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'Pocket Airports' Would Link Neighborhoods By Air
cylonlover writes "NASA's light-aircraft partner, CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency), is running a competition to design a low-cost, quiet, short take-off personal aircraft, that requires little, if any, fossil fuel. It envisions the resulting Suburban Air Vehicles taking off and landing at small neighborhood 'pocket airports.' At last week's Future of Electric Vehicles conference, CAFE president Dr. Brien Seeley outlined just how those airports would work."
Electric power might be a contender here, as you could use the 3 hours you will spend being x-rayed, swabbed, fingerprinted and cavity-searched before each flight to charge the battery.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
ObXKCD reference
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hey Baby... can I land my SAV in your pocket airport?
How do we keep people from amassing their own arsenals of homebrew ballistic missiles?
The first thing I thought of when I saw SAVs is soccer mom's crashing into light poles.
Thanks to pork seeking Congressmen, there are lots of small, infrequently used airports in this country. Flying safely is hard. Small airplanes are expensive. This country has enough of both. We don't need more.
Federal funding at its finest
I sometimes marvel at the size of a single road intersection: some of them are many times larger than an average person's yard!
Imagine how much land could be saved if we didn't have to dedicate so much of it to roads. I'm not sure that's what they're claiming but the thought is tantalizing.
FTA:
“The gridlock we face now is going to get worse,” Seeley stated, citing research into congestion on the world’s roads. “This is a form of insanity... We need to travel in 3D.”
Wishing more jobs offered work-at-home options! That would certainly help.
"In order to qualify for the prize, planes will have to get at least 200 mpg (1.18 L/100km), go at least 100 mph (161 kph)"
Whatever they are smoking, I want some of.
Any mechanic who works for a roadside service company can tell you that peoples cars "break down" for the oddest reasons. Not enough petrol, wrong fuel, forgot to put in oil. All sorts of stuff that simply has to be maintained and replaced and doesn't leading to failure. Running out of petrol with your car is embarrising, running out of fuel in your airplane makes you a lawn dart or worse. I don't particularly care if some soccer-mom with the IQ of a weasel (sorry weasels) gets herself killed along with her kids. But if she crashes into my house, I would get upset.
What about the weather? Snow is bringing down europe but a car caught in a snow storm just becomes stuck. An aircraft? Has to divert. How far? Small airplane, small fuel tank. Can you imagine 100 soccer mom's lining up for an icy runway when they can barely park a car in summer on an empty lot? Or for that matter the business exec who thinks his beamer is a snow mobile and plows into a lamp post? Now that lamp post will be your apartment building.
As for controlling so many aircraft, LA airport is already uncontrollable and happily parked an airliner on a small jet years ago and things haven't got much better. Can you imagine a 100 or more increase in traffic figures? And if trained pilots from other countries already cause dangerous situations because they don't speak English, what will happen if hillbillies take to the air?
Just walk the street someday and notice for fun just how many cars stall for some reason or another. Oh it is not 1 per minute, but 1 per week would already cause a number of light aircraft accidents to severly burden the coffin industry. Would you step into a one-engined airliner?
No, someday we may have the tech AND the discipline but right now, the idea of the average road user in the air would have me make my next house a bunker, a deep one. SUV's in the sky... somethings just shouldn't be.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In our current political climate, there's no way Homeland Security would allow this to work in a manner any reasonable person would consider useful - it'd get "managed" and "secured" to death. You think airport delays are ridiculous - just think about the delays seen in these pocket airports because every commuter in your area needs to be scanned/groped before being allowed to start their commute.
#DeleteChrome
"The gridlock we face now is going to get worse," Seeley stated, citing research into congestion on the world's roads. "This is a form of insanity... We need to travel in 3D."
Hmm let's see: some form of transportation to link neighborhoods, that works in 3D, to relieve gridlocks? Remove the insane flying-vehicle thing, make it cheap and practical, and you've got yourself a metro.
Instead of dreaming up shit like this, policymakers should bring back light-rail, which can work under or over streets, carries a great deal of people quickly, silently and without local air pollution, and doesn't cost a lot.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Have to agree with this. Who will be the first to afford them? Of course, the rich who already drive on the roads in their SUVs like they own the roads and generally behave like complete pricks. Imagine letting these brain dead idiots fly?
There is a fundamental difference between internal combustion engines and other technologies: they have *phenomenal* power-to-weight and energy-to-weight ratios.
There is a fundamental difference between aircraft and other vehicles: if their power-to-weight ratio is too low, they do not fly. An underpowered car is an underpowered car, but an underpowered plane is not a plane.
There is a reason why nobody invented a workable aircraft until 1905, and it's not because everybody who tried before the Wright brothers was an idiot.
==================
Example:
A set of lithium-ion batteries plus a modern electric motor of the type used in hybrid cars has a power-to-weight ratio of about 250 W/kg, and an endurance of 20-30 minutes at that power level. A small aircraft engine, including fuel tank, has a power-to-weight ratio of about 1000 W/kg, and an endurance of several hours.
For most small passenger aircraft, if you increase the weight of the power system by a factor of four, they will be too heavy to get off the ground. (Example: Cessna Skycatcher, engine weight 100 pounds, "spare" weight limit with only the pilot aboard: 150 pounds)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_162
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-weight_ratio#Electric_Motors.2FElectromotive_Generators
.
Q. How can the EmDrive produce enough thrust for terrestrial applications?
A. The second generation engines will be capable of producing a specific thrust of 30kN/kW. Thus for 1 kilowatt (typical of the power in a microwave oven) a static thrust of 3 tonnes can be obtained, which is enough to support a large car. This is clearly adequate for terrestrial transport applications.
When people started talking about flying cars the same stuff came up and the response is... Don't let Joe Soap fly it, make a computer do it.
You have to be reasonable here, either Joe has the capacity to qualify for a PPL (significantly harder than getting your license at the DMV), or you don't require a PPL, and have a machine fly the thing. This has positives like, no need for crazy-busy traffic control if the planes can talk to each other.
The only PROBLEM I see with that is a failure which will REQUIRE the passenger to intervene and fly by override. I guess worst case is you require a slimmed down version of a PPL.
BUT, all that aside, the article mentions "taxi" services. Which alleviates all these issues (and yes, your average cabby probably won't qualify for the license without quite a bit of sharpening up).
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Me and Darwin agree that letting these brain dead idiots fly is mathematically good.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
A vastly better investment would be a multi-gigabit FTTH infrastructure to allow for actual tele-presence and remote working from the suburbs.
Commuting is stupid, as is most business travel.
..don't panic
I think that personal flight is a fantastic idea and let's face it, we all would love to zip around the sky in our own private air capsule.
I also think this can be managed, just not today.
Location based tech is growing by leaps and bounds, but it's not quite accurate enough for air travel. Certainly when we are talking about 10's of thousands of private people in the sky over residential areas.
That however, is not a good reason not to begin the ground work. People in my company always complain when we want to change things; yeah, but first we would need to have this and then we need to do that and it would take a lot of time and blah blah blah.
I always tell them, sure, that may well be true, but that only means we need to starting walking in that direction now.
Additionally, I see a lot of folks saying, no no no, Metro is the way to go, not stupid private air cars.
I 100% agree that the Metro is the way to go is we could only pick one way to travel. Lucky for us there are no physical laws preventing multiple transportation modes working together in a cohesive system.
Where is the obligatory reference to MOLLER that usually accompanies this type of story? LOL
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
Because cars just aren't dangerous enough anymore.
I agree with you.
You forgot to mention seniors. They tend to feel a sense of entitlement and confidence. I don't think that we have the political will to deny that to them, while allowing others.
testing out my trending skills
What, like train stations?
Also I imagine anything of this kind pretty much has to be VTOL. Anything else is simply too complicated and too computationally difficult when it comes to air traffic control and landing procedures, as the GP points out.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
No fossil fuel doesn't necessarily preclude internal combustion, or require batteries. Bio-diesel or nuclear are two options I can think of off the top of my head - although they come with their own slew of problems. That's why they're having a competition - so smart people can run headlong into these problems and take them out.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Old people tend to be afraid of this kind of stuff, I don't think there would be a big problem.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Perhaps they can partner with Moller. I hear they are getting close to a breakthrough...
One reason cars took off and rail remained the solution for freight is that cars can drive to different locations. What if someone made a rail network where the switches to different rails was done completely by computer? You get in your mini rail car, program your destination... Then the computer routes you to your destination... Everyone talks about the self driving car, but that technology is at least 10 years down the road. We could technologically roll out robo-rail in a year or two. We have all the technologies for robo-rail. The problem is the infrastructure is all set up for cars. So you need to be creative on the roll out, maybe wire up a community with them so you park outside the city, but in the city, it is all robo-rail taxis.
My question is: Why isn't the tech community talking about Robo-Rail a lot? All you hear about is self driving cars.
God spoke to me.
"...by the time travelers have made their way by ground to their city’s one main airport, and then traveled again by ground from the destination airport to their final destination point, the speed with which the waiting airliner will get them there has been negated.
The author forgets to mention the TSA. 20 years ago, you could show up at the airport 30 minutes before you flight, and have plenty of time. It's now 90 minutes.
The vision of small, efficient aircraft flying short distances is lovely. But first, our government must get its head out, and abolish the TSA and all the security regulations is has created. Otherwise, you will probably be faster on your bicycle.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Old people don't like sweeping generalizations.
Before we devote another another joule of energy designing flying cars, can someone first explain how such a system would ever be feasible? Jetson fantasies aside, the entire concept is flawed from top to bottom. Regulations, safety, efficiency, cost, saftey, logistics and saftey. It can never work, why do people persist?
But can you land an A380 on a pocket airport?
You do realize with DGPS that planes can take off, fly, and land themselves *today*, right? In fact they could and did do it 10 years ago. The only reason the pilot is there is to make you feel good and to take over in the .001% of cases where the flight is not routine.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Old people now might be afraid of this kind of thing. It's the old people fifty years in the future who have been flying all their lives and don't see why they should stop who will be the problem.
Once you're done pooh-poohing the idea of electric airplanes, go and use your google and wiki-fu to look up the following:
* Yuneec e430 electric LSA
* Sonex E-Flight
* Cessna Skyhawk electric 172 POC
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
One more time, with feeling: terminal-based transport systems depend for their efficiency on the ability to get people efficiently to and from the terminals, and being sufficiently rapid between those terminals at a reasonable price point to justify the inconvenience attached to not using personal transport.
If nobody has personal transport above the level of walking, things like buses become compelling within a wide speed and price envelope.
If everybody has a scooter, trains and planes need to be practically door-to-door to be justifiable for short haul work, and anything with high terminal frequency (i.e. frequent stops, like a bus) becomes unattractively slow by comparison.
The article is largely discussing the last-hundred-mile problem for air travel, not a private aircraft for everyone (although it doesn't preclude that either). It does not require density of destinations for its viability.
Light rail can be brilliant in a truly dense environment in which there are large numbers of travellers either embarking or disembarking at any given terminal, under circumstances where personal transport is infeasible or impractical. The typical example considered is Manhattan. People by their thousand go from densely packed, well defined areas to densely packed, well defined areas at predictable, consistent times, resulting in excellent cost per passenger results.
If, on the other hand, you want to get everybody from Nowhere, Nebraska's regional airport to within ten miles of any point within a hundred miles on demand, any form of rail is arguably about the worst solution imaginable short of closing your eyes and clicking your heels, with a vast capital investment, diffuse travel times and destinations, low convenience compared to car, truck, motorcycle, SUV, scooter or, for that matter, horseback.
The problem with light rail in the typical american suburban environment is that suburbs are not dense. This is important, because if your light rail is sufficiently distant to motivate a car ride, you're not saving that much (even ignoring the monstrous thieves' paradises called park-and-rides). Even assuming a modest plot size of 1/8 acre per household (roughly 5000 square feet) you have only about 5000 households per square mile. Not everyone can use the light rail, for a variety of reasons, not everyone will use it at the same time, for a variety of reasons, and not every household even will contain people who would have the need. It would be a busy train that had one percent of households in three miles of the station providing a rider - and I'll guarantee you that the people more than two miles away are not, as a rule, walking.
Flying is safe, efficient and fast. It is inconvenient and expensive. The article is outlining an approach to making it significantly less inconvenient in a flexible way, with relatively low capital inputs. Achieving the same level of access and flexibility across an area covered by the proposed air taxi terminals, using light rail, would be a civil engineering feat which beggars the imagination. It would be an individual tram service with rails running everywhere in a 100 mile radius. You might as well have regular taxis using regular roads, for smaller capital and running costs.
Proposing light rail, or any rail, under circumstances where you would have trouble filling three rail cars at rush hour, with frequent stops, is fiscal, environmental and logistical madness. It is no coincidence that the USA has a rail service which leads the world for freight, but treats passengers (outside the confines of dense population centres) as a rare luxury use.
Honestly, light rail is a suburban greenfreak's wankfest. It sounds so green and clean until you do the math. Then they either close their eyes and reverently invoke Gaia, pretending that the light rail infrastructure is somehow a trail of unicorn sighs and panda smiles, or change their minds. Light rail doesn't tread more lightly than road unless and until you explicitly tear up the road
I love naysayers-- especially those who don't know what the frak they're talking about. FUD FUD FUD! Fortunately, Mr. Guillotine invented a most clever device, particularly appropriate for people such as the author of the FUD above. Would the author care to provide a meatspace address?
No, someday we may have the tech AND the discipline but right now, the idea of the average road user in the air would have me make my next house a bunker, a deep one. SUV's in the sky... somethings just shouldn't be.
Hey, what's so wrong with that idea?
Underground housing would also solve a HUGE number of problems and free up a large chunk of land in gardens.
Doesn't even need to be entirely under the ground, a simple little "entrance" area could be up top, which is basically one large room besides toilet room.
Then staircase down below (whether actual spiral, or rectangular spiral, or anything else that is space saving and functional)
There you have it, your main house.
A few metres under the ground should do it.
So what would amount to essentially a backdoor conservatory of sorts is now the entrance to the main house below.
Think of the landscape too.
Huge-scale buildings are a little tricker, but they can be done as well. I somehow find it hard to believe that building underground where support is EVERYWHERE is harder than building up the way with cranes where there are crazy amounts of wind, not to mention the dangers of quakes.
Quakes in an underground building? Only going to be bad if it is near the fault-line, just like anything else really.
Will it happen? Hell no. Unless society were reborn through mega-scale wars that destroyed most cities where we COULD rebuild, it will never happen.
Nobody will want to put the effort behind learning how to build things underground instead of above. Plus you won't have that "fantastic view" anymore. Yes, i love the sight of a main road and loud cars, just the thing i need to wake in the morning.
And it could be replicated by 2 mirrors at front and back i guess. But that will end up being more costly, yet again why it probably won't work... (unless it is for the more richer side of society)
Did you say idiot? Really? Familiar with the type, are you? Mirror nearby?
If the engineering problems of having the thing actually fly were solved, I'd use some form of optical tracking for landing.
1. Passanger gets in.
2. Passanger enters his destination.
3. Computer checks fuel, engine condition, etc. Gets clearance from the central controller for a route, reserves it's landing pad at the destination.
4. Computer takes off.
5. Computer flies via GPS to approximate destination.
6. Computer uses downwards-pointing camera to locate landing pad - it would look like a giant square barcode, with a unique identifier.
7. Computer lands on pad.
And in case of failure, the computer plots it's route never to be more than ten minutes flight away from an emergency landing pad.
At no point does the untrained passanger ever get to fly the vehicle. It doesn't even have controls to allow that. I'm not worried about terrorists so much as drunk drivers and street racers.
The New York slide...
According to the book DIA and Other Scams, there was a plan in the 1930's to build a ring "beltway" around Denver -- in approximately the same area as the current C-470/E-470/NW Parkway, i.e. 25-mile diameter) -- that would be not for cars, but rather be a continuous take-off/landing strip for airplanes -- take-off and land anywhere.
They are running a competition? How about a PROVEN design that has great flight capabilities and has been proven for decades? Take off in about 250 feet and get a range of 750km too fuel based. What is it? Tada! The Cri-Cri. Just work on the automation part and the batteries. Oh wait, they just recently got a car working lately and think they can do aircraft now?
The drivers where I live are so monumentally bad that they manage to flip their cars over on roads marked 30 mph, because ... I have no idea why really. They do this on clear days, cloudy days, warm days, cold days, dry days, rainy days, snow days, whatever. At lest they primarily harm only themselves when they are driving cars with less intelligence than a crippled hamster. If we allow them to fly aircraft...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You have to be reasonable here, either Joe has the capacity to qualify for a PPL...
Or they dumb down the test claiming that the requirements for these "new" vehicles is too high, the computers do most of the work, etc. Look at the current requirements for getting a car license, and yet watch the people put on make up, text, talk and other activities that make them dangerous. The larger the number of people flying, the larger the percentage that are doing stupid crap instead of paying attention.
And if GM starts making flying cars, you can bet they will be padding the coffers of politicians to get the requirements lowered so more people can buy these flying cars. More licenses equals more sales equals more money, and it becomes a self-feeding frenzy for politicians and CEOs. Not to mention that there isn't any way that flying is going to be more environmentally friendly than driving: it is a simple matter of physics that it requires more energy to get to altitude, and the last thing we need is transportation that requires MORE energy than we already can provide for ourselves.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
No, seriously, meet him. Head on, at about 5000 feet.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Light rail is a niche product for dense cities. They're really just streetcars/trams. They would make sense in inner cities if it weren't for the fact that trams kill more pedestrians than buses do and the tram makers aren't doing anything about it, because their customers are really just corrupt mayors who want to grab government subsidies...
As for US cities; try trolleybuses. They get rid of the local pollution. It's better to burn coal outside of the city than to burn diesel in the middle of it.
You could probably resurface after a couple of years. Selective pressure would have turned what is left of humanity into ace pilots. (And very fast runners.)
Gaining altitude costs energy, but you have less friction and won't need to brake as much as you need to do in a car. Also, hills.
Have anyone over 60 require a basic test every 3 years, increasing to one every year at 70, to keep their license?
You can't discriminate on age, but feel free to discriminate on abilities that are absolutely necessary to drive/fly safely. It's not hard to rationalize. Also, the machines this article talks about is probably more like a cab or bus, driven by someone somewhat qualified... although I may be wrong. I just looked at the pretty pictures.
Deliver packages for UPS ... Once it works long enough then carry people...
I would create flyways with beams of energy to ride on... Use computer control to assure flight safety rules.
George MacDonald
Yeah right. You probably meant LAWYERS for the right-of-way thingy.
According to the article, these airports will operate air taxis. Therefore, it's not your soccer mom / senior / hillbilly.
It's a trained professional who could be subjected to periodic checkups and high fines.
Surely, taxi drivers aren't that better (many times worse) than the average driver, but in this case they might have to pass higher criteria than most.
^_^
Mod Parent Up!
Another point: Even if power to weight ratios were improved significantly, as a private pilot, I have personally aborted many flight plans due to weather concerns. There are certain limiting issues such as weight and balance issues, engine performance at altitude, weather, maintenance, "Temporary" Flight Restrictions (some of them aren't so temporary), Runway availability, and so on...
The fact is that even with today's technologies, helicopters and bush planes would have difficulties working in and out of these airports and meeting these requirements. Even if we all flew planes with ridiculously high power to weight ratios, such as a Piper Super Cub with an O-360 engine (and those are just two seat aircraft), you still would have difficulty getting to the sort of performance sought by these "Pocket Airports." Another thing: the noise doesn't come just from the engine: It comes from the propeller as the tips approach the speed of sound. A ducted fan might reduce some of the noise, but it isn't likely to do much for efficiency.
This is clearly something written up by yet another dreamy eyed idiot who has no idea what technologies are currently viable or what the state of the art is. What a waste of money...
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
Cool. So now my morning commute will consist of flying to work! ...and getting repeatedly groped, x-rayed, scanned, and molested every time.
Why can't we just put this money and research into our decrepit light rail and commuter rail systems like every other sane country?
No, but this sure looks like it might be.
http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=635469588001
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Quote the article, "running a competition to design a low-cost, quiet, short take-off personal aircraft, that requires little, if any, fossil fuel."
Powered by Moon Beams and Unicorn Farts? My aching ass.
WOW what a novel idea!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos_Dumont
An underpowered car is an underpowered car, but an underpowered plane is not a plane.
An underpowered plane is an underpowered car.
I've always thought that personal airplanes, while cool in theory, would be a nightmare in practice? Take a look at how some people drive now. Talking on their cell phones while munching down a McDonald's burger and fries, barely paying any attention to the road or other cars, while going 15 miles over the speed limit. Or texting to their friends about how some idiot in front of them won't get out of their way as they weave in and out of traffic. Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XihQeZpwqpE&feature=player_embedded Do you really want this guy piloting his own aircraft? Bad, bad idea.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As a student pilot near the end of his 40-45 hours' training for a private pilot certification, it's neat that people are thinking of stuff like this, but I can't see it ever happening -- at least, not as a solution to congestion.
The nature of government control over any mass-market activity like driving is such that they become very bad at saying 'no' to the public. It's shamefully easy to get a driver's license. Not so for a pilot's license. I'm as much of an anti-government nut as you'll find on Slashdot, and while there are definitely parts of the FAA that I think are crazy, on the instruction and licensing side I've been very impressed with what I've seen. The FAA Pilot's handbook (the core 'textbook' for pilots) is well written and concise. The written tests have a few weird questions on them (like a couple on pre-1940 navigation systems) but for the most part are pretty challenging -- not the MADD-influenced DMV test with questions like 'You've just consumed nine beers. Calculate your BAC.' The 'final exam' of a pilot's license is the checkride, where you sit for up to a couple hours with an FAA examiner and demonstrate everything you have to know as a pilot, is nothing like the 'I'll be fine if I can parallel park' road test. A lot of very good flight instructors I've met admit to having failed either or both the written test or checkride on their first try. In other words, it's not designed so that a 16 year-old can pass it with a little bit of effort. It's designed to make sure you know wtf you are doing before you take off, and it includes sections on how airplane engines work, airplane instruments, airport signage, lighting, and traffic patterns, communicating with ATC, reading charts, understanding aviation weather (clouds, pressure, temperature, and density) and quite a lot about navigation.
That's not to say that you can't strip down the curriculum for a more limited set of flight rules (and we do, in fact - 'sport pilots' only need half as many hours) but even becoming a sport pilot isn't easy, to say nothing of becoming a good one. Unless you live in a handful of places around the world where the weather is consistently clear without a lot of wind, air travel will never be reliable for a commuter. Are you going to spend 20 minutes checking aviation weather or calling in for a weather briefing every day before you go to work? And if you don't, what if it's clear where you depart but you run right into a weather system halfway there and can't see the ground (that'd need another 40 hours of training for your instrument rating to even be legal).
There are definitely some things that could be done to lower the barriers of entry to aviation, and making a reliable, short-range VTOL that doesn't need AVGAS is certainly one of them. And I'm not trying to be elitist about flying, either, like it's some exclusive or impenetrable club -- it isn't. Most pilots I know encourage everybody else they know to at least take an intro flight, because there's really nothing like it. But even so, the national drop-out rate for flight school students is 80% (some recent AOPA study - don't have a link handy but Google it). It used to be that everyone thought 'oh, well, it's just expensive, people start and don't want to spend the money to finish.' That's not wrong but it's not the whole story. The study found that money wasn't the top reason for dropping out. People get intimidated and scared right around the point where they have to fly solo. They're nervous about talking to ATC. They're nervous about landing in a crosswind. They're uncomfortable in a tiny airplane. The quality of flight instructors is all over the map (another reason cited in the study); just about every CFI out there doesn't dream of being a CFI but is building up hours to try and get a job working for an airline or flying a corporate jet. That doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing, but it does mean that they're teaching because they have to and not because teaching is necessarily what they want.
As much as I love aviation, I would sooner spend the money on what other posters have suggested - either a good public transit system or multi-gigabit FTTH infrastructure for telecommuting.
what will happen if hillbillies take to the air?
I imagine that air traffic control would get to listen to Earl's Breakdown over the radio...
I dunno about where you all live, but where I am from, it seems like the average Joe can barely manage to drive a car. A four way stop causes major confusion for people. Even at a normal intersection with a traffic light, I see people "doing it wrong" all the time. Can you imagine all these people in "flying cars"!?!?! Insanity!!
Monorails. They need very little right of way so low cost *and* low-interference; they don't care about hills and rarely need tunnels; they eliminate cross traffic; they eliminate road kill, drunks on the rails, and a whole list of other problems; they're much quieter than traditional rail-based system and require less energy; they can carry their own power supply in the rail, and the rail isn't where people can get electrocuted; the land benefits, the people benefit... switching is easy... they're really the best of all worlds.
And we'll never get em, because we always go for cheap, not for optimum.
fyngyrz -- anon due to mod points -- stupid slashcode
Or bio-rum (aka cane ethanol)...
It seems like commuter airships wouldn't be a bad idea--not personal airships, but airships in place of light rail or busses coming in from distant suburbs or cities. They need not achieve a high airspeed velocity--perhaps only 40 or 50 mph (~64-80 kph)--since they would not be constrained to existing roadways or infrastructure paths. To me, such mini airship busses would make a lot more sense than conventional planes designed for short-takeoff situations. Although no expert on fuel consumption between airships and planes, I'd venture a guess that airships would require less energy overall, regardless of the source (fossil fuels or renewable energy).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
The logic extension to your post is that no one actually owns any of these. They're just lined up in the street where the bus stop used to be. If there wasn't one there you'd call it like an elevator.
On the other hand, this is close to my vision but mine is PRT - super-light rail with carriages that seat only up to 6 people (and/or one wheelchair). Like a fleet of automated, computer controlled london cabs.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
The Wright brothers were masters of aerodynamics. I recall reading a book where one of the brothers, Orville I think, designed the currently used configuration of bicycle where the rider leans forward so his torso is horizontal to significantly reduce his aerodynamic footprint. The first time he road this bike, he destroyed the competition who all rode conventional upright sitting bicycles. Pretty soon they were selling these to all competitive bicyclists.
The true innovation in the Wright brothers made to flight was figuring out the design of a wing, that would provide lift. They even tested this in a wind tunnel, which they built: http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/wright_brothers_wind_tunnel.htm. An engine twice as powerful as the one they used wouldn't have lifted them off the ground without their innovation in wing design.
FTFA: The Green Flight Challenge, he explained, is just the first step in NASA’s plan to develop a new aviation infrastructure, in which quiet, auto-piloted aircraft would deliver people and goods on a point-to-point basis, within communities.
The soccer moms aren't flying. The hillbillys aren't flying. Everything is very automated, there probably isn't even a traffic controller. Obviously to achieve that level of automation weather will have to be taken into account. Maintenance for such an automated system would also be taken into account. Heck my car emails me when it needs its oil changed (Ford's SYNC) if my car can keep track of its own maintenance I'm sure these planes could do so with much greater accuracy and reliability. You'll also notice that there are two more challenges to be held, one in 2013 and one in 2015.
I don't know how you got modded +5 insightful, all you did was show you didn't read the article while displaying your incredible hatred for people you consider inferior.
You do realise that ground based vehicles use quite a bit more fuel per mile than those in the air don't you?
Even if they didn't, flying at constant speed without having to worry about stopping every few minutes the fuel savings would be enormous.
Not true at all.
I am a private pilot and I have two different airplanes to fly. (No I'm not rich either, I only take home about $42K per year)
One plane is a mid 1960's Piper Cherokee which I own outright (market value about $25K), the other is a homebuilt Vans RV-8 of which I'm a 1/8 partner, it cost about $80K to build).
The Cherokee cruises at about 127 statute miles per hour (110 knots) and burns about 9 gallons per hour of fuel doing so. If you disregard any headwinds/tailwinds, the simple math says that's 14.1 miles per gallon.
The RV-8 cruises at about 205 statute miles per hour (178 knots) and burns 11 gallons per hour doing so. That's 18.6 miles per gallon. Better fuel economy than the old Cherokee, and much faster and more fun to fly.
My 10 year old Chevy pickup gets slightly over 20 MPG on the highway.
What the airplanes do get you, however, is to your destination a hell of a lot more quickly than driving on the ground.
In the Cherokee, I get from north Texas to Oshkosh Wisconsin in 8 hours and burn 72 gallons of fuel.
In the RV-8 I made the same trip in 5 hours, and burned 55 gallons of fuel.
To drive it on my Chevy pickup would take at least 18 hours and I'd also burn about 55 gallons of fuel.
It would require too many pilots for small numbers of people. Nobody would be able to afford it unless you either make the airplanes so automated that they fly and takeoff/land themselves, or so simple to operate that they don't require more skills than operating a car. And, of course, people still screw that up so I think we'd STILL see a major bump in air transport deaths and injuries. That's fine for those that want to take the increased risk, but I don't want 'em falling into my bedroom, either. Looks kinda dead-endish to me.
Well the TFA does state "autonomous" flight via auto-pilot and a central controller system. I know an ex-mechanic from a large US airlines who says the new planes (Boeing, AirBus) can be flown fully on auto pilot, and that the pilot are just there in case something goes wrong. The plane that crashed outside Buffalo was caused by pilot error. If I remember correctly, the investigation stated that if they had left the auto pilot on, the plane would have landed successfully.
Plus you gain a lot of that energy back when you descend.
Any mechanic who works for a roadside service company can tell you that peoples cars "break down" for the oddest reasons. Not enough petrol, wrong fuel, forgot to put in oil. All sorts of stuff that simply has to be maintained and replaced and doesn't leading to failure. Running out of petrol with your car is embarrising, running out of fuel in your airplane makes you a lawn dart or worse. I don't particularly care if some soccer-mom with the IQ of a weasel (sorry weasels) gets herself killed along with her kids. But if she crashes into my house, I would get upset.
What about the weather? Snow is bringing down europe but a car caught in a snow storm just becomes stuck. An aircraft? Has to divert. How far? Small airplane, small fuel tank. Can you imagine 100 soccer mom's lining up for an icy runway when they can barely park a car in summer on an empty lot? Or for that matter the business exec who thinks his beamer is a snow mobile and plows into a lamp post? Now that lamp post will be your apartment building.
As for controlling so many aircraft, LA airport is already uncontrollable and happily parked an airliner on a small jet years ago and things haven't got much better. Can you imagine a 100 or more increase in traffic figures? And if trained pilots from other countries already cause dangerous situations because they don't speak English, what will happen if hillbillies take to the air?
Just walk the street someday and notice for fun just how many cars stall for some reason or another. Oh it is not 1 per minute, but 1 per week would already cause a number of light aircraft accidents to severly burden the coffin industry. Would you step into a one-engined airliner?
No, someday we may have the tech AND the discipline but right now, the idea of the average road user in the air would have me make my next house a bunker, a deep one. SUV's in the sky... somethings just shouldn't be.
WTF is your problem with kids who play soccer and have moms? Didn't your mother love you as a child?
People like owning stuff. Even when it's not the best economic decision, they like posessions.
Last year I did a bit of a survey of what's out there in the small aircraft space as I have a dream of one day building my own basic ultralight (similar rules here to what is called a Light Sport Aircraft in the US).
Most of the aircraft engines out there are based on either the VW bug engine or 1970's snowmobile engines. From what I've read it looks like it's mainly fear of liability that keeps newer designs out of the air. Just about any engine would be reliable if it's rebuilt every 300 hours, so long as it has a dry sump and intake preheat. The Yamaha Genesis series of snowmobile engines look like just the ticket... They have dry sump and preheat, but they also have much higher efficiency and lower emissions. Furthermore they have power density (130HP model is
In the STOL wingplan arena there's been a few experiments comparing full-length leading edge slots to wings with vortex generators. Vortex generators seem to provide almost as much lift at high angles/low speeds, but produce a whole lot less drag in cruise.
There's a few designs out there for propellers for small STOL aircraft that are quiet and efficient. The "Windspoon" by Duc Helices is an example.
Electric would be much lower emissions (especially where I live where almost all comes from hydroelectric or wind), but Lithium Polymer batteries are crazy expensive. A strictly airport-to-airport planned and schedulled service could do well with electric. I want to take my plane camping. Maybe by the time I can afford to build a plane the cost and energy density of batteries will make this possible.
We couldnt use this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_airship
Is a merge between a airplane and a zeppelin.
If it stop working, just fall (not too fast) to the ground , but dont catastrophically crash.
It dont go fast and can get moderately big payloads.
And if it have some sort of vectorial thrust, probably it can do vertical lift-of
A better question: if this is suburbanites crashing into suburbia, why should I give a fuck? The sooner that entire breed of stupid American is extinct the better.
An alternative to light rail with a reduced foot print would be Tethered Lighter Than Air (TLTA) craft. Essentially a low-weight-bearing monorail (or mono-cable) ground infrastructure would carry a tractor/tether system that would drive and direct an LTA craft. It would be an elevated sky-train that could descend (or be reeled in) to platforms for boarding/loading. The LTA craft could also sport solar cells as its upper surface in areas where that would be cost effective. This system could safely operate through wind conditions that would prohibit free flight. There would, of course, be wind gust limits for comfortable and safe operation. Rain, icing and snow don't present insurmountable problems for a ground powered system.
The foregoing is copyrighted by me (c) 2010
Invenio via vel creo
The rich get richer with their flying cars. And inevitably, the poor will get poorer. For each flying vehicle 10 more people will lose their ability to afford transportation. Capitalism rocks!
Uh, cars can crash into houses now: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=car+crashes+into+home. The difference is that in the absence of human control, autopilot can level aircraft and avoid obstacles better than the largely unimplemented SUV equivalent systems. Aircraft would be safer IMHO than soccer moms driving four ton bullets at street level with my kids. Oh, and out of fuel? I've flown an aircraft that lost it's fuel feed and landed safely. The don't stop midair and plummet. You have some lift until you decelerate.
Four different posters have posted facts which dispel this lie that aircraft use less fuel than automobiles.
When are you going to start modding up the fact-posters?
The efficiency of flight is limited by thermodynamics of an actuator surface. Nobody has yet been able to figure out how to pump (change momentum of) air for any trip length that approaches that of terrestrial transportation without rather huge actuator surface sizes. It is a serious performance box to contend with. Pumping air has been a seriously energy intensive endeavor from the start.
Actually, small planes like this would be perfect for an "Air Taxi" business model. The rich aren't going to give up the plush Cessnas that they already own for these little puddlejumpers - I mean, after all, you can't get over very many flyover states with a three-hour flight time. However, I might pay six hundred bucks to get me and a few friends from, say, Des Moines to Chicago, and avoid the major airports or all the highway driving time.
Why over any certain age? Re-test every X years, full-stop. I still don't see why we fail to do this today, for driver's licenses... seems like it would solve alot of issues.
You mean, under normal load? No reason to think so. Earthquakes / ground movement can bend anything, so the broader answer is yes, but in a practical sense, no, not really. Not if the engineering is reasonably sound.
And it's *fun* going around a monorail curve at 100 mph. The cars adjust precisely to the turn, and you get some extra g-force to enjoy.
fyngyrz -- anon due to mod points -- stupid slashcode
Uh hu, IQ man.
That could apply to a lot of things, and would take up a lot of time and money, the latter either from the people themselves or from the government. It makes more sense to start doing those when it's likely to become an issue.
Ok, but if such an amplification cavity exists and is in use, then why cant we use it?
Presuming it actually worked (I'll believe it when I hold one and it pushes me over) it would be emitting large amounts of microwave radiation (and I'll hold it while dressed in several layers of conductive metal!). Like enough to push against to the tune of thousands of pounds.
Open-air microwave ovens, anybody? As in "fly though a flock of birds and spray half-cooked meat all over the neighborhood".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
As far as I can tell, only Sonex has built an actual plane that actually gets off the ground, and even that was airborne for only a few seconds. Everything else looks like plans on paper and parts in the machine shop.
That's more than I expected, but it doesn't disprove my point, that an electric aircraft is massively more difficult to achieve compared to an electric ground vehicle.
Nuclear aircraft are possible, in fact very effective, so long as you're willing to kill everything along their flight path. The US military designed unmanned supersonic nuclear aircraft: after they dropped their bombs, the plan was to let them just fly around the Soviet Union for weeks, wreaking havoc via their radioactive exhaust and devastating low-altitude sonic booms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft
If you go with a nuclear design that *won't* kill everything it flies past, your power-to-weight ratio is once again terrible.
Synthetic fuels are also a viable option, but if you want to go that way you don't have to redesign the airplane at all.
In short, to make an effective non-fossil-fuel aircraft, you need to not just redesign the airplane, you need to invent some totally new engine system.
Futurama tubes... Fry says "Cool!"
Great, now I can enjoy erotic and arousing pat-downs on my way to pick up my date a couple miles away! :D
Yeah, but think of how many planes land in how much space at a given airfield. Then think of traffic at a busy carpark. Just the space required to taxi in is infeasible if you're talking major volumes in single-person sizes.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Don't you understand? This means flying cars! Maybe we'll actually get to McFly's future after all!