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Monday 31 July 2017

The Demise of Antonov Cargo Aircraft

The Ukraine government has just recently commenced a special commission to manage the process of liquidating aircraft maker Antonov.
Antonov was established in 1946 as a top secret top-secret Soviet aviation design and research bureau. It manufactured passenger, cargo, and special purpose aircraft. Among the company's best-known aircraft are the giant AN124 Ruslan and An-225 Mriya cargo planes. The world's largest airplane AN225 was built to carry the Soviet Buran shuttle orbiter.
In 2010, Antonov and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) signed a deal to form a joint company. They agreed to cooperate in marketing, sales, design, and production of military, civilian and cargo aircraft as well as modifying new Antonov airplanes.
Most recently however, the Ukrainian government has forced Antonov, a state owned company, to sever its contract with UAC, leading to its liquidation. This comes as part of a wider action to freeze all Ukrainian-Russian Projects.
The demise of Antonov will leave a huge gap in the project airfreight market as there simply isn't any other aircraft currently flying commercially that have the same heavy lift capability that these incredible aircraft do.


It will be sad to see these aircraft eventually go even though the demand for them has decreased with the downturn in resources globally.
The last time I was on board an Antanov was at the Avalon Airshow in Victoria earlier this year. The last three pictures in this blog were taken there. This aircraft was not only on display but carrying American Apache helicopters back to the US after the show.
Please contact myself or the team at Depth Logistics for any heavy lift cargo you may ever need to transport.
All for now,

Thursday 22 June 2017

Why Interstellar Travel Will Be Possible Sooner Than You Think

The term “moonshot” is sometimes invoked to denote a project so outrageously ambitious that it can only be described by comparing it to the Apollo 11 mission to land the first human on the Moon. The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative transcends the moonshot descriptor because its purpose goes far beyond the Moon. The aptly-named project seeks to travel to the nearest stars.

The brainchild of Russian-born tech entrepreneur billionaire Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot was announced in April 2016 at a press conference joined by renowned physicists including Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson. While still early, the current vision is that thousands of wafer-sized chips attached to large, silver lightsails will be placed into Earth orbit and accelerated by the pressure of an intense Earth-based laser hitting the lightsail.

After just two minutes of being driven by the laser, the spacecraft will be traveling at one-fifth the speed of light—a thousand times faster than any macroscopic object has ever achieved.

Each craft will coast for 20 years and collect scientific data about interstellar space. Upon reaching the planets near the Alpha Centauri star system, an the onboard digital camera will take high-resolution pictures and send these back to Earth, providing the first glimpse of our closest planetary neighbors. In addition to scientific knowledge, we may learn whether these planets are suitable for human colonization.




While this endeavor may sound like science fiction, there are no known scientific obstacles to implementing it. This doesn’t mean it will happen tomorrow: for Starshot to be successful, a number of advances in technologiesare necessary. The organizers and advising scientists are relying upon the exponential rate of advancement to make Starshot happen within 20 years.

Here are 11 key Starshot technologies and how they are expected to advance exponentially over the next two decades.

1. Exoplanet Detection
An exoplanet is a planet outside our Solar System. While the first scientific detection of an exoplanet was only in 1988, as of 01 May 2017 there have been 3,608 confirmed detections of exoplanets in 2,702 planetary systems. While some resemble those in our Solar System, many have fascinating and bizarre features, such as rings 200 times wider than Saturn’s.

2. The reason for this deluge of discoveries? A vast improvement in telescope technology.
Just 100 years ago the world’s largest telescope was the Hooker Telescope at 2.54 meters. Today, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope consists of four large 8.2-meter diameter telescopes and is now the most productive ground-based facility in astronomy, with an average of over one peer-reviewed, published scientific paper per day.

3. Launch Cost
The Starshot mothership will be launched aboard a rocket and release a thousand starships. The cost of transporting a payload using one-time-only rockets is immense, but private launch providers such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have recently demonstrated success in reusable rockets which are expected to substantially reduce the price. SpaceX has already reduced costs to around $60 million per Falcon 9 launch, and as the private space industry expands and reusable rockets become more common, this price is expected to drop even further.

4. The Starchip
Each 15-millimeter-wide Starchip must contain a vast array of sophisticated electronic devices, such as a navigation system, camera, communication laser, radioisotope battery, camera multiplexer, and camera interface. The expectation we’ll be able to compress an entire spaceship onto a small wafer is due to exponentially decreasing sensor and chip sizes.

For Starshot to succeed, we will need the chip’s mass to be about 0.22 grams by 2030, but if the rate of improvement continues, projections suggest this is entirely possible.

5. The Lightsail
The sail must be made of a material which is highly reflective (to gain maximum momentum from the laser), minimally absorbing (so that it is not incinerated from the heat), and also very light weight (allowing quick acceleration). These three criteria are extremely constrictive and there is at present no satisfactory material.

6. Energy Storage

While the Starchip will use a tiny nuclear-powered radioisotope battery for its 24-year-plus journey, we will still need conventional chemical batteries for the lasers. The lasers will need to employ tremendous energy in a short span of time, meaning that the power must be stored in nearby batteries.

7. Lasers
Thousands of high-powered lasers will be used to push the lightsail to extraordinary speeds.

8. Speed
Achieving 20% speed of light for Starshot would represent a 1000x speed increase for any human-built object.

9. Memory Storage

Fundamental to computing is the ability to store information. Starshot depends on the continued decreasing cost and size of digital memory to include sufficient storage for its programs and the images taken of Alpha Centauri star system and its planets.

10. Telecommunication
Once the images are taken the Starchip will send the images back to Earth for processing.

The bandwidth and speed required for Starshot to send digital images over 4 light years—or 20 trillion miles—will require taking advantage in the latest telecommunications technology.One promising technology is Li-Fi, a wireless approach which is 100 times faster than WIFI. 

11. Computation

The final step in the Starshot project is to analyze the data returning from the spacecraft. To do so we must take advantage of the exponential increase in computing power, benefiting from the  trillion-fold increase in computing over the 60 years.

All for now,
+Brad Skelton 

Thursday 25 May 2017

Farmfest 2017 - See Depth Logistics there



Depth Logistics at Farmfest 2017.jpg
Depth Logistics will be proudly exhibiting at Farmfest 2017, Queensland's premier primary industry field days. This years event runs from 06 - 08 June at Kingsthorpe Park, Toowoomba.

Be sure to drop by site #S/18b, right near the Machinery and Vehicle Demonstration area, and say hello to the team! We look forward to meeting you and answering any and all of your freight forwarding questions and enquiries.

+Julie Magnone , +Anna Queiroz from Depth Travel+Brittney Bowerman and I will all be onsite at various stages throughout Farmfest.

We hope to see you there.

Thursday 6 April 2017

The excellence is back at Depth Travel


Depth Travel’s brand promise is “For Excellence in Travel”. I was one of the original founders in 1998 and honestly speaking I think the company has failed to really “live” that promise consistently for our clients in recent years and progression stalled. This is no longer the case. My executive team and I have been busy re engineering, optimising and transforming every aspect of our business and service to you to ensure it is truly excellent and world class.

Like all other Depth companies our approach is to uncompromisingly deliver our clients the best service and technology available at affordable prices. Depth Travel has an expanded service offering, a greater corporate travel focus and a range of new initiatives.

My team and I are there for you more than ever before with a true 24/7 service available by phone on our new toll free number 1DEPTH (133784) or you can reach us on LIVE chat via our new website.

If you haven’t booked with us recently I hope that you might give us another opportunity to prove to you that we do have our “excellence” back with a vengeance and demonstrate our new capabilities and strengths.

I would welcome your call and any feedback you may have for me, good or bad, that may help us in our pursuit of excellence.

+Brad Skelton
Managing Director
Depth Travel

Sunday 5 February 2017

Rolls Royce shipping gamechanger arriving fast

I have made posts in the past showing how technology is transforming transportation at all levels.

Rolls Royce have an amazing vision for the future that cannot be ignored as most of the technology already exists. Integration is the key.

Here is a phenomenal YouTube clip showing what is coming.


All for now

Saturday 19 November 2016

Lockheed Martin Airships are the next generation in transport

About four years ago +Julie Magnone and I were meeting with one of our energy logistics clients. We had been engaged for our oversize logistics expertise to collaborate with their engineers in designing modules of their gas production plant. The goal being to optimise the design for operational efficiency, cost effective construction and transport.
From a pure construction and operational integrity standpoint the engineers were wanting to build modules as large as possible. So large that it made the land transport task impossible. We could easily transport the module sizes they wanted from overseas to the Port of Brisbane but getting them to site in central Queensland at that size was impossible due to numerous overhead bridges, power lines, railway lines, narrow roads etc en-route.
I remember clearly one of the engineers refusing to accept it was impossible and seriously demanding that we find airships that could move the cargo to site from the Port of Brisbane. Julie and I left the meeting thinking that he was slightly mad but nonetheless we did some research anyway and at that time there wasn't any airship flying capable of lifting more than a few tonnes at the most.
Well...not anymore thanks to Lockheed Martin.

A prototype, like the one pictured, is operational. It has a 7X improved cargo payload compared to what we found in earlier generation airships of 21000kg. The cargo bay is 18m long x 3m wide x 3m high and able to accommodate standard shipping containers and various other types of loads.
These airships can travel at a speed of 60 knots or 111km/h and have a range of about 2500km. Due to a special air cushion landing system, much like a hovercraft concept, they can land on water as well.
For transport into remote areas these airships are far superior than helicopters in nearly every respect. They are quieter and more fuel efficient as well!

While the current prototype still could not solve the transport task our client set for us it is fair to say it probably won't be too long before cargo bays and payloads starting increasing making Airship cargo transport a commercial reality.
Depth Airships here we come!
All for now,

Tuesday 1 November 2016

NYK, MOL and K Line to merge container operations

Yesterday the three largest Japanese shipping lines Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd. (K-Line), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) announced their agreement, subject to sign off by their respective boards and shareholder/regulatory approval, to establish a new joint-venture company and to integrate their container shipping operations.

M&A activity is sweeping the shipping industry globally as carriers in the wake of the Hanjin Shipping receivership fight to survive. The current wave of M&A activity is more about addressing structural industry issues by strengthening balance sheets, addressing poor investor returns and adapting to a low growth environment.

The industry still suffers from surplus capacity so M&A activity is needed to realign carriers and find synergies in cost reduction, economies of scale, improved competitive positioning and better protection from the prevailing weak industry fundamentals.

This announcement is another positive step for the industry where a significant number of carriers have not made money in the recent years. People that were affected by Hanjin's demise know the problems this caused and is still causing so hopefully another failure by a major carrier can be avoided.


The industry must navigate it's way back to a healthy and sustainable performance for all stakeholders as fast as it can.
All for now,