Lotus is reopening its Hethel production facility to the public. Factory tours at the ‘home of Lotus’ will start on Monday 4th April 2022. Lotus has been making performance cars at Hethel, just outside Norwich in Norfolk, since 1966. In November 2017 they suspended their factory tours...
The Cukrownia Żnin (“Znin Sugar Factory”) in Poland is an industrial heritage project, repurposing an old sugar factory and preserving its magnificent 19th century buildings. Up until 2004, it produced sugar from beets. Now it is a hotel complex. If you like industrial design and architecture, this...
It’s a serious piece of engineering, can you guess what Blue X is? Blue X is a wave machine, designed by Mocean Energy to generate green energy from the movement of the waves. Essentially, it pivots in the middle, and that’s where the generator is. This 10-kW...
The Morgan Motor Company has just today, unveiled its latest model – The Super 3, a 3-wheeled sports car with 21st century design & tech. Morgan, now 113 years old, was famous from the outset for its range of three-wheeled sports cars, which they continued to make...
The fifth and latest Disney Cruise Line ship, Disney Wish, was floated out of the massive Meyer Werft construction hall in Papenberg, Germany, last week, and she is the first new ship for Disney to be fuelled by low-emission Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Many ferries & commercial...
The long-awaited new sea lock at IJmuiden opens on Weds (26 Jan). This massive marine engineering project at the gateway to the North Sea Canal (Noordzeekanaal) which leads to Amsterdam, got underway back in 2016. Now, finally* the new lock, which replaces the old North Lock (Noordersluis)**...
I-124 was a WWII Japanese submarine that was sunk with all hands (80 crew) by Allied forces on 20 Jan 1942 while on a mine-laying mission in the Beagle Gulf, Australia. She lies in 46 metres (150 ft) of water, 84 kilometres north-west of Darwin, NT. In...
Next time you go to Bletchley Park, you might want to take a look beforehand at this really clear and simple explanation of how the WW2 German Enigma machine worked. It’s the latest video in Jared Owen’s series of 3D animations explaining how things work, and it...
The luxury hotel brand Kempinski is to open a floating hotel in Dubai in 2023. The Kempinski Floating Palace will be anchored next to one of the most exclusive beach stretches in Dubai on Jumeirah Beach Road. The main hotel building will be surrounded by 12 floating...
The city of Erie in Pennsylvania on the east bank of Lake Erie, is considering the creation of a new ship museum using a Cold War era, Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate. The connection is Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the 19th century American naval commander, who...
The Antoigné Foundry (Fonderie d’Antoigné) is an industrial heritage centre* run by volunteers of the Antoigné-Chappée Founders Association. It is located on the former site of a large ironworks, originally a small forge established in the 17th century at Antoigné in the commune of Sainte Jamme sur...
Last week saw the very first competitive race for the new sport of flying car racing or eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-off & Landing) racing. The landmark event, held in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, was a simple drag race between two remotely piloted ‘Airspeeders’, but soon...
Shanghai-based avtech company, Autoflight, has debuted its autonomous fixed-wing passenger electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) concept at the China Airshow in Zhuhai. The V1500M, which is designed to carry 3-4 passengers at 200 km/h for up to 250 kilometres, is expected to have its maiden...
This is NOT a question grounded in any kind of reality, it’s a purely hypothetical question. What if there was a restorable airframe, and if a suitable power plant could be found, and if there was the funding, facilities, expertise and willingness to restore any WW2 era...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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