h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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Tremendous effort goes into designing passenger
aircraft
so that they are as efficient as possible at moving
people
from place-to-place. They are earning money when they
are in the air, and costing money when they are on the
ground. Time on the ground is made necessary by
several
factors:
fueling, maintenance and most of all, passenger
loading/unloading.
To circumvent this, I propose that the passenger/cargo
component of the aircraft be made a self-contained unit
that may be loaded independently of the bit of the
aircraft
that's responsible for flying.
The whole thing is VERY CLOSELY modeled on
Thunderbird
2.
So, here's the passenger experience: you go to the
airport,
wave the appropriate bar codes at the correct places,
put
your bag on a conveyor and go through the ritual
humiliation of security. Then proceed immediately to
the
gate where your pod is waiting with nice wide doors at
the
front and back. You can take you time stowing your
carry-
on while bags are packed underneath. No rush.
Meanwhile, your aircraft is landing with a different pod
attached.
When it's time, the doors are closed off and everyone
strapped in. Your pod trundles to the now-vacant
aircraft on the back of it's special truck, raised into
position, locked in and off you go.
This also allows for cargo/passenger versions to be
interchanged, the pilot is isolated from the passenger
cabin by design, turnaround time is reduced.
Maintenance/upgrades/replacement of the passenger
pod
and aircraft may be completed independently. Diverse
aircraft may be designed to carry 1/2/3 pods which will
facilitate the hub-and-spoke model of air travel. All
aircraft of this type MUST be painted green in homage to
Thunderbird 2.
Fast-load ferry
Fast-load_20ferry
by rbl. [calum, Feb 26 2013]
airliner passenger cartridges
[xaviergisz, Mar 02 2013]
Airbus have applied for a patent for this very thing!
http://www.gizmag.c...lar-aircraft/40660/
Oh, please let the Halfbakery be entered as evidence of prior art in a patent trial. [friendlyfire, Dec 05 2015]
Airbus's actual patent
http://patft.uspto....airbus+AND+ISD/2015
Gizmag linked to a patent about winglets. [notexactly, Dec 05 2015]
Much more elegant.
http://www.castanet...6569-57-.htm#156569
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 20 2016]
Work so far has focused on different kinds of modules.
https://www.youtube...watch?v=AaChszhz4o4
[Voice, Oct 30 2017]
Baked for Reindeer anyhow
https://blog.alaska...ombi-plane-retires/
Cargo Igloos in Alaska [mylodon, Nov 02 2017]
[link]
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I see difficulties with this. |
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In particular, it's going to be embarrassing when
the aircraft makes its climbout and folds itself
into an unplanned shape. |
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The fuselage is a major structural component, and
you really want it to be fixed to the wings in a
rather solid way. Either that, or the airframe will
have to be redesigned so that it is fully stable
even without the pod in place. That's going to
add weight, which is often seen in a negative light
by those who design aircraft. |
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You might get away with it, though, if you had a
tubular pod that slid in from an opening nose.
The pod itself would have to be very lightweight,
since it would be essentially an addition to an
otherwise normal aircraft. |
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Also, I think we did something similar here before,
but I may well be wrong. |
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I'm pretty sure the aircraft would be heavier than
standard. However, I'm pretty sure you'd gain
pretty big on the turnaround time for shorter
flights. Obviously, as a percentage,
loading/unloading is very little on a 12hr flight.
But a route like Manchester-Dublin spends more
time on the ground than in the air. If you can
halve the dead-time, then you're flying 50% more,
and I think the weight increase will be small
enough to make this more worthwhile. |
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The engineering problems were worked out by
Brains, we should be OK there. |
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Both Fairchild and Fiesler did prototypes of transport aircraft that were very Thunderbird-2ish. |
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I suppose you could swap out fuel tanks the same way. The net effect, though, is that you have all these airplane components sitting around not making money, while being emptied or filled as appropriate, and equal numbers of those components actually in the air making money. |
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Obviously you will want those components to be as cheap as possible. I'm not sure that can work for the passenger area. |
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Oh, and one of the other reasons a plane sits on the ground for a while is CLEANING. The toilet tanks need to be empied, the barf from unexpected turbulence needs to be swabbed, and so on. |
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You might consider making the passenger section a towable glider and having different tugs for various routes. Could be a safety measure in case of engine failure on the tug . |
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While the combined weight could not be exactly the same, the increase would not have to be that large. The plane is already composed of the structural part plus the plastic walls that are in contact with the passengers. If the system was designed so that the pod slide on rails (and the baggage compartment hung from rails), the pod itself would need very little additional structure besides teh exiting plastic walls. Of course that would require the plane to mate tightly with the terminal to provide continuous upper and lower rails to slide the pod out the front of the plane. |
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My other thought is that once you've gone this far, the pod really ought to break open to allow passengers to exit rapidly. I'm thinking that once the pod reached the unloading area, the rail supporting the left overhead bagage compartment would move left, taking the bagage as well as the left wall about 20 feet sideways, and lowering it a couple feet, the wall slipping into an appropriate slot in the floor. Something similar would happen to the right half. The passensger could then get out the sides rather than the aisle and walk over to the now lowered compartments. Once they have their luggage, there would be a 20 floot wide hallway, allowing the mass of people to exit at the same time. Since the pod is now wide open, it could be cleaned and serviced by a large crew very rapidly rather than having a small crew working the length of the airplane. This could reduce the time on the ground that the pod spends in unloading, cleaning, and maintenance which would offset the longer time that the pod spent in loading. |
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This would lend itself to a bit different airport layout. I think it would make sense for all of the incoming pods to get transported with passengers aboard to an unloading area closer to the main terminal. The number of unloading bays could be much smaller than the number of loading areas because the unloding and cleaning would be pretty quick, and then the pod would be sent out to a departure gate. I think the pod should be closed before loading going to a departure gate for loading. It would be nice if passengers could load quickly, but it seems like it would be problematic ensuring that there are no finger or straps in the way while reassembling the pod. It would probably be possible to use a much simpler latching mechanism if there is a large maintenace crew to oversee it to ensure that all the bits are snapped back together properly, since the plastic walls will be somewhat floppy. And since people trickle through security slowly, they can just walk into the waiting pod and sit down. There might not be any need for seating at each gate. |
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The main landing gear retract into the fuselage. When
the main fuselage "pod" is removed, you need to
remember to turn off gravity so the aircraft will be
able to remain balanced on the nosewheel alone. Other
than the fact that it won't work, great idea. |
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The main landing gear would retract into part of
the permanently fixed structure that also includes
the wings, engines, empennage, small cabin crew
areas for those remaining with the plane, cockpit
and nose. Also, if you're smart, fuel tanks, since
having those come loose during flight would be
bad. A standard cargo pod would have a cutout to
clear this. |
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As far as having airline equipment on the ground,
it wouldn't be that bad. People would unload, a
cleaning crew would move through, and then the
plane would start loading for the next flight, which
doesn't have to be on the same airframe. The
total idle time for a pod wouldn't have to be much
more than it is right now for the entire plane, and
the idle time for the airframe would be minimal. |
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Sure, the landing gear is going to be in the wing
roots. There are so many variations that are so
well-baked that this is a trivial modification. Also,
traditional landing gear was eschewed in
Thunderbird 2. We can only assume that wheels
are for the unimaginative. |
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The fuel tanks can be in the wings, like they
mostly are right now. |
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The Idle time for the pods is much less important
than the idle time for an aircraft.... think of the
area taken up by a plane... you could probably
stack 10 fuselage-width passenger pods in the
same space. Also, they're already optimized for
being lifted, simply make a hangar with shelves.
Actually, make them stack-able. |
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There will always be more pods than aircraft
because of the multiple roles they might play.
Passenger and cargo are the obvious straight-up
replacements. But this works really well for military
deployment: you can have a whole barracks made
of pods and when the time comes, simple
requisition/rent the enormous fleet of civilian
aircraft to deploy the entire base to another part
of the globe. |
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[ ] good only for single destination flights. Granted, _very_ good for single destination flights. |
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I like the idea of having a modular capsule that can detatch from the rest of the aircraft in an emergency and has its own parachute system and can also float.
Not exactly this idea I know, but I thought I'd toss it out there. |
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//It's also seen as a negative by those who pay for the fuel used by an aircraft. |
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Easily ameliorated by the passengers bringing their own fuel etc |
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//The engineering problems were worked out by
Brains, we should be OK there.// |
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Bun for the reference to one of my childhood
heroes. |
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Adds weight, wastes fuel, reduces space for passengers. |
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Makes the plane more complex, expensive and failure prone. |
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Planes need time on the ground anyway for refueling and checklists. |
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Actually I think it'd at least break even for running costs, even make a bit. Bear in mind that servicing the passenger compartment and servicing the mechanicals don't really have anything to do with each other. |
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Look up turn-around time. |
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Smaller airliners take 30 minutes for refueling and flight tests. |
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Larger airliners take an hour. |
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Passenger movement times are about the same I think. |
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You still need to do this even if you have modules. Modules would ADD time, probably, because they would have to be installed and added to the checklist. |
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A bunch of modules could be kept, serviced and ready to go on the ground, maintenance/repair, replenishing and inspection done when convenient. (As usual the night shift does most of the work). |
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All you have to do then is clamp the module onto the airplane and connect a couple of electrical/signal cables. |
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Ameliorate fuel costs whatever by never actually landing the plane. |
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Each passengers get a metal box to lie in, which are raised to 35,000 ft by hydrogen balloons where they are caught by the plane, which extracts the hydrogen for fuel. |
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Exit from plane by individual ejection of metal box (with parachute) to your door - route permitting. |
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//Planes need time on the ground anyway for
refueling and checklists. // |
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Could put the fuel tanks in the modules
themselves. That would require extending them
into the wings but that could be done. |
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This isn't strictly an engineering question, clearly
the complexity and structural components you'd
have to add would make this a less efficient
aircraft. |
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But if you could have a plane almost constantly on
the move for ten hours straight flying passengers,
say from San Francisco to L.A. by eliminating
those 45 minute to an hour
unloading/loading/fueling times it might make
sense financially. If you could get say 10 flights a
day instead of 6, it might be worth doing. |
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It might be more efficient just to ensmoothen the entire
boarding process for standard aircraft. |
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For instance, when a train stops, passengers generally
board and take their seats within the 2-3 minutes before
the train starts moving. |
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Why are aircraft so slow to board and fly? Well: |
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(1) Passengers generally board in pseudo-random order,
meaning that one passenger has to wait behind another
while they sort out their hand luggage and take their
seat. Solution: board in strict seat-row order. |
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(2) Hold-luggage has to be loaded. Solution: load the
luggage into one or two large containers as the
passengers check in, then just slot those containers into
the aircraft. |
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(3) Aircraft wait around for a take-off slot. Solution:
with more predictable passenger and baggage loading
times, it should be possible to manage slots more
precisely, with less waiting time. |
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// ensmoothen the entire boarding process for standard aircraft. // |
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1. Check in the passengers. |
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2. Grind them down to a slurry, adding emulsifiers and water as necessary to give an appropriate viscosity. |
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3. Store them in a tank until required. |
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4. Pump them onto the aircraft through a large-bore flexible hose. |
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Looking for investors. [link] |
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I think drawing attention to the accident scenarios is a
poor strategy. Accidents involving aircraft loss in level
flight are astonishingly rare. Recent aircraft losses in
level flight are weather, missiles, bombs and pilot
suicide. This system will not help you in those scenarios.
It's much more likely that something will happen in take
off and landing, and there's not enough time or perhaps
altitude to think about deploying the cabin then. You're
also asking the crew to sacrifice themselves, which they
might be fine with. But it complicates a safety critical
decision, which is never good. |
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Anyhow, airlines think a lot about their liability in air
crashes. Compensation varies wildly depending upon the
perceived suffering of the victims. For example, American
Airlines 191 had a live feed from a cockpit camera to the
passengers, so they could watch the aircraft roll, take off
and then nosedive into the ground. Because of the
increase
in perceived suffering and liability, they don't have
cameras anymore. The point being that the parachute
descending cabin would have a lovely view of the burning
cockpit containing the sacrificial crew. The airline would
get sued into non-existence for the survivor guilt and
PTSD this would inevitably cause. |
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Immediate death is about $160k per passenger. Prolonged
suffering can mean many millions multiplied by the
number... so yeah, that's where the incentives are pointing. |
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