It is not enough to give any technological forecast. One must also think about the economic, administrative and social consequences derived from this.
When you think of an airport, the image that comes to mind is the runway, a control tower, the takeoffs and landings and the boarding and disembarking of passengers. The runway and control tower are the heart of the airport. A technological breakthrough may come that will allow vertical take-off and landing of passenger planes. Don't rule it out. The best illustration of this is the British Harrier planes that are able to take off and land vertically on aircraft carriers. The plane's developers attached rocket engines to it that allow vertical takeoff and landing. Is this how it can be done in passenger planes? It is impossible to know today. It is possible that passenger planes with a different configuration will be developed. It is possible that this technological development will require the development of new engines and the deafening noise of the engines before takeoff will be reduced and the safe distance from the planes at these moments will be reduced. The same goes for the planes near their landing. Appropriate training will be required of the pilots since it is a different take-off and landing technique. Assuming that this technology will indeed be found, it should be taken into account ahead of time and the reasons are twofold. The entire structure of the airport will change and so will its organizational structure.
The take-off and landing routes for all the essential aids to ensure the safety of the take-offs and landings will change. Airplanes will be able to land near the passenger receiving terminals and will connect directly to the transition sleeves. The departing passengers will wait inside the terminal and from there they will enter the plane. There will be no need to ram an aircraft that is driven to the aircraft upon landing or prior to takeoff. The aircraft ramp is fixed in the passenger terminal and is automatically adjusted to the height of the aircraft openings from the ground. The runway will change its purpose. It will be used as a paved road for transporting aircraft to hangars for renovations.
Several take-offs and landings can be made on it at the same time. The only limitation is the number of terminals that receive passengers. If an emergency situation arises and it is necessary to land a large number of planes, in principle it will be possible to do so in the entire jurisdiction of the airport. There is no need to coordinate the takeoffs and landings to prevent accidents depending on the number of runways.
Each airport has one or more flight corridors where the planes fly. This has a critical meaning since it comes to prevent situations of collisions or near collisions. When airplanes will be able to take off and land vertically, won't there be a need for flight corridors since each airplane will arrive at a certain point above the place where it is supposed to land and from there descend to the ground? Each plane will choose for itself a desired height above this place and from there its pilots will bring it to land. Will it facilitate the movement of planes for landing or takeoff? How will the control tower work? Due to the ability to perform a large number of take-offs and landings at the same time, the density of aircraft per unit of time will increase. The density of transmissions from the pilots to the flight controllers will also increase. What does this mean in terms of their workload? Since a large number of aircraft will be active at the same time, it will be necessary to activate a large number of transmission channels, which means a large number of transmission frequencies. Will it be necessary to use more than one flight controller at the same time? Perhaps more than one control tower will be needed, when each of them will be responsible for a different segment of the transmission frequency domain and for a specific segment of the airport where takeoffs and landings take place? Every pilot must know which frequency to use and know which control tower he is working with.
Another aspect to consider is the passengers' luggage. Baggage volume, which has increased by several orders of magnitude due to this technological change, requires a greater burden on the security check. More security personnel on the ground and on the planes. How do you plan a security check with an ever-increasing load without affecting the flow of passenger and aircraft traffic? There will also be a need for a larger number of rest rooms for the aircraft crews, pilots and flight attendants. What does this mean about the rate of work in the aircraft maintenance systems? Will it be necessary to switch to a modular work method? A damaged part or assembly is found in the plane, it is pulled out and a new part or assembly is put in its place, when the damaged parts or assemblies will be moved to the hangar where they will be treated and used for the next flight. Will this set of questions require the development of new techniques in performance research?
Another question that must be dealt with is how, following this technological change, will the lobbies be constructed where the passengers say goodbye to their loved ones or where the latter wait for the landing party? Where will these entrances be located? Is it desirable that they be erected near the take-off and landing terminals? How will the announcement system work in a new airport of this type? What does this technological change mean for traffic routes to the airport, both for private and public transportation?
The most important area to think about is management. This technological change makes the management of the airports, which are also complex, even more complex. It may be necessary to prepare special training programs for the management of the new airports. It is not enough to give any technological forecast. One must also think about the economic, administrative and social consequences derived from this.
19 תגובות
Suggestion for an article: How to drink tea on manned flights to Mars.
Not a serious article. Shame on such a site.
I think this is a cool thing and I already want this plane out!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Following the spirit of the article.
Today doctors recommend a monthly visit to the airport. It really does good to see a big plane
Takes off through a transparent teardrop.
If the planes are pointing vertically, all those who come to look at planes taking off will have to look directly up.
It follows that new terminals with a transparent ceiling need to be built.
And in addition, to build thousands more hospitals, which specialize in stiff necks.
On the face of it, the idea for a passenger plane that took off vertically does not seem economical to me. At least until they solve the problems of the curious.
In the next response, we will expand on the problem of drinking a cup of coffee while looking vertically.
Not to belittle - this problem could completely shelve the dream of vertical takeoff.
For those interested in the subject, you should see what these companies are doing:
http://www.cartercopters.com/
A non-serious, superficial article, without a technical understanding of the subject. Not suitable for a scientific technology site
The Empire State Tower's Mr. Preminger was installed to break the record for the tallest building in the world, the record was broken a few months later.
@the last sane,
The Empire State was indeed built with the idea that airships would dock on the top floor. This was the original purpose of the mast located on the roof.
Doya wrote indeed.
You raise a technological possibility, then ask questions about its implications.
In the same way you could tell us about XNUMXD movies and tell us that in the future surfing the Internet will be in XNUMXD, and all interpersonal communication will change.
The science surfers do not lack imagination, only knowledge, and professional, not the kind that is lacking. If you don't have permission to provide it, then write your musing in a personal blog.
When it happens, each person will have a personal airplane in which he can fly to his heart's content
A-propo vertical flight:
In the popular television series, Fringe, a "parallel" universe is presented, in which the reality is almost exactly the same as the one we live in. In XNUMX there are differences, one of them is related to the "Empire Site Building", which was built (according to the series' writers), to be used as an anchor for airships. Indeed, in the parallel reality, the skies of New York are full of airships such as the Zeppelin (and this despite the fact that from a technological point of view, according to the creators of the script, this reality is technologically more advanced than our reality). I want to say that in the future, if we are more "calm" and will not speed The road - huge airships - could move smoothly over tall residential towers and transport us wherever we want with the help of friendly energy and cheap prices...and a lot of patience.
Mr. Haim Mazar, the Harrier and the F35 do not take off with rockets, they have two nozzles that divert the exhaust gases from the jet engine downwards, in the Harrier one nozzle in the front part and the other at the end of the engine in the rear part, in the F35 there is one nozzle in the back part and a turbine that is connected to the engine and installed in the middle the plane.
It's interesting, I never thought about the consequences of this but there are many... regarding takeoff I don't think it will have any
Technological development coming soon...they said before that you need to reach high speed for good aerodynamics...but as for landing
I think it is possible and it is even possible to do it with the technology of existence....a motor rotates on the vertical axis and a brake
It is also possible to create comfortable landing conditions, a kind of hard trampoline-like surface, just an idea, but it doesn't seem too difficult
..(not an engineer)
Fantastic article. I also suggest an in-depth discussion of the consequences of launching people like in Star Track or alternatively Gabi and Debbie's magic stick technology.
If the state of future oil production in the world
It is more likely that the ideal future means of transportation will be cruise ships.
And the airplanes will become the means of transportation for the aristocracy.
One of the reasons for running on the track is to reach an aerodynamically efficient speed. Whatever the technology, an airplane that finds itself at low altitude and zero airspeed will have to invest huge amounts of fuel to maintain the altitude while accelerating.
It is wasteful but possible for a small and light fighter plane, but I find it hard to believe that it will ever be economical to develop such technology for heavy passenger planes.
And in the next program: planning elevators and entrances to towers that bloom in the air.
Search on Israeli Urban-Aeronautics.
An example of technology that could enable passenger planes with a vertical takeoff:
http://www.cartercopters.com
It looks like a helicopter but functions as such only for takeoff and landing, in flight it functions as an airplane and is capable of flying at high speeds.
It's a topic I've thought about a lot. More in the military aspect.
In these years, the F35 planes enter, one of its configurations is vertical takeoff and landing. They have a loading capacity of something around 10 tons. It may be that the mirror is only vertical with 5 tons, and still, you can replace the bombs with people.... Instead of a helicopter, a supersonic plane with a capacity of 25 soldiers and equipment... change the structure, remove all the means related to weapon systems and let's go to work...
Hello friends, writing here for the first time….but visiting the site almost every day.
The problem lies in the technology, today there is no way for passenger planes to take off vertically, the technology has to go through several stages to anti-gravity technology, there is no solution for this, in my opinion as long as we are in wars and fossil fuel we will not see in the near future because there is a chance that such a technology will exist.