Tags for this video have been changed from 'ika i rutan, drugs' to 'ika i rutan, drugs, cypress hill' - edited by dystopianfuturetoday

there are many issues i have with this.

1) delta-wing aircraft are almost useless for passenger air travel. they're far more efficient for flying, but you can't put people anywhere but the center, since anyone over a wing would end up sideways whenever the plane banked. also, this would fly in a mild version of the parabolic flight pattern used by the vomit comet which, i believe, is rightly so called.

2) i'd imagine these craft would be kinda useless for freight, mainly because of how much helium one would need, though i could easily be wrong on that one.

3) it's probably slow. especially the first ascent to altitude. and landing it must be a lot of fun.

that's just the first couple of things i could think of. to be fair, i have no training in aviation or aerodynamics past high school physics, which was a while ago.

that all having been said, i love seeing new innovation in engineering. anyone interested in aviation should watch this TED talk by Burt Rutan on how the US govt has allowed innovation in aviation to stagnate

^ I agree that the idea of a suborbital hayride is a little silly and superfluous. I also agree that if something goes wrong they will probably get dragged to court. It seems that the benefits outweigh the risks, for the things to be learned and experienced. Sailing around the world can easily get you killed, but there are so many reasons to do it, and so many that do.

I'm glad that Rutan, an American, is doing this because I fear that the country is losing it's place as a nation of clever, industrious innovators.

And this all appeals greatly to my sense of fun and adventure. Tomfoolery of the greatest magnitude.

But yeah, adventure sometimes ends in tears. Let's hope it doesn't.

I think the company's name is scalar composites or scaled composites, Burt Rutan is it? They're at the leading edge of combining epoxies and high tensile materials like kevlar and carbon fiber. The one girder like component a couple of guys were carefully moving (4:13) showed a honeycomb structure embedded in goo. That's one of the ways they make it so light. Neat stuff.

The Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer was designed by Burt Rutan and built by Scaled Composites. It was piloted by Steve Fossett who took off from Salina, Kansas for the 67 hour flight.

Music from Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells.