Revolution in the skies - Airbus flies electric plane E-Fan across the English Channel

Airbus flew its electric E-Fan plane across the English Channel from Lydd to Calais. It happened soon after an independent French pilot made a similar voyage. Hugues Duval flew his twin-engine, one-seat Cricri plane from Calais to Dover and back. He, thus, beat Airbus, the aeronautics giant in this symbolically important step toward making electronic flight viable in the long term.
This has been reported in abcnews.go.com dated 10 July 2015.

The Airbus plane operates exclusively on batteries. There is no need for oil or water and, the 20-foot long, 1300-pound jet releases zero emissions.
The E-fan had done its maiden voyage in March 2014, and has taken off 100 times since its latest flight at the Paris Air Show last month. It plans to put the two-seater on the market in 2017 and target training facilities for entry-level pilots.
The plane flown by the Hugues Duval, French pilot had reached a speed of 150_kmpf on his 52-Km journey. Obviously, the age of flying using non-conventional fuel is gradually gaining prominence. After the flight in a solar powered plane around the world, it is now the turn of electric planes – these would fly on batteries.
A number of companies in different countries are already developing electric planes. All of them want to offer a fuel-free flight alternative for the future which will be free from pollution and would be environment friendly.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Illegal immigrants threaten imports of fruits and vegetables in Calais

#Calais #TheresaMay #illegalimmigrants While illegal immigrants pose innumerable problems for Britain, the newest to get added is the import of fruit and vegetables through Calais – fresh foods are considered to be contaminated if a singly immigrant is there in the containers or lorries that carry the fresh farm products. Accordingly, steps are taken to destroy the complete load of the truck or lorry.
If this continues, Britain will face a serious shortage of supplies of fresh food because entire truck-loads of imported fruit and vegetables are being destroyed if a migrant is found inside a transportation vehicle.
Home Secretary Theresa May has agreed to hold an urgent meeting with the ‘increasingly worried’ food industry on order to evolve methods of better protecting imported food from stowaways. During the Christmas period, large quantities of vegetables destined for supermarkets and other retailers had to be ‘condemned’ for this reason.
Incidentally, many migrants climb on to the lorries as they are being loaded – sometimes as far away as Spain – and, many others sneak aboard later in a journey. But, the fact remains that once such a character is detected, either at the port of Calais or in the UK, the cargo is deemed ‘contaminated’, no longer fit for human consumption and destroyed.
Unless this is checked, it would lead to shortage as well as increase in prices due to the wastages.