Benny Kirk
1,726 ARTICLES
NASA Tests Lunar 4G/5G LTE Communications Tech in Ancient Arizona Lava Field
8 Dec 2022, 17:53 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Communication is key when dealing with unprecedented human-crewed space missions to parts of heavenly bodies we've yet to explore. That's why NASA and the European Space Agency have a vested interest in establishing the same 4G and 5G LTE...
Replica 1997 Yakovlev Yak-9 Has WWII Charm With None Of the Drawbacks
8 Dec 2022, 13:55 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's a reason World War II-era military airplanes aren't flown regularly. Unless it's a DC-3 in arctic cargo service, it's just too expensive to maintain an old warbird for regular active flight. The threat of metal fatigue r...
This LS4-Swapped VW Beetle Traded Practicality for Tire Smoke and Burnouts
8 Dec 2022, 12:12 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / What is it about the VW New Beetle (which isn't all that new anymore) that makes people inclined to shove absurdly large engines under their hoods? Well, in the case of this DIY-made custom 1999 New Beetle, that engine is where the rear cargo ...
Audi's First Ever Formula One Concept Car Now Available to Gamers via EA's F1 22
8 Dec 2022, 04:06 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It will take at least a few years longer for Audi, one of the world's most established global racing brands, to plant its flag in a territory even they've never delved into. This would, of course, be Formula One. With the help of top-...
Hennessey ZR1 HPE 1000 Tears Up Pennzoil Proving Grounds, Proves Old Vettes Still Got It
8 Dec 2022, 03:31 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The stock Chevy Corvette C7 ZR1 is not a car most mortals can handle on their first time out. 755 horsepower from a supercharged 6.2-liter LT5 V8 fed to the rear wheels alone is not a recipe for a novice driver. But Hennessey Performance doesn'...
Custom 1961 Mercury Meteor V8 Shrugged Off Ohio Winters Like a Champ, Now for Sale
8 Dec 2022, 00:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The American Midwest is not a place that's kind to classic cars. Heck, even new cars can have trouble staying rust-free in a place lovingly nicknamed the Rust Belt. In spite of all of this, some TLC over the decades is almost as good of a rust...
Fully Restored 1970 Plymouth Cuda 440 Doesn’t Need a HEMI to Be Fabulous
7 Dec 2022, 22:38 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / With perhaps the exception of the 1963 Corvette Stingray or the 1969 Charger R/T, no other American muscle car is more lauded for one singular model year than the 1970 Plymouth Cuda. Granted, a HEMI-Cuda would serve better as a dog whistle for ...
Boeing's Last 747 Just Rolled Off the Production Room Floor, Cue the Waterworks
7 Dec 2022, 07:34 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Four howling engines, two split levels of seats, and at least 385 passengers per flight. Those are just the highlights of the accolades of the most successful quad-jet airliner ever to jump from blueprints to our mortal reality. But even the undisp...
Apollo 17 Crew Took Last Steps on the Moon 50 Years Ago This Month, It's Time to Go Back
7 Dec 2022, 00:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Fifty years ago this month, American astronaut Eugene Cernan surveyed the infinite beauty of the Moon's Taurus–Littrow region. He then took his final steps on its surface and climbed in to join his colleague Harrison Schmitt in their cra...
$10,000 Lounge Chairs Share a Designer With the Aston Martin DB7 and Ford RS200, but Why?
6 Dec 2022, 03:44 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There is something about designing world-class automobiles for some of Great Britain's most iconic brands that shout, "that man would be fantastic at interior design!" If you don't agree with us, the delightful ex-chief of desig...
Derelict 1937 Pierce Arrow Camper Trailer Was a Rich Person's Leisure Toy 85 Years Ago
6 Dec 2022, 02:12 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Camping trailers weren't always vehicles that the average joe could realistically acquire. In the late pioneer days of the automobile, that was a luxury reserved mostly for well-to-do captains of industry looking for some R&R away from big...
Power Stroke-Swapped 1979 Lincoln Continental Has Old School Class and New School Torque
5 Dec 2022, 22:09 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We'll grant you, the 1979 Lincoln Continental's OEM engine choices were by no means small or fuel-efficient. But even the engine bay in this mighty land ship is only just large enough to accommodate the new engine this resto-modded exampl...
Artemis I Makes Rocket Science Look Easy, Sets Course for Return to Earth
5 Dec 2022, 20:28 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Say what you will about the Artemis program being an expensive project. That statement in itself isn't necessarily untrue. But seeing how well Artemis I and its Orion spacecraft have faired on its first venture around the Moon, you start to se...
Ex-McLaren Engineer's EV 4x4 Enters Second Prototype Phase, Production by 2024
5 Dec 2022, 17:44 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Ben Scott-Geddes is not the kind of engineer you want to take lightly. His credentials as a member of both McLaren and Ferrari's engineering teams alone should be a testament to that. But if you need more convincing, just see what happens when...
I Don't Care if People Call It Ugly, the New i7 Is an All-Time Great BMW
4 Dec 2022, 16:55 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Okay, folks, let's talk BMW for a second. More specifically, let's talk about their i sub-brand. In the past, their lineup of plug-in EVs and Hybrids, like the i3 family car, i8 sports coupe, and even the recent iX SUV have all been prett...
Northrop Grumman's B-21 Raider Dazzles in Public Debut, Ready to Fight Very Soon
3 Dec 2022, 01:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Until today, the American B-21 Raider strategic stealth bomber was only known to the civilian sector as computer-generated graphic. But with all eyes in the military-industrial community firmly focused on Northrop Grumman, the aerospace giant forma...
This Bell UH-1H Huey Isn't Just a War Veteran, It's also a Movie Star for Hire
2 Dec 2022, 20:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / About a year ago, we took a trip to a little air museum in Western Pennsylvania that served as the foster home for several Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. Among these were a handful of Vietnam war veterans. Well, if any of these old "Hueys...
NASAs New Horizons Begins Extended 2nd Mission, Could Keep Exploring Into the 2050s
2 Dec 2022, 17:04 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If NASA's New Horizons deep space observation probe were playing a video game, you could say it's at the stage where it's defeated the game's final boss and is about to embark on a side quest that takes as much time to complete ...
Think NASA's SLS Rocket is Bonkers? Block 1B Will Be Even More Insane
1 Dec 2022, 09:03 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Many people were very mean to NASA's SLS super-heavy booster when it saw back-to-back-to-back consecutive launch scrubs caused by everything from faulty engine temperature sensors to leaky hydrogen fuel tank seals and, finally, the largest Flo...
NASA Supercomputer Plots Detailed Map of Mysterious Black Hole Ejecta, Looks Psychedelic
1 Dec 2022, 05:58 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Black holes are perhaps the most mystifying, naturally occurring phenomenon in the universe known to modern science. For all that mankind marvels at their destructive power through their portrayal in films and TV. NASA supercomputers are painting a...