Breathtaking images of high-tech airline machinery, homemade 747 simulators, and edge-of-the-seat onboard videos from Formula 1 race cars.
Airliners.net
This site has a huge collection of some of the most breathtaking images of planes we've ever seen. There is a list of almost 1.5 million photos in total, including such gems as a Russian MIG-29UB in flight, fascinating detail of an A380 cockpit instrument control panel, action shots showing evasive maneuvering, near disasters, and giant contrails. The appeal here is partly the amazing photography, and partly the fact that these are photos of real life aircraft in the field - it's plane spotting heaven, with a huge database that lets you browse by place, country or airline, photographs of airports, air-to-air photos, helicopter photos, night photos, and classic airliners from the "good old days". There's also a database of aircraft performance data and history, where for example, you'll find an engine and spec sheet on the Airbus A380. Long-haul plane journeys can result in a fascination with airlines and the machinery of flight, and if that's you then this site is the ultimate place to feed your curiosity.
Mycockpit
Nothing quite captures the homebrew spirit and the technical appeal of flight simulator cockpits than photos of an A320 shell sitting in someone's garage. There are many flight simulator sites, including Australia's VatPac sim community and the Vatsim training site, but Mycockpit.org stands apart for one reason: photos of homebrew simulator cockpits. There's closeups of instrument panels, photos of proud owners sitting in their cockpits and, for comparison, a gallery of actual flight decks from real planes. As the Vatpac site says, "we strive for realism, so this isn't the place for those that want to be in the ‘game' category." Indeed, reports say one Sydney man spent $300,000 on a homemade 747-400 simulator. For flight sim enthusiasts, this is perhaps the ultimate ride.
Formula1.com
Register for free for the Live Timing feed, and on race day you get real-time data streamed to your PC from the Formula 1 Management's Technical Facility at the actual race track. The screens show driver info, position, lap times, sector times, ambient and track temperatures, humidity, wind speed and direction and speed-trap data. There's also a lap chart showing the progress of each driver. The site also has something else we love about Formula 1 but can't get enough of on TV: full lap onboard race videos from within the car itself.
Autopia
As a place to find something interesting about cars every day, it's a tough call between this site and the Jalopnik blog. What we like about Autopia is the broad-brush approach to everything that's interesting about vehicles, whether it be classy photography, historical links, prototypes, motorcycles, mechanics and design. On any given day, Autopia also gives you a taste of several types of motoring, cutting across Formula 1 to NASCAR, classic roadsters, and motorcycles.