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Taking this to the Nth degree, you could optimize the air travel process to an incredible degree. So you make a pod, with tubes for air/water/food(maybe), power

Taking this to the Nth degree, you could optimize the air travel process to an incredible degree. So you make a pod, with tubes for air/water/food(maybe), power for systems/temperature/entertainment, and communications. It's got room for pax and luggage. Big ass airport lobby, you take your sedatives, get in the pod, and then that is it so far as "regular users mucking up the process. The pods get routed to aircraft, aircraft take off, they land, pods routed to lobby, and off go the pax. The pods pass through what's essentially a gigantic dishwasher, sterilizing them, re-dressing with consumables, and the process repeats. Cabin design could make absolutely maximal use of internal volume, with just a central stem for routing the pods. A smaller subdivision could be reserved for emergencies where passengers need to be de-podded. I don't know about you, but spending eight hours in a private little pod, sleeping and whatnot, sounds like some sort of personal nirvana compared to a intercontinental coach seat, which - at my advancing age - is getting to be something close to frickin' torture. I don't have the bandwidth to run numbers on this, but I am betting an airport could probably more than quintuple their load/unload speed. Actually . . shit . . they'd clog their strips really damn quickly unless you did some sort of super optimization on the landing/takeoff/ground ATC. Although you do have the increased capacity per plane . . I dunno. This might be a fun weekend project.

ianburrell 3y ago
Pods would be much less efficient than current system. You are carrying like hundred pound of pod for each passenger. Would save some on no seats but then lose it to racks for carrying the pods. Also, would need to carry nurses to monitor vitals and revive passengers. Most important, pods are death traps in crash. Remember the plane in Japan where most of the passengers survived? All of them in pods would have died.
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  Yeah, the pods got weight, but cabin systems are not in any way weightless, not by any stretch, and you could really strip down the whole interior. Airline seats, just by themselves, are 40kg per. On the other hand, I defer on the safety issue. Definitely hard to imagine safety improvement here, particularly evacuation . .

ianburrell 3y ago

Pods would be much less efficient than current system. You are carrying like hundred pound of pod for each passenger. Would save some on no seats but then lose it to racks for carrying the pods. Also, would need to carry nurses to monitor vitals and revive passengers. Most important, pods are death traps in crash. Remember the plane in Japan where most of the passengers survived? All of them in pods would have died.

MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Yeah, the pods got weight, but cabin systems are not in any way weightless, not by any stretch, and you could really strip down the whole interior. Airline seats, just by themselves, are 40kg per. On the other hand, I defer on the safety issue. Definitely hard to imagine safety improvement here, particularly evacuation . .