Dams use spillways to prevent overflow and to minimize the risk of damage to the dam. The one you see here is the spillway for Napa’s Monticello Dam, often called Glory Hole locally. With California finally getting rain, the glory hole is being used to manage water levels in Lake Berryessa. It may not be that easy to get a sense of scale from the image alone, but this one is massive. The spillway drains 48000 cubic feet of water per second into the Putah Creek.
drones
Hoverbikes Of The Future Will Remember Scorpion 3 As Their Glorious Ancestor
Russian startup Hoversurf is showing off the Scorpion 3, which they claim will be the first commercially available hoverbike. Scorpion 3 is a fully-manned quadcopter that intends to bring “flying to the masses.” Running on electric power, the vehicle employs quadcopter drone technology and with a motorcycle seat slapped in, it’s all set to be a flying machine.
SELFLY: A Drone As Your iPhone Case
Selfie sticks look ridiculous, and quite honestly, don’t have half the swag of a drone taking flight for your selfie. Not to mention that your phone flying to take your selfie looks super cool. Meet SELFLY, a new concept that is an “autonomous flying camera” device and doubles up as a phone case.
Flame Throwing Drone Burns Trash Off High Voltage Lines
An electric power maintenance company in Xiangyang, China is using drones to burn trash off high-voltage lines. Plastic bags and other debris often gets stuck on the high voltage lines, and it isn’t quite safe to send a human to fix that problem. Enter the fire breathing octocopter that burns the crap out of all that crap. We suspect engineers managing these drones would be quite eager to give a demonstration of their skills, or thoroughly clean every inch of the lines. There are a couple more pics, but unfortunately no video of the drone in action.
Renault Off Roader Concept Packs Its Very Own Companion Drone
Renault’s offering at the New Delhi Auto Show was the KWID off-roader concept, which apart from the features it offers shall always be better known for including a companion drone. The quadcopter drone lays hidden in a rear pivoting roof section, and flies off on command from an integrated console manager in the car.
Amazon Intends to Employ Flying Robot Drones For Deliveries
Amazon is getting ready for a new Amazon Prime Air program which, to put it simple and short, will have packages delivered to consumers in thirty minutes or less by means of unmanned aerial vehicles. A video of a recent test flight of the delivery drones in action shows just how efficient they can be, and why we would randomly order a couple of products just to see the drones bring them home.
Domino’s Wants Drones To Deliver Pizza [video]
Drones have spent most of their life in war, although it would believably make sense if their weapons were replaced by some other payload. Domino’s wants that payload to be pizza. The eight blade DomiCopter would fly with its order of pizzas, delivering them at the door. It isn’t all that weird though, we have …
Drones Fly Beer To You
Drones have come a long way. Rather than merely be suitable for barbaric acts like war, they have started to become more civilized and can now be seen flying beer to patrons. This particular drone took flight at South Africa’s OppiKoppi music festival where customers would order beer by phone and the drone would carry parachute packed beer and drop it near the intended customer. Drones, beer falling from the sky, music, well that’s pretty much how things should be.