He said that Tesla vehicles that have the company's FSD (full-self driving) computer are basically capable of taxying people around on their own, but he acknowledged that it may not be legal for them to do so that early.
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Tests of the fin-mounted propeller configuration began with taxying runs on 12 November that year.
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Vistica, pp. 233-34; McMichael, p. 18; Zimmerman, pp. 6-8. Past stunts had included taxying a military aircraft, with a police escort, from Nellis Air Force Base to the Hilton, and an admiral (Bear Taylor) who dressed as a Civil War general and rode a horse into the Hilton lobby (Vistica, p. 234).
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The second Type 146 prototype was cancelled, while K5119 continued to fly. On 28 May 1938, following an Empire Air Day display at Filton Aerodrome, the sole Type 146 struck a "set-piece" display while taxying and was damaged beyond economic repair. It was the last single-engined fighter to be built by Bristol.
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The last surviving Heck was G-AEGI which was damaged beyond repair in a taxying accident on 17 June 1950. The aircraft had just come seventh in the King's Cup Race at Wolverhampton's Pendeford airfield (with a speed of 159 mph) when a landing civil Supermarine Spitfire hit the rear of the Heck and demolished it. Attempts at reconstruction failed and the aircraft was broken up in 1953.Jackson 1988, p.
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Cdr Schwann covered the rear section of the fuselage, modified the tailplane, moved the radiator to a position lying flat over the wing centre section and a series of experimental floats were lashed to the skids. Taxying trials were carried out in the Cavendish Dock using narrow flat-bottomed floats. On 18 November 1911, flown by Cdr Schwann it became the first seaplane to take off from British sea water.Jackson 1965 p.
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This system had been used on the First Monoplane. The undercarriage main axle was carried at the bottom end of the kingpost with wheels at either end and bearing ash fore and aft skids. During development and taxying trials, this structure was braced and sprung in different ways before the undercarriage was deemed satisfactory. Flying was delayed by the choice of a new untried engine, a seven-cylinder radial designed by R.J.Issacson of the Hunslet Engine Co. of Leeds.
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This drove a wooden two-blade propeller via a 2:1 reduction gear. The aircraft was taken to Filey on the English east coast for testing on the sands with B.C.Hucks at the controls. On 8 March 1911, after taxying for several miles, he made the first takeoff. He flew successfully for a while at about 30 ft (10 m) and 50 mph (80 km/h), but he sideslipped into the sands when attempting his first turn.
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Flight Magazine, Olympia report 1920, p.796. There was also provision for the attachment of beaching wheels: Each float had a watertight transverse tube, to which a mainwheel could be fitted, and there was a socket for a detachable swivelling tailwheel at the rear of the tailfloat, just forward of the taxying rudder. A side view photograph of the Sporting Type (taken at Olympia in July 1920), showing the port beaching-wheel in place, was published in Flight Magazine.Flight Magazine, Olympia report 1920, p.797.
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They were subsequently repatriated to the UK. A No. 617 Squadron crew shortly after returning from Operation Catechism The other Lancasters' return flights were complicated by adverse winds. Due to shortages of fuel, many had to divert to alternate airfields but all landed safely during the afternoon of 12 November. Two Lancasters landed at RAF Banff, one of which still carried its Tallboy which had hung up. After taxying to a halt, and moments after the crew left the aircraft, the Tallboy released itself and clattered to the concrete.
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A privately owned Sea Vixen taxis back from an air show flight, with wings folding as it moves. TAROM Boeing 737-300 and a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 taxi side by side at London Heathrow Airport. Taxiing (rarely spelled taxying) is the movement of an aircraft on the ground, under its own power, in contrast to towing or push-back where the aircraft is moved by a tug. The aircraft usually moves on wheels, but the term also includes aircraft with skis or floats (for water-based travel).
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It was of composite construction; fabric-covered wooden wings, tail booms and tail fitted to a metal fuselage but the production model would have been all-metal. Clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage were advertised. Construction of both a Major and Minor variants was started but the company decided that the Minor would not have enough power and construction was abandoned. The Major prototype was completed and started taxying trials at Portsmouth on 18 June 1947, Frank Luxmoore was pleased with the trials so he undertook the maiden flight the same day.
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Many of the pioneer constructors started their own flying schools. Pilot training was rudimentary: although the Wright Model A used by the Wright Brothers for training in Europe had been fitted with dual control,Gibbs-Smith (2003) p.182 (fn) dual-control aircraft were not generally used, and aspiring pilots would often simply be put in charge of a machine and encouraged to progress from taxying the aircraft then short straight line flights to flights involving turns. Sometimes ground handling experience was built up using special short-span machines that were incapable of flight, such as the Blériot Pinguin.
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During 1959, Hunting Aircraft was awarded a contract to construct a pair of aircraft. According to aviation periodical Flight International, a contributing reason for Hunting Aircraft's decision to respond to the Specification was the firm's existing experience in the operation of hot-gas ducting systems, which had been acquired by its previous research activities into helicopters. Manufacture of the H.126 was completed during summer 1962, being formally rolled out in August of that year. After completing limited taxying trials at Luton Airport, the aircraft was dismantled and transported by road to RAE Bedford, where it was reassembled and readied for flight.
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The Bee, registered G-AEWC, first flew on 3 April 1937 at Heston Aerodrome, piloted by Hubert Broad.Jackson (1974) Engine cooling problems required a forced landing, and there were immediate comments on its sluggish handling in the air and on its cross-wind taxying problems due to the narrow track undercarriage. This was the Bee's only flight; before there was time to improve the cooling and handling, financial problems forced Carden- Baynes into Receivership in June 1937, and all development stopped. In November 1937, it was reported that production was on hold, until British engines became available.
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The aircraft was completed by 18 April 1927, fitted with a derated engine producing and wooden propeller for initial testing. Flight testing at Rochester had been prohibited by the Air Ministry, so after taxying trials it was dismantled and taken to Felixstowe, where the RAF High Speed Flight was then based. Initial flight testing was made by Bert Hinkler, who asked Shorts to enlarge the aircraft's rudder area before he attempted to fly it. On 4 May Hinkler flew the aircraft for the first time, making a flight during which he achieved an average speed of over a measured mile.
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An aircraft purchase price is, typically, a function of the certified weight purchased. Maximum weights established, for each aircraft, by design and certification must not be exceeded during aircraft operation (ramp or taxying, takeoff, en-route flight, approach, and landing) and during aircraft loading (zero fuel conditions, centre of gravity position, and weight distribution). Weights could be restricted on some type of aircraft depending on the aircraft handling requirements; for example aerobatic aircraft, where certain aerobatic manoeuvres can only be executed with a limited gross weight. In addition, the authorised maximum weight limits may be less as limited by centre of gravity, fuel density, and fuel loading limits.
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Initial trials revealed a lack of longitudinal control, and the single-acting ailerons caused problems when taxying downwind, so the two prototypes were fitted with lengths of bungee cord attached to control horns on the upper aileron surface to return the aileron to the neutral position. This only produced a marginal improvement, so ailerons were then added to the lower wings, these being fitted to all the aircraft built apart from the two prototypes. These were linked by cables to the upper ailerons, and the bungee cord to return the ailerons was rigged between the top of the rear interplane struts and the lower ailerons.
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The extra flying had its penalties in incidents which seem curious nowadays; one Tutor was damaged while taxying because the student's goggles were blurred by rain, one Hart burst a tyre on landing because of flints on the airfield and the aircraft were saved from wind damage on one blustery day by parking Military Transport vehicles in front of them to form a wind break. During the camp members visited the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous (50) at sea. 1939 In the year of the outbreak of war the squadron was more active than ever. Some of the senior members were sent to the RAFVR Flying School at Kidlington to gain flying experience on Harts during term time.
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Fuller associated the word Dymaxion with much of his work, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension to sum up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input". The Dymaxion was not an automobile per se, but rather the 'ground-taxying mode' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive -- an "Omni- Medium Transport" for air, land and water. Fuller focused on the landing and taxiing qualities, and noted severe limitations in its handling. The team made constant improvements and refinements to the platform, and Fuller noted the Dymaxion "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements".
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Flight training was offered free to those who had bought a Blériot aircraft: for others it initially cost 2,000 francs, this being reduced to 800 francs in 1912. A gifted pupil favoured by good weather could gain his license in as little as eight days, although for some it took as long as six weeks. There were no dual control aircraft in these early days, training simply consisting of basic instruction on the use of the controls followed by solo taxying exercises, progressing to short straight-line flights and then to circuits. To gain a license a pilot had to make three circular flights of more than 5 km (3 mi), landing within of a designated point.
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If air-cooling proves sufficient for much of the running time (such as for an aero-engine in flight, or a motorcycle in motion), then oil cooling is an ideal way to cope with those times when extra cooling is needed (such as an aero-engine taxying before take-off, or a motorcycle in a city traffic jam). But if the engine is a racing engine that is always producing huge amounts of heat, water or liquid cooling may be preferable. Air-cooled aviation engines may be subject to "shock cooling" when descending from cruising altitude prior to landing. During descent, very little power is needed, so the engine is throttled back and thereby develops much less heat than when maintaining altitude.
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Peter Phillips began work on the design of the Speedtwin aerobatic twin in 1981 and the first prototype flew for the first time on 30 September 1991. This, known as the ST1 was unlike the intended production machines, having modified Victa Airtourer wings, a welded steel tube fuselage, a wooden vertical tail and fixed, spatted landing gear from a DHC-1 Chipmunk. It was powered by a pair of Continental O-200-A flat four engines. Seriously damaged in a taxying accident in the early 2000s, it probably did not fly again. Just before Phillips's death in 1997 a second prototype was begun, eventually making its first flight on 27 March 2007 powered by Avia M 332 inverted four cylinder in-line engines as the ST2 pre-production aircraft.
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Accordingly, a floatplane adaptation was prepared, to be powered by a 100 hp Gnome Monosoupape, which T.O.M. Sopwith personally collected from Paris. This was initially fitted with a single central float, but on its first taxying trials with Howard Pixton at the controls the aircraft turned over as soon as the engine was run up, and remained in the water for some hours before it could be retrieved. Great effort was made to make the waterlogged machine airworthy, and, lacking the time to prepare a new set of floats, the existing float was simply sawn in half down the middle and thus converted into a pair of floats. After a satisfactory test flight on 7 April the aircraft was shipped to Monaco, where the competition was to take place.
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Roe had originally intended to use a four-cylinder inline engine which J.A. Prestwich were developing but this failed when bench-tested by Prestwich, so Roe initially installed the 6 horsepower (hp) JAP engine from his previous aircraft. Taxying trials with this engine were begun in April 1909. At the end of May a new 9 hp (7 Kw) JAP engine was delivered, and after fitting this a series of brief flights of around 50 ft (15 m) were made, beginning on 5 June.Jackson 1990 p.5 During these flights Roe experimented with different reduction ratios between the engine and propeller and also with varying pitch settings for the propeller blades, which could be adjusted between flights. On 13 July, he achieved a flight of 100 ft (30 m), and ten days later one of 900 ft (280 m).
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The next aircraft built by Voisin for Bleriot during 1906, the Bleriot III, was a tandem biplane powered by an Antoinette engine driving two tractor propellers with the wings formed into a closed ellipse as seen from the front: according to Voisin's account, Bleriot had originally wanted the lifting surfaces to be circular in front elevation, having experimented with models of this form, and the adoption of their eventual form was the result of a compromise between the two men.Voisin 1963 p. 142 This aircraft was unsuccessful, as was its subsequent modification (the Blériot IV) in which the forward wing was replaced by a conventional biplane arrangement and a second engine added. Experiments were made first with floats and then with a wheeled undercarriage, and the aircraft was wrecked in a taxying accident at Bagatelle on the morning of 12 November 1906.
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On 21 October 1960, the initial tethered flight, performed by XP831, was conducted at Dunsfold; at this stage of development, this feat had required the airframe to have been stripped of all extraneous weight and restrictions on the engine meant it could not be run at full power for more than 2.5 minutes at a time. Several tethered flights took place, partially so that the test pilots could familiarise themselves with the hovering controls; on 4 November, the first tethered flight without use of the auto-stabiliser system was accomplished. In mid-November, conventional taxying trials were performed at speeds of up to 70 knots. P.1127 XP980 in use as a deck handling trainer in Royal Navy markings, 1989 On 19 November 1960, the first un-tethered free-flight hover of XP831 was achieved; a week later, the first publicity photos of the P.1127 were released.
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Development of the aircraft later known as the Westland Wizard began in 1925, when some of the company's engineers drew up, in their spare time, the design for a single seat racing aircraft, the Westland Racer. This was a parasol monoplane, of mixed construction, with a Duralumin and steel- tube forward fuselage covered with metal and fabric skinning, a wood and fabric rear fuselage and a wooden wing. The Westland Widgeon, also a monoplane, had influenced the designers in their choice of wing arrangement. After receiving permission from Westland's management, a prototype was constructed, powered by a surplus 275 hp (205 kW) Rolls-Royce Falcon III engine salvaged from the prototype Westland Limousine transport after the Limousine was wrecked in a taxying accident.James 1991, pp. 126–127. The Racer made its maiden flight in the spring of 1926.Mason 1992, pp. 180–181. Later that year, however, it was badly damaged in an emergency landing at Westland's Yeovil factory.
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Frank Whittle's memorial showing a full-scale model of the Gloster E28/39 Frank Whittle had first met Gloster's designer and test pilots in April 1939 and an official approach from the Air Ministry followed. As no existing aircraft was suitable for adaptation to take the new jet engine, and Gloster did not have much workload in its design department, Gloster received a contract in early 1940 – to design and build Britain's first jet aircraft. Two airframes were built in secrecy. Due to the risk of bombing, one of the aircraft was built offsite from Brockworth at Regent Motors Cheltenham.Buttler, 2004 p190-191 On 15 May 1941, the first official test flight of the Gloster E.28/39 W 4041/G with a turbo-jet engine, invented by Sir Frank Whittle took off from RAF Cranwell (earlier taxying trials, in which the E.28/39 briefly became airborne, and therefore "flew", were carried out at the company's airfield at Brockworth).James 1971, pp.240–241.
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The date of the first flight by an aircraft of the type is not on record,Barnes 1967,p 52 but the issue of Flight dated 4 June 1910 carried a photograph of the aircraft and an article which records that several successful flights had been made by Cecil Grace, referring to the aircraft as No.27."A New Short Biplane: No.27" (pdf) Flight 4 July 1910 Both S.26 and S.27 were flying by 19 June 1910. S.26 was flown by G.C. Colmore, a complete novice who, after twenty minutes of taxying trials, completed two and a half circuits of the airfield before having to land because of trouble with the engine."Rapid Progress by Mr Colmore" (pdf) Flight 25 June 1910 The following day he succeeded in qualifying for his pilot's licence, the fifteenth awarded by the Royal Aero Club. On 20 June Grace set a new British altitude record in S.27, reaching a height of ,"New British Altitude Records" (pdf) Flight 25 June 1910 and later that month flew it at the Midland Aero Club meeting held at Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton between 27 June and 2 July 1910.
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