Technology Bytes

The air show itself gets underway Tuesday, with a presidential visit and it promises to be a fine spectacle. We'll get a first look at some of the best new civilian and military aircraft being developed today, as well as some unusual and, some would argue, wacky inventions that may or very possibly may not offer a glimpse into the direction aviation design will be heading in the future.

A quick look at the program reveals that there will be more than 700 exhibitors from 34 countries around the globe rolling out the trestle tables and bunting to dazzle visitors, if they can lure their eyes away from what history tells us will be a fairly breathtaking array of aerial demonstrations.

Of course Technology Update will be there, soaking up ideas and doing our damnedest to bring you a look at some of the highlights for our latest episode, due out on the 26th of the month.

We're going to be investigating what's getting Russia's big helicopter manufacturer, Kamov, all in a spin, taking a look at the new Sukhoi Superjet and road-testing some smaller, but no less interesting, projects taxing the brains of some of Russia's best designers.

In preparation for this task, the team and I spent a very interesting couple of hours on Saturday talking to one such designing individual in person.

Vladimir Pirojkov has one of those life stories that just wouldn't seem believable if you read it as a synopsis on the back of a DVD your girlfriend was trying to make you watch on one of those glum "cosy nights in" that young men of a certain age and temperament allow themselves to be subjected to in the interests of harmony in the homestead (sigh). Now before I go any further let's get a few things straight: I like the man a lot. He was fascinating company, humorous, as sharp as a knife and just a teensy bit off-the-wall which, in my opinion, is the best place for inventors and original thinkers to be. But the Hollywood version would lose all that completely. All the good stuff would be lacquered over with a gloopy layer of Hollywood schmaltz, to a degree that would make it a) unwatchable and b) farther from the actual truth than if you set the whole thing on the moon and insisted on substituting all essential characters for glove puppets. Sorry, what am I thinking...the glove puppets would support Tom Hanks, who'd look all worthy and humble and rubbish.

Anyway, back to the real Mr Pirojkov. What a guy! Set off to Switzerland with $5 in his pocket and the idea that he was going to become a great designer. And now he is. So you see why Miramax and the like would like the story and why Tom Flippin' Hanks would be foaming at the mouth to play the part, (If I see that man in one more film with the tag-line "Good honest people in a god fearing world" I'll scream). His CV is pretty impressive (Pirojkov not Hanks): high-level projects for Citroen and Toyota, involvement on the Sukhoi Superjet, and now he's turning his attention to how helicopters can have a completely new role in our lives over the next fifty years.

I'm not going to explain his ideas here. Written down by a clod like me, they would seem crazy, or at least a little unrealistic. The spark of an original thinker snuffed out by the prose. But I think he might be on to something.

As he says himself, the man is a futurist, looking for new approaches; new ways of looking at things. If I'd been to management school and loaded my mind with the witless jingo they churn out to justify their existences, I'd say he "Thinks outside the box". But I haven't, so I won't.

But think of this:

1) Ordinary people flying personal helicopters like jeeps as their own little runarounds

2) 50-cent straws you buy off the shelf in a supermarket that use nano-particles to create drinking water from a base supply rather than huge factories

3) A global Russian "brand" that encompasses desirability with utility. Japan has “high tech”, Germany has “efficiency”, Britain does “history”. Russia as a synonym for “rugged reliability”.

Sneer if you want, but what Mr Pirojkov convinced me was that all ideas should be approached with a simple question: why not? If someone says it can't be done, ask them why? And who are they to tell you anything anyway? A lot of the great inventions were pooh-poohed by the inventors’ peers.

As Jonathon Swift said, "“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

That's all for now. Hope to see some of you at the MAKS show. If I do, please say hello. Please don't say, "You're much shorter than you look on TV", as a smack in the mouth often offends.

Until next time...

You see I hate flying. I am not a good passenger. Aeroplanes and I are anathema to one another. Before I came to Moscow I could not have taken a kite out for the afternoon on frequent flyer miles. Prior to my twenty-seventh birthday I had taken two return flights and that was more than enough for me thank you very much. Things have changed due the circumstances of my employment for an international news station in such a vast country, but my hackles still rise at the thought of trusting my life and immortal soul (It's so hard to find a good confessional in modern airports, don't you find?)to an enlarged cigar tube navigated by a man in the frankly weird uniform of short sleeves and a tie.

Please spare me the statistics, I have no interest in them. You can prove anything you like with facts, in my opinion. What we are dealing with here is the baseless belief that I am doomed to a slow, and mentally tortuous, death as soon as I walk past the impossibly made up lady who checks the tickets with a joyless smile on her face that is perhaps rendered all the more unbelievable by the fact you know that uniform and those heels are just not in any way comfortable.

The horrors for me begin with the safety demonstration. You see I was carefully brought up and right up there with her sage advice to look both ways before crossing the road and not to trust strangers in dirty macintoshes who offered to show me puppies, mummy told me not to trust people who will tell you bald faced lies while looking you dead in the eye. One may smile, and smile and be a villain, even in silly shoes and an itchy uniform. And so it begins, all that old guff about "In the unlikely event of an emergency landing over water." Oh please!! Have you ever belly flopped into a pool and felt that sharp smack like a child's reprimand hit you across torso from nipples to navel? Yeah? In the unlikely event we hit the water we'll be spread for miles, whether or not I curl up in a little ball. I shall never have the opportunity to tear the slide with my shoes, pop up the air supply in my life jacket or blow that silly little whistle. I'm twenty-eight not eight, lets discuss a plane crash like adults please Miss Stewardess, no sugar with the pill, if you don't mind. I want an airline I can believe in. Should anyone approach me as a media non-entity who would do the job for a bag of crisps and a can of Fanta my own safety announcement would run something as follows:

"In the unlikely event we crash into the sea, (but let's face it if you spin a roulette wheel enough times all the numbers come up once in a while don't they?), then we're all probably going to die. We did our best, but that's life, eh. What can you say? So if we get the nod that we're all about to spin off this mortal coil then we'll be going up and down the aisles as fast as we can throwing items of duty free at you to enjoy, we can take none of it with us, so fill your boots up. While you're at it feel free to smoke, use mobile phones and if you so desire attempt hasty and embarrassment free copulation with the person next to you, no-one will be telling on you now will they?"

At least I would feel that my intelligence, such as it is, was not being insulted.

But anyway. Flying is something I have been doing a lot this month in preparation for our new aviation show. Sergey, our frighteningly good, very persuasive Director, has had me tripping through the clouds in Gyrocopters that look like something the A-team knocked up under the influence of strong and heady liquor, and microlights so tiny and weeny that the little perishers allow you to feel every little puff and whisper of wind like a hurricane buffeting you about the midships. All while filming my terrified reactions so you can titter at the silly little man on the telly imploring God to deliver him from evil.

At times I felt like some harrowing chapters deleted from the Book of Job so as not to scare the Gideons.

Still, it looks like it should be a good watch for you all, and aside from the silly man screaming there are quite a few things you might find interesting if you like flying and such pastimes. Or if you are a sadist who likes to watch real human suffering close up.

I bet you do, you look the type.

I left lovely Moscow and went back to my rural homelands in the far north of England and escaped the 21st century all together. It was great. I enjoyed simple pleasures that our generation seldom get to experience. I spurned the internet, my mobile phone, GPS and all of that type of thing. It was a blissful break.

Picture the scene. It was a quiet Sunday evening. I was ensconced in my favourite chair in my mum and dad’s house. The dog was asleep on my lap and I was holding a glass of something flavorful of a vintage that to my expert palette was definitely red. The house phone rings, and I simply lolled the head to one side and announced that should this call be for me I was not in. When was the last time you could get Callminder to tell your friends, the taxman, the bank or some other troublesome sod lies to prevent you having to get up? Never, that’s when.

Plans to meet up with friends were not changed. As I had no device for people to announce that they’d be 45 minutes late and meet us in another bar, or the restaurant or whatever. I arrived at the set venue ten minutes tardy and everyone was there. It was like I’d organised my own surprise party.

No facebook updates, no offers for cut-price viagra, no frankly unfeasible requests from seemingly very accommodating college students in America begging me to add them on MSN because I look “hot”. Let’s be honest, you and me: if you really are a highly desirable co-ed, you are not trawling the web looking for portly, pasty journalists of below average height to have typed conversations with when you could be out having real fun.

I did not miss the internet.

I got merrily lost walking the dog in the forests and although it all took an hour longer than I expected, it was far more fun than having a route carved out for you by a dull system of satellites. Molly and I would never had been chased by cows had we stuck to the footpath, and I would still be oblivious to the fact that I can still hurdle a barbed wire fence when the need arises, even if I have gone a bit native.

So, I’m back now... pardon your prodigal correspondent and let’s carry on where we left off. And I like my phone and being able to be flexible. I thank the good lord (be that Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Peter Clohessy, whoever) for Google and the Internet and the ability to book flights online. And without GPS, Moscow is just a giant grid of parked cars.

So, to continue the tortured relationship trope I’ve been trotting out all through this entry, I guess, dear reader, my view of you is the same as my view of the 21st century’s gadgets and gizmos. I adore you to bits, but I don’t want you in my life every day. That’s love I suppose. x