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Airplanes use enormous amounts of fossil fuel. After Peak Oil fuel costs will keep rising. When we become unable to afford this anymore, we'll have to find an alternative.
Energy needed to keep an airplane moving at high speed is to overcome friction or air resistance. Lower the speed and you'll
have much much lower fuel consumption.
I propose giant airplanes that are gliders with very small engines that travel around 60 mph. Two designs come to mind:
1. looks like a giant glider, with a prop and small engine.
I don't know if it is possible to make very large wings that are strong enough. This might be a problem, so design #2:
2. a vast mesh of gliders, all connected to each other, either at the wingtips or tailfin to wingtip. Propellor engines are placed where useful.
These airplanes should be able to carry at least a 100 people and travel at about 60 mph. Imagine, you could travel from New York to LA in 40 hours!
Obviously this wouldn't be so handy on routes that have good railway or ship lines, but perhaps good for travel across areas that have both land and water.
NY to LA via car
http://maps.google....1384,82.441406&om=1
a hop and a skip... [MoreCowbell, Jul 05 2006]
Glider_20transport_20system
[xaviergisz, Jul 05 2006]
[link]
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I like the leap of logic to " at least a 100 people and travel at about 60 mph ". No math required. |
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But it certainly would be nice to travel without all that subsonic roaring in my ears. |
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...the restroom is up in the third glider, just walk across these tailfins.... |
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Sounds liked a fully baked airship. Oh, the humanity! Must remember not to paint the dirigible skin with rocket fuel this time. |
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but [strange], the racing stripes don't work
if they're made out of normal paint. |
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This is not an airship or blimp. It's a very large airplane that has the wings to fly at low speed. It will have enormous wingspan. Similar in design to a glider, but powered. |
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If regular shaped wings of that size are a problem (I don't know if they are and I don't even know how to design this) we need an alternative design. The mesh is just one idea to overcome this possible problem. A biplane (or triplane etc.) glider design would be another option. |
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Unlike a blimp, such an airplane does not require the containment of large amounts of hydrogen or helium and it should be able to attain higher speeds. |
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[jmvw], wings have to be able to push air.
mesh wings won't cut it. you could use a
fabric covering though. i'd pay for a ticket
across the country in a biplane or even
triplane. |
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Why would you want to send a ticket across the country in an airplane? Wouldn't it be easier to just mail it? |
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but that's not recursive enough for me
[jmnw] |
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//Sounds liked a fully baked airship. // Airships rock! If the Hindy (not attempting to spell it) handn't gone down in flames, dirigibles would probably still be used today for travel. I wish they would make a comeback. Trains are good for scenic travel but a blimp would give a nice view. |
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[return to topic] According to Google you can drive from NY to LA in 46 hours (see link). If you pay $3.00 a gallon for gas it would cost $344 in fuel (assuming average of 25 mpg). Depending on how long you drive each day and how many people are travelling, food costs would vary. In the end I think this is less expensive than developing a new method travel that doesn't save much time in the end. |
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Jet aircraft travel fast because they fly at high altitudes where air pressure (and hence air resistance) is low. The speed and altitude of airplanes is chosen for optimal efficiency. |
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I think road transport is a better target for increasing travel efficiency (see shamelessly self-promoting link) |
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After a while though, you just have to quit stalling. |
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A litle googling showed that 60 mph is airship speed and that speed record for gliders is 166 km/h, about 100 mph. |
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xaviergisz: are you saying that the speed of airliners has not been set by the desire to go fast, but by optimum fuel efficiency to cover a certain distance? |
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[jmvw], I meant economic efficiency which includes fuel efficency as well as other factors such as speed, passenger capacity etc. |
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Damn, [MoreCowbell], it takes longer for that link to load than it would to drive that distance. |
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