A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
The F-35's ejector seat "failed to meet neck-injury criteria" and the jet had a "limited ability to respond to threats", the US defence department has said. The jet's development, by Lockheed Martin, has already cost $1 trillion (£0.7tn), partly funded by the UK. Previously, its UK planned deployment date was put back from 2012 to 2023. "It's one of the most delayed and problematic fighter programmes in history," said Justin Bronk, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). "If this sort of news keeps coming out in terms of continued problems with the testing... it's potentially embarrassing," he told. Mr Bronk said that while the aircraft could be deployed in its current state, pilots would not be able to fly with as much freedom as planned because of the many technical limitations. But he added: "They will make this thing work because they have no choice, there's no alternative. ...