Spirit Airlines is turning Friday the 13th into a day of luck with a new sale that has flights starting at just $44.
25.09.2023 - 12:09 / nytimes.com / Joby Aviation
The Air Force said on Monday that it had received its first electric passenger aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, a milestone for the companies that hope to one day sell thousands of such vehicles to serve as air taxis.
Joby Aviation, an air taxi start-up, delivered the aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, where the first supersonic flight took place. Air taxis are typically powered by batteries and designed to lift off and land like helicopters, but include wings to fly like airplanes.
Joby, which is based in Santa Cruz, Calif., said that its electric aircraft is substantially quieter than helicopters or planes. Each can carry one pilot and four passengers and travel as fast as 200 miles per hour and as far as 100 miles, according to the company.
The delivery is the first under an Air Force contract that Joby said was valued at up to $131 million and gives the government the option to receive up to nine aircraft. The Air Force and Joby will operate the vehicle, but Joby will still own the aircraft and receive both fixed and variable payments for hours flown. NASA, which has a facility at the base, will also conduct research on the vehicle.
The Air Force has signed similar contracts with other air taxi companies under a program called Agility Prime, part of a broader effort to promote innovation. Agility Prime’s mission is to support development of air taxis and similar technology, giving the Air Force a head start in exploring how it might use such aircraft while also providing financial and testing support to the air taxi companies.
“It is incredibly valuable for us to be getting to do early operations and to build the operational muscle,” Joby’s chief executive, JoeBen Bevirt, said. The collaboration will help Joby in several ways, including in learning how best to train pilots and maintain and charge aircraft in real-world situations.
Joby and other air taxi companies, including Archer Aviation and Beta Technologies, are separately rushing to get the Federal Aviation Administration to certify their aircraft for commercial flight. All three companies hope to begin commercial service as soon as 2025. The F.A.A. has said it is preparing to support robust air taxi operations by 2028.
But because the agency does not govern aircraft used by the military, air taxi companies have eagerly pursued defense contracts while they work toward F.A.A. approval.
At Edwards Air Force Base, Joby’s aircraft will be tested as a means to transport cargo and people. The vehicles could also be used to monitor the expansive base or tested to conduct medical evacuations, for example. All told, the Air Force has more than 100 performance measures it wants to evaluate, said Beau
Spirit Airlines is turning Friday the 13th into a day of luck with a new sale that has flights starting at just $44.
It may be getting colder, but low-cost airline Norse Atlantic Airways is looking ahead to summer with a full schedule of budget-friendly flights between the United States and Europe.
When Delta decided to revamp its wine lists recently—across main cabin international and higher-fare classes—the airline couldn’t just sip and spit its way to a new drinks menu. For one thing, wines don’t taste the same when you’re 35,000 feet off the ground.
There have been plenty of headlines in the past few days about a lawsuit against an Airbnb guest in Brentwood, California, who has allegedly overstayed her reservation, which ended on March 19, 2022 —without paying rent for more than a year-and-a half.
If there’s a city that’ll have you daydreaming about relocating to, it’s San Diego. With winter temperatures rarely dipping below 50°F, these beaches, parks, and oceanfront grills may be enjoyed year-round. Travelers who prefer to unwind with a bud rather than a beer are in luck; recreational cannabis is legal in California and San Diego has as many marijuana dispensaries as food trucks. That so, it’s not permitted to smoke in public areas or at hotels with smoking or vaping bans. Light up in the privacy of one of these cannabis-friendly Airbnbs in San Diego with outdoor space.
Northern California is the powerhouse behind the Golden State’s world-renowned wines but that fertile soil also lends itself to something greener. Recreational marijuana is legal throughout California as long as consumption takes place on private property. Smoking, vaping, and edibles aren’t permitted in many hotels in San Francisco but you can bring any dispensary purchases back to a boutique number of downtown SF Airbnb rentals and county hemp farms. Let’s weed out the cannabis-friendly Airbnbs in and around San Francisco for some above-board hashish.
This Saturday, October 14, a solar eclipse will be seen across the Americas. From inside a 125 miles wide path stretching across the U.S. Southwest and on to Central and South America, a “ring of fire” will be glimpsed for a few minutes as a smaller-looking new moon covers only the middle 90% of the sun.
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For fans of nostalgia TV as well as avid animal and travel lovers, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom is back in a big way. Sixty years ago, this beloved show innovated the nature adventure genre, enthralled viewers with its global destinations, won multiple Emmy Awards and galvanized conservation goals and gains. It offered an eagerly anticipated, families-gathered, weekly gaze at creatures in far-flung locales to a television audience that averaged 34-million Americans for much of its initial, astonishingly lengthy 25-year run. Between then and now, weaving through subsequent decades, Wild Kingdom had been transformed again and again, showcased on Animal Planet and as a web series. Now there is a fresh fourth project, the all-new Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, which will premiere October 7 on NBC-TV (as part of its “The More You Know” programming block on Saturday mornings), as well as via NBC.com and NBC VOD. It is co-hosted by wildlife expert Peter Gros (who joined the original series in 1985) and wildlife ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., a National Geographic Society research fellow and host of the PBS podcast Going Wild. Currently primed for 26 episodes set in North America, Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild kicks off with journeys to California’s super-parched Mojave Desert for desert-dwelling tortoises, the Maine Coast for Atlantic puffins (nicknamed “parrots of the sea” because of their colorful triangular beaks), the Florida Coast for aqua-agile manatees and Austin, Texas, for high-soaring-quick-swooping Mexican free-tailed bats. I reached out to Gros and Wynn-Grant to share their behind-the-scenes insights and inspirations, as they forge modern Wild Kingdom paths, while still applauding the footsteps of legendary zoologists Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler, who, as co-hosts of the documentary show’s dawn in 1963, put this legacy wildlife wonderland on the map.
Alaska Airlines will expand its presence in San Diego next year, adding a new flight from the Southern California city to Atlanta.
Furthering its partnerships with yellow taxi cab companies, ride-hailing company Uber earlier this week announced its latest collaboration with Los Angeles Yellow Cab and its five partner taxi fleets in Southern California.
United Airlines on Thursday said it will improve air travel for passengers using wheelchairs under an agreement with the U.S. Transportation Department following a government investigation into a disability complaint.