While I admire Richard Noble and the Farnborough Aircraft idea, I think it will run into the same barrier that has scuppered many a clever aviation startup.
Cost.
The major airlines work the way they do because when you gather up to 400 people together they all share the enormous cost of moving a huge transport aircraft from point A to point B. Joe Average gets to travel for a reasonable price. On the downside the passengers are agreeing to compromise on things like comfort and time wasting. Individual air transport just plain costs more.
What Farnborough is trying to do is reduce the costs involved by building and flying the most economical aircraft possible ( and using a sophisticated scheduling system ) to bring the per/seat cost down to somewhere comparable to the major airlines fares. Will it work? I hope so.
Interestingly enough, a US company called Eclipse Aviation is planning on the same sort of idea using a brand new, highly efficient business jet. The plan is to have a fleet of 1000 of these jets doing the Air Taxi thing all over the US.
They should have kept on going after Return of the Jedi. Make the final 3 movies instead of the first 3.
I'm not so keen to see the "next 3". I mean in ROTJ, the Empire is defeated, the Rebellion triumphs and it is the beginning new era in galactic harmony yada, yada, yada... What are they going to do next? Sure there is a chance to develop the characters further and follow them into Han and Leia making babies etc... That's fine but I don't think it would make a particularly exciting movie. It would put us back in the position of TPM. Having to invent a "Trade Federation Blockade" (who cares!!) or similar to inject drama.
To my mind it would all seem a bit mundane after the epic events of the "middle 3" movies.
That situation is not unlike "The Scouring of the Shire" in LOTR. Interesting to see how the characters have developed but not really anywhere the drama of the final battle to defeat Sauron and the "Return of the King". If the reports are to be believed, I think Peter Jackson has decided to leave out the scouring from LOTR:ROTK, and I think Lucas has made the correct decision to do the same with the Star Wars universe.
There are a couple of other points to take into consideration.
Firstly deploying flaps not only increases lift but also increases drag at the same time. Remember, aircraft also deploy flaps on approach to landing so that they may slow down to a manageable touchdown speed while maintaining enough lift to stay in the air. Imagine the length of runway required if a 747 had to land at anywhere its normal cruising speed!!
It seems reasonable to assume that it has something to do with the angle through which a given volume of air is deflected by the wing's angle-of-attack. If you hang a flap out from a wing it will produce more lift but as a side effect will also incur more drag. Therefore the whole thing is a complex interaction between the effects of lift and drag.
In a very simplified way, to produce a defined amount of lift you can either have a low drag wing which deflects air through a small angle at a high airspeed or you can have a high drag wing that deflects air through a greater angle at a lower airspeed. The effect of flaps is to convert one type of wing into the other during flight.
I also think that the Bernoulli effect is more important in the area of drag reduction rather than lift production. If the movement of air over the top of the wing is kept smooth and "attached" then the amount of drag for a given angle of attack is reduced allowing the wing to produce "more" lift by reducing drag (i.e. increasing its lift/drag ratio). Turbulent airflow is the enemy of lift.
Cheers
Evan.
P.S. The small Cessna's I fly also have electric Fowler Flaps so although they are common on large jets they are not restricted to them
I think a change in formula would make for a more exciting show. There should be an "Ultimate Robot Wars (TM)" league where there are fewer rules and more firepower. All weapons short of tactical nukes should be utilised. The contestants would need to drive from concrete bunkers and the viewing all done by remote camera so that there is no need to worry about collateral damage to civilians.
Now that, I'd pay to see!!
Hell, the armed forces might give the winner a big fat contract to build the next generation of remote fighting vehicles.
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While I admire Richard Noble and the Farnborough Aircraft idea, I think it will run into the same barrier that has scuppered many a clever aviation startup.
Cost.
The major airlines work the way they do because when you gather up to 400 people together they all share the enormous cost of moving a huge transport aircraft from point A to point B. Joe Average gets to travel for a reasonable price. On the downside the passengers are agreeing to compromise on things like comfort and time wasting. Individual air transport just plain costs more.
What Farnborough is trying to do is reduce the costs involved by building and flying the most economical aircraft possible ( and using a sophisticated scheduling system ) to bring the per/seat cost down to somewhere comparable to the major airlines fares.
Will it work?
I hope so.
Interestingly enough, a US company called Eclipse Aviation is planning on the same sort of idea using a brand new, highly efficient business jet. The plan is to have a fleet of 1000 of these jets doing the Air Taxi thing all over the US.
Good luck to them both.
K.
They should have kept on going after Return of the Jedi. Make the final 3 movies instead of the first 3.
I'm not so keen to see the "next 3". I mean in ROTJ, the Empire is defeated, the Rebellion triumphs and it is the beginning new era in galactic harmony yada, yada, yada...
What are they going to do next? Sure there is a chance to develop the characters further and follow them into Han and Leia making babies etc...
That's fine but I don't think it would make a particularly exciting movie. It would put us back in the position of TPM. Having to invent a "Trade Federation Blockade" (who cares!!) or similar to inject drama.
To my mind it would all seem a bit mundane after the epic events of the "middle 3" movies.
That situation is not unlike "The Scouring of the Shire" in LOTR. Interesting to see how the characters have developed but not really anywhere the drama of the final battle to defeat Sauron and the "Return of the King".
If the reports are to be believed, I think Peter Jackson has decided to leave out the scouring from LOTR:ROTK, and I think Lucas has made the correct decision to do the same with the Star Wars universe.
Cheers
K.
Placido, you make some good points about flaps.
There are a couple of other points to take into consideration.
Firstly deploying flaps not only increases lift but also increases drag at the same time. Remember, aircraft also deploy flaps on approach to landing so that they may slow down to a manageable touchdown speed while maintaining enough lift to stay in the air. Imagine the length of runway required if a 747 had to land at anywhere its normal cruising speed!!
It seems reasonable to assume that it has something to do with the angle through which a given volume of air is deflected by the wing's angle-of-attack. If you hang a flap out from a wing it will produce more lift but as a side effect will also incur more drag. Therefore the whole thing is a complex interaction between the effects of lift and drag.
In a very simplified way, to produce a defined amount of lift you can either have a low drag wing which deflects air through a small angle at a high airspeed or you can have a high drag wing that deflects air through a greater angle at a lower airspeed. The effect of flaps is to convert one type of wing into the other during flight.
I also think that the Bernoulli effect is more important in the area of drag reduction rather than lift production. If the movement of air over the top of the wing is kept smooth and "attached" then the amount of drag for a given angle of attack is reduced allowing the wing to produce "more" lift by reducing drag (i.e. increasing its lift/drag ratio). Turbulent airflow is the enemy of lift.
Cheers
Evan.
P.S. The small Cessna's I fly also have electric Fowler Flaps so although they are common on large jets they are not restricted to them
Now that, I'd pay to see!!
Hell, the armed forces might give the winner a big fat contract to build the next generation of remote fighting vehicles.
Cool...
Kotukunui