Hoaxtel

The hotelicopter a flying cruise like experience with queen size beds a jacuzzi, sauna and the SkySpa all rapped up in the largist helicopter ever made, the Soviet Mil V-12. Dave Demerjian over at Wired gave the full run down of the hoax. If it was supposed to be an April fools gag, nothing like getting a head of your self, notice the time stamp on the wired storyMarch 30, 2009 | 3:46:34 PM.

The only surviving Mil V-12 is the top photo and the modified V-12 for the Hotelicopter. That is almost double the the size of the original.
www.hotelicopter.com

As an idea I think its a great one a nice comfortable way to travel that goes back to to the zeppelins of the pre-WWII and the Hindenburg. The folks over at Lockheed Martin have developed an airship, that reminds me of the USS Los Angeles, developed for the us army's project Walrus, the P-791 zeppelin that can hull between 500-1000 tons with a range of 12,000 nautical miles. It could be redesigned to be a cruise ship in the sky.

A small test prototype is set to be tested some time in the near future about the cargo space of a C-130, about a quarter scale test. Once again I have to tip my hat to those that work in the coolest place that I will never get to visit the Skunk Works.

The Hotelicopter - The World's First Flying Hotel! from Alvin Farley on Vimeo.
After watching that clip how could you believe that that was a test flight.

Evasion Urbaine (Urban Escape)

"With the advent of the mobile telephone, telephone booths lie unused. We rediscover this glass cage transformed into an aquarium, full of exotically coloured fish; an invitation to escape and travel."

The Artist Benedetto Bufalino designed this work for the Lyon Light Festival with help from lighting designer Benoit Deseille.




I think this one of the best public artworks I have seen in a long time. Although I might not use the word exotic to describe goldfish even if it is used to describe the color. It is a great example of using an existing object and transforming it into something different without changing it from it from its original context.