Pod Planes Could Change Travel Forever (cnn.com)

Max_W writes: Every year we hear about people dying in plane crashes. This does not have to continue as there is a new revolutionary pod plane design [in the works via the Clip-Air project]. A passenger pod is not heavy because it does not contain fuel, engines, avionics, etc., so in case of an accident it can be ejected and land on parachutes. The obstacle to this new invention is that the whole obsolete airport and airline infrastructure must be rebuilt. So what? Shall we continue to get killed because it is easier to produce aircraft with a design from 1950s? The Clip-Air project is created by Switzerland's Federal Polytechnic Institute and consists of the flying component, which includes airframe, cockpit and engines, and the capsules, which are a number of detachable pods that can act as cabin or cargo hold, depending on the chosen configuration. What's particularly noteworthy about them is that they can allow passengers to board capsules well before a flight, and at a location besides an airport, such as a local bus station. As with any concept, many years of research and tests will be needed to validate the concept and turn it into a reality. Claudio Leonardi, manager of the Clip-Air project, and his team are preparing to build a small-scale Clip-Air prototype. They have already initiated some contacts with the aerospace industry.

Comments

Likely won't eventuate

[inflex]

The mass penalty / structural workarounds, and the low incentive (given how few fatal crashes there are with air travel) will see this being pushed to the "amusing thought" pile and no real further. Much like massive parachutes from a long time ago ( some people use them on their smaller planes though ).

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[Richard_at_work]

I agree with this post - airline economics, for both passenger and freight, is built around the cost to transport each kilogram a certain distance. That cost includes both the trip costs (fuel and crew) and also capital costs (purchase and maintenance) - which is why current generations of aircraft are based around both lowering the fuel burn, and lowering the amount of time a maintenance worker has to touch the aircraft.

A "c-check" of an airliner already costs up to a million dollars, takes months to carry out and needs to be done every few years with older aircraft, with longer intervals for aircraft such as the 787 or A350 - add more complexity to the airframe, such as ejection systems et al, and you vastly increase the maintenance time needed.

And thats without discussing the whole issue of having pyrotechnics sitting near the pressurised vessel containing the passengers...

So unless there can be found a way for the economics to not be affected by the addition of ejection systems, they simply will not happen - if you want near zero deaths in commercial aviation, the only thing this is going to accomplish is to make commercial aviation unaffordable for most people.

General aviation aircraft (think light aircraft) already are being equipped with parachute systems which are deployed if the aircraft is unrecoverable. And they are used. And they save lives. But general aviation is a *lot* more accident prone than commercial aviation, so there is no reason to foist this on commercial aviation.

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[pr0t0]

Agreed. I'm not an engineer. but this design does not look like it is more aerodynamically efficient than current commercial aircraft. That in turn means it will likely consume more fuel, which probably makes it a non-starter. It's tempting to envision some efficiency gained by being able to load travelers into multiple pods simultaneously instead of into the aircraft itself...through one door. But then those pods have to be transported and secured to the underbelly which would likely take longer. Terminals maybe wouldn't have to be as large since you wouldn't have to safely accommodate the wingspan of the aircraft, but you'd need to rebuild the entire airport infrastructure to do it. It just doesn't make sense.

You know what also doesn't make sense? This tagline from one of the photos: Seamless transfer - In theory, Clip-Air passengers could board a bus in one country, then travel by road, rail and air without leaving the comfort of the same seat.

Apparently, the person that wrote that doesn't travel much.

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[bloodhawk]

massive increase? what massive increase? their have been a couple of high publicity crashes but no significant increase.

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[MasseKid]

If you want near zero deaths in commercial aviation, you only need to look to the present. Last year there were exactly zero passenger deaths from western built jets if you exclude acts of violence. (Parachutes won't save you from a bomb) That is a number that includes 3.7 billion tickets and 32 million miles of flying.

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[NatasRevol]

Why do we need near zero deaths in aviation?

It's still about the safest form of transport there is.

Spend the big $$ on better car automation. Build automation-only highways.

Dozens of deaths vs tens of thousands of deaths.

Re:Likely won't eventuate

[Immerman]

A stat I like to pull out from time to time to help keep things in perspective: On average 60 million people die every day worldwide. A bit over 4,000 of those are the result of violence, and in 2015, with by far the highest number of terrorism deaths on record, only about 90 of those were the result of terrorism.

The level of fear and policy-making around terrorism is completely ungrounded in reality.

Colour me skeptical...

[Zontar The Mindless]

I fail to see how this will eliminate air fatalities. Don't the majority of crashes occur on takeoff or landing?

One example that springs to mind is the Tenerife disaster of 1977, in which two airliners collided on the ground as one of them was taking off. Capsules with parachutes would not have helped a bit AFAICT.

Thanks to /. for posting this story while I'm 10 thousand metres or so above the Skagerrak and making me feel a bit special.

Re:Colour me skeptical...

[stephanruby]

One example that springs to mind is the Tenerife disaster of 1977, in which two airliners collided on the ground as one of them was taking off.

That problem is solved by the pod system as well.

Your plane isn't lifting fast enough, eject the luggage pod. Still not fast enough, now eject the economy class pod. Now granted the luggage and economy class pods have smashed into the ground and hundreds of passengers have died, but at least the pod carrier airplane is still intact and the first class passengers are still safe in their own first class pod which is still attached to the plane.

Re:Colour me skeptical...

[MightyYar]

I for one, love that they put the "eject economy class" button right next to the button for coffee.

Re:Colour me skeptical...

[stealth_finger]

Don't the majority of crashes occur on takeoff or landing?

One could argue that all crashes technically occur on landing. ;)

Wrong focus

[fuzzyf]

I don't get it.
Airtravel is one of the safest way to travel. I know the fear of flying is common, but actual dying is not.

If you want to rebuild an entire transport-infrastructure because of accidents involving people dying, then I suggest you start with cars and roads.

Re:Wrong focus

[fuzzyf]

No, that is not what I meant.
560 people died in airplane accidents last year.
The proposed solutions is to rebuild the entire airtravel infrastructure in order to reduce that number.

I'm suggesting that if you are going to use that much money to reduce fatalities, then it would be much better spent on roads and cars. Where many more people die each year (est. 1.25 million in 2010).

Re: Wrong focus

[orlanz]

No, actually, it kind of does mean that. We don't have unlimited resources. Every field out there chooses to solve the easy and/or big problem. No one chooses to solve the insignificant one. Especially not the insignificant hard one.

It's been tried before

[Catmeat]

See; the XC120 Packplane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.... Though the fact it didn't work in 1950, doesn't mean it can't work now. I keep an open mind.

However, the idea of sticking the pod on a railway waggon is a complete non-starter - I'm sure a pod that meets railway crash-resistance standards would be stupidly heavy for aviation use.

Some basic flaws here

[DeathToBill]

Off the top of my head:

1. "Every year we hear about people dying in plane crashes. This does not have to continue..." But air travel is already the safest mode of travel. Hear all those people screaming for new technology to make road travel safe? No? Well, they're the same ones that will take this up.

2. "Passengers might board a capsule at a local bus station and wake up in another city on the other side of the country, or planet, after a road, air and rail journey during which they didn't leave their seat." They don't seem to realise the blindingly obvious point that this is making air travel *worse*. Air travel already involves sitting in a seat for too long. Why would I opt for a mode of travel that exchanges a few minutes of having to be polite to people in the aisles for one that involves several hours more in the same damn seat?

3. If you want to see just how off-their-faces unrealistic this is, look no further than this sentence: "Clip-Air's researchers, who are also looking into the possibility of using biofuels or liquid hydrogen as alternative fuels, have already initiated some contacts with the aerospace industry." Oh, great! You're launching publicity for a total redesign of the entire global air freight and passenger industry and you've *already* initiated some contacts with the aerospace industry??? Really??? What made you do that so soon??? And looking into hydrogen as a fuel source for this is basically admitting, "It's so far off the page that we might as well throw in any futuristic-sounding crap we can." If you're doing this seriously, get one thing right at a time. Don't complicate it by also trying to introduce a fuel that no-one else has managed to make work yet.

People who consider themselves "aviation visionaries" (yes, an actual term used in the article) always, always get excited about this kind of thing for no good reason. They *think* people want revolutionary concepts that change how they board planes and let them work out then drink themselves silly in a trendy bar while they're in flight. What people *actually* want are revolutionary new concepts that cut the cost of air travel.

What?

[joh]

"A passenger pod is not heavy because it does not contain fuel, engines, avionics, etc., so in case of an accident it can be ejected and land on parachutes."

It contains the passengers (the payload) and is one of the major structural components of the plane, so it is heavy anyway. And if it has to be structurally sound enough to be ejected and land it will be even heavier. Big parachutes for heavy loads are not easy or lightweight too.

Besides, air travel is very safe already and this wouldn't change anything about crashes during take-off and landings.

I mean, yes, do designs and try to sell them. I doubt someone will buy this though.

It's an interesting idea, but this line is bunk

[NoNeeeed]

This is an intersting idea, and it would be fun to see it developed further, but this line really stuck out.

"Shall we continue to get killed because it is easier to produce aircraft with a design from 1950s?"

Bullshit. I'm not saying some improvement in air crash survivability isn't a good thing, but the idea that people are regularly dying because their aeroplane can't disassemble in midair and parachute them to the ground it frankly offensive to all the engineers who have worked over the years to make large scale commercial flying unbelievably safe.

Total number of air craft fatalities worldwide in commercial flight has been significantly less than 1000 per year for the last couple of decades. Something like 3.6 billion passenger journeys will be completed in 2016 (IATA estimate).

Safety is the single worst reason to throw away a tried and tested basic design that is fantastically safe and replace it with a much more complicated and new system.

Containers did not break into air cargo.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The container based intermodal transport did take over, ship borne, rail borne and truck borne cargo sectors. It did not make much headway into air cargo business. Technically the containers could be made with windows and a/c and be made comfortable enough for passenger travel. Again it did not happen. Why?

In an airplane the fuselage is not some simple shell for aesthetics or aerodynamics. It is a structural component, bearing weight. The skin, barely a mm thick carries load. The containers on the other hand are designed to carry load themselves. They are all rated to be stacked, each container can bear the load of some dozen containers stacked on top of it. That is why these containers are so strong, made with steel. Such strong containers are heavy. Too heavy to be used in air cargo economically.

We could design containers, with lower strength specs to lower the weight. This could help in unloading and reloading of cargo planes. Turn around time is very important. Such containers exist, but they are not as ubiquitous as intermodal containers and they have not taken over the industry sector the way they have taken over ship/rail/truck borne cargo.

As for passenger carrying cargo, it is so cheap to ask passengers to disembark and reboard, the cost and weight of carrying them makes it uneconomical.

The value of avoiding disembarkation is well known. In Europe, some passenger trains move from one gauge in the west to another gauge in the east changing the wheel gauge on the move. As the railcar moves along, a special section of the track, lifts the car off the truck, unlocks the wheel, slides the wheel along the axle to reduce/increase the gauge, relock the wheel, lower the railcar on to the trucks. (trucks = bogies for the brits). At 15 mph. Even locomotives change their gauge on the move! So the value of avoiding disembarkation is known, but still these pod ideas have not taken hold.

It is a nice interesting student project. Earlier graphics was expensive and we used to depend on Popular Mechanics for such crazy ideas in nice looking pictures. Now with blender and maya and photoshop anyone can create them. That is all.

Continue to get killed

[thegarbz]

The obstacle to this new invention is that the whole obsolete airport and airline infrastructure must be rebuilt. So what? Shall we continue to get killed because it is easier to produce aircraft with a design from 1950s?

Yes please. Our lives aren't worth that much. Please spend the money on road safety instead rather than bankrupting an industry that is already described as the safest form of travel.

Wrong university credited

[greatpatton]

Editor mixed up 2 schools. This project is from EPFL (in Lausanne) as you can see from the project link and not the ETHZ (in Zurich) as stated.

The same wrong idea over and over...

[fraxinus-tree]

Every 1-2 years (or after a major air crash) someone, somewhere suggests this idea. Which amounts to:
1. Aircraft to become more complex (e.g. heavy, expensive, failure-prone, carrying less passengers per unit of fuel)
2. The idea works only when aircraft is at high enough altitude for the 'chutes to work reasonably. So no profit in takeoff and landing (when most of crashes happen)
3. The idea works only when aircraft is slow enough for the "bus" and it's precious contents to survive aerodynamic hit and turbulence without having shape and controls of an airplane, rocket or something similar. So no profit at marching speed, either.
And yes, 2 and 3 pretty much cover the whole flight.
4. Bombs inside and missiles outside still invariably fatal.

Sorry. Back to fighting terrorism, training pilots and engineering better avionics.

This would be a good idea...

[bluegutang]

if it took off and landed from solar runways.

You know, combine the most promising technologies available.

Re:Yes, need!

[CohibaVancouver]

I expect to see pod-planes for general cargo before 2025.

You already have this today. Here's a typical 747 cargo-pod configuration:

https://www.ups.com/aircargo/i...

Here are the pods going in:

http://www.ainonline.com/sites...

Re:Parachutes won't save you from a bomb

[drainbramage]

What if you just follow the instructions?
1) Light Fuse.
2) Get Away.
3) Pull Ripcord.
4) ????
5) Prophet!