Hybrid Airplane-Car for Commuters of the Future?
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 05. 8.08
Today I am talking about making aviation available to everyone as a daily means of transportation. Transportation changes society.
So says Richard Jones, a technical fellow at Boeing Phantom Works, the advanced R&D unit of Boeing. Jones' vision for a new mobility was welcomed by the audience at the 2008 Electric Aircraft Symposium in San Francisco. The event is sponsored by the CAFE Foundation, a non-profit organization advocating personal air travel. Jones believes that airplanes can be designed which are easier to fly than a car is to drive. But what does it mean for commuting, city planning, and the climate crisis?
Will Commuter Airplanes Damage the Environment?
The aircraft industry recognizes that emissions from commuting in general, and aircraft in particular, cannot continue along current trendlines. But since the entire fossil-fuel and automobile infrastructure needs a rethink, why not make it airborne? That is why the talk is buzzing around super-efficient, hybrid and electric airplanes. CAFE is currently looking for a sponsor for a Green Prize to augment awards in a small plane competition which CAFE co-hosts with the US NASA. The first prize will land $50,000 in the pocket of the inventor of the first airplane which can fly at least 100 miles per hour for 100 miles per gallon or better.
Is an Eco-friendly Airplane Feasible?
The vision of an eco-efficient Jetson-car is becoming plausibe. The Slovenian company Pipistrel will release a two-seater electric glider-plane before the end of 2008, overcoming technical limitations (power versus weight) which have stumped aircraft designers for decades. Orders have already been accepted for the Taurus, which at $132,000 may seem expensive but nonetheless competes with top-end automobiles and is only 20K more than a Tesla. Like all new developments, the first models off the assembly line come at a price.
What Will an Air Commuting Future Look Like?
Eco-city planners focus a lot on putting the work and the needs of life near the people, little "pods" of self-sufficiency, if you will. Is a future full of Airplane-cars incompatible with a green vision? Well, maybe not. Even in the most wired, non-commuting models, it is impossible to imagine the end of all mobility while retaining the advantages of specialization which have the potential to maintain a satisfying human society. So if you posit that at least some people will still be travelling in the green future, why not imagine scenarios where people can live in an eco-village and electro-glide out as needed in a mode of transport which requires little paving of the earth, and disperses nothing harmful into the atmosphere during the commute. With the (also significant) assumption of green electrical capacities developing, a vision of greener commuting by air emerges out of sci-fi and may be coming to a dealer near you sooner than you think.
Via ::BBC News and ::Greentech Media
Oh lord. Another flying car. Yea, this is TH worthy. Phantasmagorical visions of people flying about in their own personal autoplanes. Yea, that's great. Slow news day today?
Nope, can't see this ever working.
Firstly, just because something doesn't have an exhaust attached to it does not mean it's CO2 contributions don't count. Can't remember the exact figures but for a normal plane about 1/3 of the energy expended is simply to keep the thing airborne seems to be familiar. A flying machine will always be less efficient than a machine travelling on the ground.
Secondly, considering the general state of driving, the prospect of everyman and his dog with an aircraft is quite terrifying.
Finally, infrastructure. Planes need runways (unless you go for STOL or VTOL but those are seriously inefficient). Runways need room. Flightpaths also need room. I suspect that with terrorism controls as they are, routes would be severely limited.
It can't just be easy, it has to be idiot-proof. People forget to change the oil for 25k miles, forget to put gas in the car, drive around on a bald tires, and put off going to the mechanic even though that knocking sound is getting louder.
Usually the worst failure state possible for a neglected car is that it simply stops working in an inconvenient place, like a highway, and you have to coast to the shoulder and hike to the nearest gas station or call triple-a.
With a plane, you've additionally got to deal with 15,000 feet and gravity. FAIL.
If you'd like to learn more about what Boeing is doing in the clean energy sector, Scott Scherer, Vice President of Boeing Capital, will be a keynote speaker at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum (REFF), held June 18-19 in New York City. In addition to Boeing, REFF will feature speakers from companies such as BP, JPMorgan, GE, UBS Investment, and many more. REFF provides an opportunity for investors, financiers, and renewable energy project developers to network and share ideas about the future of the industry.
For more information, visit www.REFFWallStreet.com.
Yeah, they would still put out CO2. We shouldn't look for better alternatives than what we have now. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel? We should all go back to horses.. oh wait, their manure creates methane. We should just take to walking, oh we're not that efficient. At some point you need to realize that we're going to need alternatives to match what we have (Airplane = enviro-friendly airplane) in order for the masses to accept a "greener" future. The reason nobody took "treehuggers" seriously at first was due to the fact that "treehuggers" were too radical. We need to take baby steps. The catch is we have to pace the steps quick enough to get solutions before our problems get worse. A bunch of small steps are easier to accept than a couple of huge steps.
George posted:
Firstly, just because something doesn't have an exhaust attached to it does not mean it's CO2 contributions don't count. Can't remember the exact figures but for a normal plane about 1/3 of the energy expended is simply to keep the thing airborne seems to be familiar. A flying machine will always be less efficient than a machine travelling on the ground.
That's cutting a bit too many corners. There is still this little thing called air density. The higher up you go, the lower this gets. Consequently, drag goes down considerably with increasing altitude. Airplanes can also fly in straight lines, while cars will nearly never travel the shortest possible route. Please don't make statements like 'A flying machine will always be less efficient than a machine travelling on the ground.', without considering all aspects and providing some sort of evidence...
Well, for all the neysayers above that dont think this is possible, I completely think it is and can be done with a green vision in sight, hopefully the FAA mandates strict regulations on licencing pilots for these personal aircrafts, the DOT has done a horrible job at letting any idoit get behind the wheel of a car, we dont need people like that in the air where the risks are higher and the damage results much greater.
Maybe we should also go back to a Horse and Buggy after all they travel mauch slower therefore must be safer right. Technology is nothing to fear although most American drivers these day's seem scarier to me than nuclear war.
Read here about some of the advances in flying cars they are actually safer than you think
http://www.futurecars.com/flying-cars-reviews.html
http://www.futurecars.com/futurecars/flying_cars4.html