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NASA Offers $1.5 Million For 200MPG Aircraft
coondoggie writes to mention that NASA's Green Flight Challenge is offering up to $1.5 million for an aircraft that can hit 200 passenger miles per gallon while maintaining 100 mph on a 200 mile flight. "The Challenge is intended to bring about the development and convergence of new technologies and innovations that can improve the community acceptance, efficiency, door-to-door speed, utility, environmental-friendliness, affordability and safety of future air vehicles, CAFÉ stated. Such technologies and innovations include, but are not limited to, bio-fueled propulsion, breakthroughs in batteries, motors, fuel-cells and ultra-capacitors that enable electric-powered flight, advanced high lift technologies for very short takeoff and landing distances, ultra-quiet propellers, enhanced structural efficiency by advances in material science and nano-technology and safety features such as vehicle parachutes and air-bags."
When your train flies.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Wait I just realized, if you are allowed to use passengers as fuel using obese people might be better after all.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
If you only have one passenger and are going 200 miles on one gallon, probably nothing.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I don't see any rules requiring a safe landing either. I wonder how large a trebuchet I could make for less than $1.5m...
Yeah, thank god noone in the airline industry ever heard of the term "hub and spoke". Can you imagine, hours of layovers or racing from one end of a mega terminal to the other because you have to get a "connecting flight". Not to mention the endless possibilities for the airline to lose your luggage.
Thankfully, all that remains firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Only if it can be turtles all the way down from there
Sig: I don't spell check and this is legit. This was written while I was drunk, and quite possibly with m eyes closed, b
A prop and wheels would also be nice
Put big wheels on the back and a small wheels on the front so it's always rolling downhill. Great for fuel economy!
Yes, I can see it now. One hundred doctors and 100 obese patients, using the jet engine intake for their magical liposuction wands. Is fat combustible?
Captain: I'm sorry. We don't have enough fuel for this much cargo.
Doctor: Oh don't worry. We will by the time we get there.