3 ms·
All of them exist or have existed. - Airships were the original form of air travel before airplanes obsoleted them, still have some use for publicity (Goodyear
by GuB-42 3y ago
All of them exist or have existed.
- Airships were the original form of air travel before airplanes obsoleted them, still have some use for publicity (Goodyear blimps) or recreative flying.
- There are a few maglev lines in regular service in China. There were others in other places before.
- Concorde. Not anymore though.
- There are quite a few hydrofoil ships in operation today.
- Ground effect vehicles are just planes that fly low. They exist, but I am not aware of passenger service with these.
- rob74 3y agoYup, these are all niche technologies - some of them (airships) had their time, but today they are all much less common than the alternatives ("regular" airplanes, regular trains, regular ships). Interestingly there is also a parallel between hovercraft and supersonic passenger airplanes: their best-known applications (Concorde and the hoverferry across the English channel) both started in the 1960s, were never really profitable and were discontinued once the original vehicles were getting obsolete in the early 2000s.
- CobaltFire 3y agoJapan has had an operational maglev for years as a local train. The Linimo was built for the 2005 Worlds Fair and has been in regular service since, so it’s not just China.