -- or if you're dying to create your own real-life version of Snow Crash -- then you'll be glad to know that just two weeks after it was removed from military service, Britain's Royal Navy has put the HMS Ark Royal, an Invincible-class aircraft carrier, up for sale on the Ministry of Defense auction website.

The Daily Mail reports:

The sale follows that of its sister ship HMS Invincible, which was towed away last week to a scrapyard in Turkey after being sold on the same internet site.

Although the Ark Royal could also be sold for its scrap metal, other proposals for it include a commercial heliport in London as well as a base for special forces to provide security at next year's Olympic Games.

And a move could be made to turn it into a nightclub and school in China.

Bidders have until 10am on June 13 to put their tenders forward for the ship. No minimum price is given.

Happily, even if you can't afford to buy the Ark Royal outright, you can certainly enjoy the thrill and satisfaction of clicking the "Add to Wishlist" button on the MoD's eBay-style auction website:

 

PHOTO: Maritime Quest

 

Halloween Meets Gasoline at 24 Hours of LeMons

Last weekend Telstar Logistics spent a damp saturday trackside at Sears Point Raceway, just north of San Francisco, for the 2011 running of the local 24 Hours of LeMons (that's pronounced "lemons,") a low-budget auto race where the most important rule is that participants must spend $500 or less to purchase and race-prep their cars. This rule not only keeps the race wonderfully devoid of pretension, but it also opens the door to blatant silliness and wild innovation, so that the race itself feels like a pleasant mix of Burning Man and NASCAR -- or as the organizers of the 24 Hours of LeMons call it, "where Halloween meets gasoline."

The cars on the track were a motley bunch. There were a variety of BMWs in various states of disarray, lots of Hondas, a few Ford Crown Victorias and plenty of one-off oddballs, including a Maserati, a 1960s Plymouth, and an Austin Mini with a reindeer strapped to the roof. 

Telstar Logistics was there to support Bernal Dads Racing, a team based near our Global Headquarters in San Francisco. BDR took a mutant "hybrid" to the race: A 1995 Mazda Miata that wore the welded-on bodywork of a Volvo 240 wagon. They called it "The Molvo," and it performed surprisingly well, completing the race intact and in fine form, while also garnering a Judge's Choice award for conceptual excellence.

We went a little nuts with the camera during our visit to LeMons, so there are lots more pictures of the scene to review for your motorsports pleasure. Vroom!

Photos by Telstar Logistics

First Flight Photos of the New Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental

Boeing's new 747-8 Intercontinental, the latest, stretched version of the venerable 747 passenger airliner, had a successful first flight last weekend. Now Boeing has released some air-to-air photos of the big bird flying above Washington state. Quite a view!

IMAGES: via Flightglobal

Your Weather Forecast for Titan: Chilly, Stormy, with a Chance of Methane Rain

Headed to Titan anytime soon? Here's your weather forecast for the largest moon around Saturn. It'll be chilly, with temperatures around -200 Fahrenheit and below, and a chance of rain, so you'd better pack an umbrella. But no smoking, please, because apparently, when it precipitates on Titan, it rains methane.

From Wired Science:

Spring may bring methane showers to the deserts of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft recently saw a large, dark puddle appear in the wake of a storm cloud at the moon’s dune-filled equator.

“It’s the only easy way to explain the observations,” said planetary scientist Elizabeth Turtle of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, lead author of a study March 18 in Science. “We’re pretty confident that it has just rained on Titan.”

Aside from Earth, Titan is the only world known to have  liquid lakes, clouds and a weather cycle to move moisture between them. But on chilly Titan, where temperatures plunge to -297 degrees Fahrenheit, the frigid lakes are filled with liquid methane and ethane, not water.

Backstage with Chairman Bao: Working the Lunch Shift Inside a Gourmet Food Truck

While reporting our story about gourmet food trucks for the New York Times late last year, Telstar Logistics spent a lunch shift hanging out backstage with the crew that operates San Francisco's popular Chairman Bao truck. An instant hit with foodies from the moment it first hit the streets in early 2010, Chairman Bao serves Chinese-inspired fusion cuisine that is innovative, affordable, and extremely delicious. 

The truck itself is a tasty mix of art and science. Wrapped in a distinctive graphic scheme that looks like a cross between a Chinese Cultural Revolution propaganda poster and a Shepard Fairey art project, Chairman Bao's bold graphics serve a practical purpose: They ensure that the vehicle always stand out, particularly at any one of the organized events in San Francisco where gourmet food trucks gather en masse to create a temporary street food marketplace.

Chairman Bao's success was something of an accident. The truck is operated by Mobi Munch, a San Francisco-based startup that hopes to put hundreds mobile food trucks on the streets nationwide. Mobi Munch won't staff the trucks; instead, it will rent them on a monthly basis to chefs and brick-and-mortar restaurant operators who want to explore the potential of what Josh Tang, the founder and CEO of Mobi Munch, calls “the mobile platform.”

Each Mobi Munch truck will function quite literally as a turnkey system, with a fully equipped kitchen and a pre-installed point-of-sale system connected via wireless networks to a central database. Mobi Munch created Chairman Bao as a proof-of-concept for the business, but it turned out that the truck's tasty and creative menu earned fans among Bay Area foodies.

As part of its plan to scale the gourmet food truck business, Mobi Munch partnered with Los Angeles-based food truck manufacturer AA Cater Trucks to build and distribute its trucks. “An AA truck is kind of like a Porsche 911,” Tang says. “It’s a vehicle that’s been around for 40 years, so it has real pedigree."

The difference, of course, is that it's unlikely anyone ever tried to cook 20 pounds of pork belly inside a 911. Yet during a recent lunchtime shift in San Francisco’s Soma district, Rachel Kier (shown at left, below) stood by griddle in side the Chairman Bao truck, doing just that. With nine years of prior restaurant and catering experience, Kier was unfazed by the transition to a truck. “It’s a lot like the restaurants where I’ve worked, and not much more crowded.” she says. “The pace is a lot quicker, but you have all the same equipment. Plus, you get a regular change of scene.” 

San Francisco, meanwhile, gets a very interesting place to have lunch. Lots more pictures, in our Backstage with Chairman Bao photoset. Go full screen, grab a napkin, and enjoy:

Photos by Telstar Logistics

Sneak Peek: Maersk's New Container Vessels Will Be Biggest Ships in the World

Last month, Danish shipping giant Maersk placed a giant order for a giant new class of container ships. When deliveries begin in 2013, Maersk's new Tripe-E Class vessels will be the largest ships in the world -- 1,400 feet (400 meters) from bow to stern. (For comparison's sake, America's newest aircraft carrier, the Nimitz-class USS George W. Bush, is 1092 feet long.)

Our friends at gCaptain tell the details:

Maersk Line has signed a contract with Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd. to build 10 of the world’s largest and most efficient vessels, with an option for an additional 20 vessels. Scheduled for delivery between 2013 and 2015, they will entirely change the shipping industry’s understanding of size and efficiency.

Called the ‘Triple-E’ class for the three main purposes behind their creation — Economy of scale, Energy efficient and Environmentally improved — these new container vessels do not just set a new benchmark for size: they will surpass the current industry records for fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions per container moved held by the Emma Mærsk class vessels.

Four-hundred metres long, 59 metres wide and 73 metres high, the Triple-E is the largest vessel of any type on the water today. Its 18,000 TEU (twenty-foot container) capacity is 16 percent greater (2,500 containers) than today’s largest container vessel, Emma Mærsk.

The Triple-E will produce 20 percent less CO2 per container moved compared to Emma Mærsk and 50 percent less than the industry average on the Asia-Europe trade lane. In addition, it will consume approximately 35 percent less fuel per container than the 13,100 TEU vessels being delivered to other container shipping lines in the next few years, also for Asia-Europe service.

That last bit hints at an unfortunate caveat for North American ship-spotters: Maersk Triple-Es will only carry freight between Europe and Asia, as there is no port in the Americas with facilities that can accommodate the very big boats.

UPDATE: 21 March, 2011

Maersk has created a nice little microwebsite about the Triple-E series. Check it out if you want to learn more. (Thanks @creatino)

Photos: Maersk Group

Hat Tip: Stephen Woods

 

A Graveyard for the Buses that Carried the American Civil Rights Movement

Today's New York TImes carries a story about an important aspect of the American Civil Rights movement in the South -- and the fleet of buses that helped make it possible.

No one talks much about Worcy Crawford, who died in July at age 90, leaving a graveyard of decaying buses behind his house on the outskirts of Birmingham.

His private coaches, all of them tended by Mr. Crawford almost until the day he died, do not have the panache of the city buses that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.refused to ride. But they have significance nonetheless.

With their cracked windows and rusting engines thick with brambles, they are remnants of something that was quite rare in the South: a bus company owned by an African-American.

Mr. Crawford’s work was simple. He kept a segregated population moving. Any Birmingham child who needed a ride to school, a football game or a Girl Scout outing during the Jim Crow era and beyond most likely rode one.

So did people heading to dozens of civil rights rallies — including the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

And where is that fleet of buses now?

Today, 18 of Mr. Crawford’s buses sit in various states of repair on a grassy lot behind his house. Family members still charter two newer coaches, keeping his legacy alive. The others are being sold for parts or kept for reasons of nostalgia.

One of them, a tan GMC bus built in 1958, is nicknamed the Rosa Parks.

PHOTOS: Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

Let's Hope They Have Robotic Fire Trucks in Fukushima

As the nuclear crisis at Fukushima continues, tonight brings news that Japan has attempted to douse the reactors with water dropped from Japanese Self-Defense Forces CH-47 helicopters. There is deep tragedy in this, because the Soviets attempted much the same during the Chernobyl disaster -- and the pilots died from radiation exposure not long thereafter. 

Let's hope Japan also has some robotic firefighting equipment on hand, like the DOK-ING apparatus shown above. (Corporate slogan: "Don't send a man to do a machine's job." Amen.). The company says:

The MVF-5 is unique remote controlled fire fighting system developed to fight fires in hazardous and inaccessible areas. It is designed to help fire-fighters to do their job in the most challenging and dangerous conditions.

The MVF-5 is the third product launched by DOK-ING and was designed based on the development of the previous DOK-ING machines. The system is an example of a highly sophisticated robotic system incorporating the latest fire fighting technologies that enable users to extinguish fires with minimal personnel and vehicle damage. The remote-control system allows the user to remain outside the range of danger during operation.

The system is effective in clearing a path for traditional fire fighting vehicles in difficult terrain.

The standard operating tool mounted in front of the vehicle is a hydraulic arm and blade tool attachment which allows the system to grip and remove obstacles. The MVF-5 has a Ziegler water pump with a range of 55 m and tanks with a capacity of 1800 l of water and 600 l of foam.

The MVF-5 can effectively operate in the following locations:

• Oil refineries and chemical plants 
• Chemical storage areas
• Nuclear power stations 

Photos: DOK-ING. Hat tip: Bay Quackers

Our Thoughts Are of Our Friends in Japan

There are really no words to express the despair and powerlessness one feels when watching the current crisis unfold in Japan. Our fingers are crossed, and our confidence in Japan is high. Ganbare, indeed. 

Coast Guard Video Captures Tsunami Battering California Town

The US Coast Guard released an aerial video that shows tsunami waves created by the earthquake in Japan battering the Northern California town of Crescent City:

A Coast Guard Air Station North Bend HH-65C Dolphin helicopter conducts an over flight of Crescent City, Calif., Friday, Mar. 11, 2011, after an earthquake near Japan caused a Tsunami to strike the West Coast. 

The Coast Guard has also compiled a damage assessment for Crescent City:

Location:   Crescent City Inner Basin Harbor, Crescent City, CA

Cause:   Tsunami following 8.9 earthquake in Japan

Damage:
•       47 vessels afloat but with some level of damage
•       11 sunken vessels
•       1 vessel grounded at mouth of Elk River
•       Large debris including rocks, logs, and vessel debris scattered
about inner harbor and shore
•       Navigable waters status unknown
•       Significant damage to moorings and docks

Always Summer: Amusing Scenes of Amusement Structures from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

One of the quirks of life along the California coast is that it can be summer almost any time of year. Summer is dry and winter is wet, but both are generally temperate, so if the meteorology lines up right, you can have a warm and sunny day that would pass for a solstice -- regardless of the actual time of year.

About 90 minutes south of San Francisco, Santa Cruz, California is home to an electrified beach boardwalk and amusement pier that would easily make any refugee from Coney Island or the Jersey Shore feel right at home. In operation since 1907, the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk has a vintage roller-coaster, a log flume, and a swing carousel. But unlike the Jersey Shore, the one in Santa Cruz doesn't have many guidos, and it's open all year-round.

Telstar Logistics visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk during a balmy earlier this month, and we snapped these shots of the recreational infrastructure along the way. The crowds are thinner this time of year, but this is what winter feels like in a place where summer never really goes away.

Photos: Telstar Logistics

Proposal: Send the MOMA a Retired Space Shuttle

Now that space shuttle Discovery has completed its last flight -- with the rest of the fleet set for retirement this year -- the New York Times reports that museums across the country are angling to add a retired shuttle to their collections:

This old vehicle — the space shuttle Discovery — is an object of fervent desire for museums around the country, which would love to add it or one of its mates, the Endeavour and the Atlantis, to their collections. (Financing terms can be arranged with NASA.)

The Times says the museums in the running include NASA’s Johnson Space Center,  the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan, the Museum of Flight in Seattle, the California Science Center in Los Angeles, the Museum of the United States Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio, and (of course) the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

We say: *yawn!* All aerospace museums, and all so predictable. Yet as Telstar Logistics noted before:

NASA researchers at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have made a remarkable discovery: When you hang a well-traveled space shuttle from the ceiling of a very large building, the shuttle becomes a sophisticated piece of contemporary art. In the vein of Richard Serra perhaps? Combined with a twist of Damien Hirst?

So now we'll say it again. The museum that could perhaps make the most impressive use of a retired space shuttle is a contemporary art museum, like the MOMA in New York. Send one there!!!

PHOTOS: Shuttle Atlantis hanging inside the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center. Photos by Aviation Week.

A Field Trip by Streetcar in 1927

A private streetcar just for the kids, with plush curtains decorating the windows? Not a bad way for a bunch of San Francisco school kids to embark on a class field trip, as seen in this photo from 1927. Even better, Santa was waiting at the end of the line. Market Street Railway provides the backstory:

57 kindergarten children from Raphael Weill School (now Rosa Parks Elementary School) rode this Market Street Railway Company streetcar downtown for a visit with Santa in December 1927. The “San Francisco” was dedicated to San Francisco school children and classes for education and charitable purposes. It was used exclusively to transport school children on excursions and had no fare box or charged a fare.The children on these excursions were each rewarded with a Market Street Railway Company wooden ruler, and the teacher received a Market Street Railway Company paperweight. This streetcar is now part of the Bay Area Electric Railway Association Collection.

As always with photos like this, the angels are in the details. Like the special sign at the front of the car:

 

And apart from the uber-styley hat the teacher is wearing, check out the faces of the school kids, who were way multiculti way before it was cool:

Now consider that this picture was taken 84 years ago, and that any of these kids who survive today must be pushing 90 years-old, at least.

Yet here they are, captured for eternity at five or six, during an excursion by streetcar that reminds us all how time flies when you're having fun.

Photo: Courtesy of Market Street Railway

One Small House + 300 Weather Balloons = "Up" In Real Life

It's got a mailbox, a front door, a cute little front porch, and... an N-registration number. That last detail is important, apparently, if you want to create a real-life flying house inspired by the floating house in the Pixar film "Up."

My Modern Met explains that the lighter-than-air house was created for an upcoming National Geographic Channel series called How Hard Can it Be?, and that it flew like a champ:

Yesterday morning, March 5 at dawn, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16' X 16' house 18' tall with 300 8' colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high, reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and flew for approximately one hour.

Lots more photos at My Modern Met. Wonderful.

Photos: National Geographic