News item: Clip-Air: How pod planes could change travel forever

[SSgt Baloo]

Clip-Air: How pod planes could change travel forever



Now I really need to learn how to make a flying wing!

[Camacha]

I have seen a few double or triple body planes suggested, but every time the conclusion seems to be that they are not efficient enough. Wing type passenger aircraft have been suggested too, but those seem to be unpractical with the current setup of airports.

It would be interesting to see it being tried, though

[StrandedonEarth]

It seems lie an efficient concept. And that pic looks like it's taken in KSP (on my phone it does)

[Elthy]

I understand the benefits, but i dont believe it will be aerodynamicaly efficient. Also safety requirements are way higher for airtravel than for containers, it would complicate things a lot. For example at every liftoff the connection of the pods has to be inspected.

[SSgt Baloo]

3 minutes ago, Elthy said:

I understand the benefits, but i dont believe it will be aerodynamicaly efficient. Also safety requirements are way higher for airtravel than for containers, it would complicate things a lot. For example at every liftoff the connection of the pods has to be inspected.

Yeah, the possibility that a pod full of passengers might fall off unexpectedly would keep the insurance adjusters (and at least a few potential passengers) up, nights.

[kunok]

Well if you replace the lower body with a rocket you have the stratolaunch

I think it can be useful for transport not so much for passengers

[magnemoe]

Passengers are pretty fast to load, could speed up things a lot using the back door all the time, adding more doors is pretty trivial,
Baggage and other cargo is put in containers on many planes today. 
This stratolauncher design add a lot of extra weight. 
Only benefit I see is special pods for oversized cargo or special uses.
Note that you can do a lot of fun with an cargo plane today, like making an hospital by stuffing an hospital unit into it. add extra fuel tanks and replace the rear hatch for an tanker. 


 

[Nibb31]

It's not a very new concept. Similar ideas have been floating around for ages. The reason it hasn't taken on is because it's simply not a very good idea. Modern airliners can already be palletized (some 737s are converted to transport mail at night and passengers by day by switching palettes).

At a time when airliners are getting more streamlined to save 0.01% of fuel, this goes in the opposite direction. Also, this is not going to be a time saver for passengers. Instead of boarding the plane and taking off, you will need to board the module, attach the module to the plane, check everything out, and then take off.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Nibb31

[kerbiloid]

The ubanization will enforce the population concentration, and then the magnetic levitation will supress the aviation for a large urbanistic agglomeration.
Inside and between them, because having less cities you need much less routes.
Also when you have a 3d holo-skype your can meet most of not so important people without a journey. And 3d call takes much less time for a business meeting than a transcontinental flight.

Edited July 7, 2016 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

Looks very draggy...

[wumpus]

I suspect you could avoid most of the excess "draggyness", but I suspect that jet engines are closely designed for a specific amount of drag and that expecting them to be able to handle odd amounts of drag seems a problem.

It is a solution in search of a problem.  Ocean freighters can easily eat the mass and shape of a shipping container.  To a lesser (but still profitable) extent, so can rail and trucking.  Not so much for air travel (although using pallets isn't an issue).  There are a ton of other ways to optimize a plane for cargo/passengers that isn't quite as extreme.

I'm fairly surprised it isn't possible to replace the engines of an old 747 with prop engines and build a cargo plane that moves at ~200-300mph and use a quarter of the fuel it would with jets.  I'm guessing that the lift is too optimized for the 30,000ft ceiling and that going slower really wouldn't fit the flight envelope all that well.

[pincushionman]

I don't see it working so well. The article mentions the success of intermodal freight containers (IFCs), which they hope to emulate. With a system that is not apparently compatible with existing IFC infrastructure.

You don't just need airplane that can handle it - you also need trains and trucks that can be part of the same system. But most of all, you need to have a situation where an entire airplane's contents need to go from the same point A to the same point B, all at the same time.

Which is not gonna happen. Certainly not for passengers. And any cargo that is both time-sensitive and bulky enough that it must fly as an entire airplane's only cargo is worth the handling costs of getting it off a normal airplane. Honestly, you're better of trying to design a plane that accepts existing IFC units down its length, and the fact that nobody's yet done that is pretty telling.