Sho Fukamachi Online

Check out this video of a high-spec RC helicopter being flown by famous pilot Alan Szabo.

Or even better if you’ve got some bandwidth watch the top video on this page (sorry - the idiots don’t allow direct linking).

Having become accustomed to the typical flight characteristics of full-size helicopters, one forgets that the limitations of that flight are not imposed by the form factor of the vehicle - as amply demonstrated by this video! They are, in fact, imposed by material strength, power to weight, and human factors - both the ability of the human pilot to withstand high-G manuevering, and also his basic ability to retain a spatial understanding of his position and movements.

One can predict that given a combination of the orders-of-magnitude increases in materials strength-to-weight promised by nanotechnology, and advances in telepresence, we could conceivably see some descendant of the Apache acting in a similar way over some future battlefield ..

UPDATE: RC indoor aeroplane ballet:

If the Wikipedia entry discussing Weird Al Yankovic’s music video for “White and Nerdy” isn’t the height of unwitting self-parody, I don’t know what is. Highlights:

The equation in the background of the chorus is Schrödinger’s wave equation for the hydrogen atom; however, there is an error in that Planck’s constant (denoted h) is displayed in place of Dirac’s constant (denoted ħ).

At the end of the video, Al flashes the Vulcan salute in place of a gang sign; though he uses Surak’s variant from the episode The Savage Curtain rather than the more standard salute.

Jesus H Christ. It reads like an Onion parody.

Look at the mimicry by this baby of adults talking on the phone. He’s got the cadence and general sound of the conversation, the aimless walk pattern, and the phone-holding pose down. He even says “shit!”.

Kind of spooky.