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Aerocart cargo gliders
- drpixie 1y agoReally? Those who have had anything to do with gliders know there is plenty that can and will go wrong. Landing on-tow !?!? And what's the benefit - they might save a little in cruise, but they've got to get there (safely) first?
- grues-dinner 1y agoI'm sure airports will really appreciate half-mile tethers, or whatever length you need for full-sized cargo planes, flopping about the runways (I assume they're aiming for full size because their little graphics doesn't show a little GA thing) Even assuming a full size one doesn't fatigue off the tail of the lead plane, presumably any time a plane towing one gets into difficulty, the first thing they'll do is cut the towed thing free. Also the website sounds like it was written by an over-caffeinated estate agent.
- spacebacon 1y agoI agree, I don’t see this working on existing commercial cargo planes without significant engineering challenges. I also don’t see this working for existing air control systems. I do see it working for private airfields designed for it and tow planes designed for it but that is out of scope. I wonder if they get their own adsb signal?
- jayde2767 1y agoI imagine these would have to be flown out of specialized cargo airports. It would be a disaster coming out of Commercial airports.
- devilbunny 1y agoFarther down they talk about it being made for the regional cargo market, largely turboprop planes (e.g., Cessna Caravan). That's certainly what the brief video clips show.
- maxden 1y agoand what happens in the event of a disconnect? It mentions it has a form of automated control in the tow with "Aerolane's patented Pilot Positioning Assist systems"
- lschueller 1y agoYes, this was one of the first things that came to my mind: landing a towed glider right behind a motorized machine is just a bit too adventurous... Especially when winds a not 100 percent in optimum for a safe landing approach. Gliders should always eject mid air an land on their own.. Minimizing risks for any machine or even individuals
- jayde2767 1y agoNot to mention, what happens in the event of damage to the towed aircraft rendering flight operations impaired such that it affects the towing aircraft? “Oh sh1t!” at 35K feet.
- tdeck 1y agoBetter there than at 200 feet.
- rob74 1y agoUnless "affecting the towing aircraft" means "ripping its tail off", in which case you're screwed no matter what height you're at. GA aircraft are probably a bit sturdier, but large cargo aircraft (based on large passenger aircraft) were simply not designed to pull anything, so I imagine you would need to add some kind of (pretty sturdy) reinforcement to the attachment point, which would mean extra costs and reduce the MTOW of the towing aircraft.
- hermitcrab 1y agoLanding with a towed plane behind you sounds terrifying. So much could go wrong. Also the glider is going to have very different flight characteristics from the tow plane.
- undebuggable 1y agoI use my cargo gliders only for full scale landing operations.
- iseanstevens 1y agoPretty fascinating concept - take what we are already doing on the roads and translate it to the sky. Could lead to huge efficiency gains.
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- tintor 1y agoWhat is their safety case? How are they planning to handle aborted takeoffs of towing plane, for example? How does it integrate with ATC? During towing? During landing of glider? This video claims that trailer is landing separately and autonomously. Obscure of details. https://www.aerolane.com/news/florida-2025-q1-tests https://www.aerolane.com/news/florida-2025-q1-tests
- ricardobeat 1y agoIt looks like the prototypes land separately because they are converted aircraft. The production glider uses autopilot and is meant to land behind the main aircraft.
- bigwheels 1y agoAlso, how much does it decrease the fuel economy of the towing plane? I sure wouldn't want to be on a Boeing 7XX flight with one of these things in tow. Just imagine the possibility for human and machine error, the plane in tow could cause all manner of issues for the leader. Ever tried riding a bike and towing someone on another bike or a skateboard? It's perilous. Now do it in the air. Gutsy.
- cirrus3 1y ago> how much does it decrease the fuel economy of the towing plane Probably a lot, but I'd assume it is by less than the fuel that 1-2x more planes would use, otherwise there wouldn't be a point to doing this.
- gervwyk 1y agoI did a masters on design a autopilot to optimize fuel consumption in formation flight. What is interesting about the aerodynamics is that if placed in the upwash wake of the leader, you are essentially increasing the wing aspect ratio of the system, resulting in gains for both the leader and the follower aircraft. Feels very unintuitive but basically the donut spool is larger and the combined wing is bigger in the spool.
- dmitrygr 1y agoTow-plane pilot for gliders is a dangerous profession. A simple mistake by the glider pilot can kill the tow plane pilot, with not enough time to react. I saw this happen in person once (https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/101258/pdf https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...). Gliders and towing them is neither easy nor safe.
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- aseg 1y agoIn gliding, tow upsets are pretty common and, in rare cases, can be fatal. An out-of-position glider out can _easily_ and very quickly overcome the tow planes elevator authority (ability to pitch up or down) which leads to accidents like this. This video does a good job explaining explaining the root causes and potential dangers (https://youtu.be/5cpqFzhM9dY?si=J7GxP1dI9Xopy3xu https://youtu.be/5cpqFzhM9dY?si=J7GxP1dI9Xopy3xu). Also read the comments from testimonials from other glider pilots. This is my biggest concern with this concept as well. Towing things is challenging because the tow plane's center of gravity can change drastically depending on the forces on the glider it is towing -- if the glider deploys its spoilers / crabs in a crosswind / gets in your wake turbulence you're not going to be able to predict how it changes your CG (and your control authority) without training or experience. Also, with gliders, the tow plane is traveling at around 60MPH to 90MPH, with a decision window of 2-3 seconds. Commercial planes travel at ~500 MPH... The concept seems like a hard sell to the pilot unions. I bet they've thought about this though.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago> An out-of-position glider out can _easily_ and very quickly overcome the tow planes elevator authority Would this not be trivially solvable with a system that detects the situation (e.g. by measuring the forces acting on the towing plane's attachment point) and detaches the tow? If in the final concept the towed plane would be unmanned and wouldn't contain fuel, even a crash would not be particularly catastrophic.
- sand500 1y agoInstead, can we implement autonomous formation flying? Each aircraft can still have its own engines and control, but can make a V shape allowing the following planes to run more efficiently.
- idontwantthis 1y agoThis sounds like a free lunch to me.
- taneq 1y agoIt does, and should be viewed with the same optimism.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoReference on their page to the (obvious inspiration) Waco gliders of WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_CG-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_CG-4
- squirtle24 1y agoThe military gliders made sense because they were landing in hostile territory, usually nowhere near a runway for a return trip. Those gliders were pretty much a one-way, one-time-use vehicle. I guess the Waco glider could be used to argue that towing is technically feasible, but it was intended for a totally different use case. I don't see how it can be argued that it's more economical to run, especially considering the safety issues others have pointed out. I'm no aerospace engineer but it seems like it would be more efficient to fly one single bigger plane than to tow a second one behind it. I suppose this might appeal to certain groups where they already own a plane, and want to increase capacity without buying a whole new plane. But the idea that it's 65% more efficient just seems pretty sketch. I could totally imagine some drug cartels using these though...
- regularfry 1y agoIf you've got a bigger plane, you also need a bigger runway. This thing should increase the number of usable airfields. That could be interesting for avoiding more expensive routes.
- rkomorn 1y agoIf your plane+cargo glider weight is the same as your larger cargo plane weight, won't you need the same amount of runway? Your towing plane is going to have to accelerate the same mass to takeoff speed before it can get off the ground, no?
- regularfry 1y agoIt is, but that only happens at one end of the trip. It can still drop cargo on a smaller airfield at the other because the braking can be done independently by both. Plus there's an interesting wrinkle here: a lot of the media on the site show the tow plane as one with engines, and not a glider. I'm sure that's because those are the aircraft they could get their hands on, so that's what they made it work with, but the option is there to have the towed plane powered on takeoff. Doing that safely, with the two aircraft tethered... that sounds like a mess. But it's an option!
- plantain 1y ago"Despite the higher mass, takeoff & climb performance of the consist is similar to that of the lead plane flying independently. This means the consist is capable of taking off on the same runways and with similar climb profiles as the primary tow plane is alone." This is just denying basic physics. Ask any glider pilot how the climb out on aerotow varies based on the weight of the glider being towed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y agoThis seems to be the make-or-break aspect of the entire idea and the claim does seem incredibly suspect to me too. OTOH lying about something basic like this doesn't seem like a viable "business" idea. Is there any more documentation/evidence/explanation available for this?
- usrusr 1y agoPerhaps the glider isn't strictly a glider but has some electric assist that's only used for takeoff and initial climbout? Electric achieves unprecedented power per weight when you only need battery for a minute or two. If you can leave all the endurance for cruise and main climb to the lead plane, electric becomes almost trivial.
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- rob74 1y agoTheir current implementation (or prototype?) actually uses a powered airplane instead of a glider, which has its engines on for takeoff and then switches them off during the gliding phase (https://www.aerolane.com/aerocart https://www.aerolane.com/aerocart, "How planes fly with AC0 today"). This way it works of course, but I'm not convinced it would be possible to take off with a glider in tow when the lead plane is already near its MTOW (if you'd have to reduce the loading of the lead plane to be able to accomodate the glider, that would defeat the whole purpose of what you're trying to do)?
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- riffic 1y agoair-train?
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoThe iterated version where cargo can split off and land would maybe in some cases be interesting. A drone carrier.
- aitchnyu 1y agoI assumed this was about replacing "Airport 1 > Airport 2 > Industrial Park (trucks)" operations with airplanes which can drop cargo to multiple destinations.
- chimpontherun 1y agoThis concept raises more questions than the site answers: * what's the point of landing in tow? The safety aspects and the failure modes are enormous * it's unclear where the 65% fuel saving comes from. Riding the wingtip vortex on the inside produces downward momentum. In order to generate positive lift from the wingtip vortex, the follower has to be outside of it (e.g., gaggles of geese in wedge formation) * taking advantage of wake flows, while possible (although 65% is highly improbable), would always be less efficient than optimizing a single airframe so that it minimizes the wake generation in the first place * the site is missing footage of real flights. The 3 clips 10-seconds long are not showing what they claim to be showing. Also, does the "see flight tests" link work for anybody?
- usrusr 1y agoTaking an "optimist's advocate" position here (I share your scepticism): 65% are almost easy to achieve, with a bit of clever accounting: you'd look at fuel per ton-mile (that much is clear and perfectly fine) and then you just pick a tow plane that's maybe a bit overpowered but doesn't have much cargo capacity. If you look at fuel saving through that lense, the sky is the limit. The contingency page in the pitch deck for when the "bigger plane is always more efficient" argument comes up would be looking at big end of the hypothetical size spectrum: when you want efficiency, a bigger plane means bigger wingspan. Air travel is in something not too dissimilar to the "panamax" situation on the oceans, everything on the ground stops at 747-sized (the A380 was carefully squeezed to mostly fit that profile). A formation can get a similar effect as a larger wingspan without exceeding runway dimensions. (and as for landing in tow: perhaps some stupid legal angle, "it's all fully automated, but technically this is not autonomous because the lead aircraft pilot is in charge"?)
- regularfry 1y agoThe reverse - tow plane lands separately - has some interesting challenges. If the tow plane lands first and messes up the landing, blocking the runway, the lead plane now can't land. Fine if you've planned the fuel for a round trip, and fine if there's a currently-usable second runway, but I can see a huge draw for this in being able to get interesting cargo loads into and out of smaller airfields where that won't be available. If the tow plane lands second then it needs to loiter, gliding autonomously, for as long as it takes for the lead plane to land and get out of the way. And that sounds like a much harder problem to do safely, particularly with the lead plane's pilot having to pay attention to landing and unable to control the tow plane if it gets into a dangerous state.
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- gorgoiler 1y agoThis product is for towing behind another aircraft, but what about winch towing? A winched glider implements flight with renewable electricity and it does so efficiently because the power and motor never leave the ground! A glider can climb up to 5000 feet and travel 50x that before making a landing. Wouldn’t it be glorious to see cargo being autonomously slung from site to site across the world, powered entirely by green electricity?
- stinkbeetle 1y agoDo you mean laying out 50 mile long cables from place to place with big engines on the ground that pull in a cable at a couple hundred miles per hour after a plane attaches to it? That wouldn't work. Not even if you skipped tow out a cable from your departure point so it could be reused. And if you had a track for the cable to run in or a carriage holding the winch to drive travel along, then you would just make it rail freight.
- wiml 1y agoNo. Winch glider launches (which are not a new thing) use a ground-based winch to give the glider an initial impulse, and the glider uses that to gain altitude and then glide for a much longer distance. https://glidingschool.com/briefing-winch-launch/ https://glidingschool.com/briefing-winch-launch/
- stinkbeetle 1y agoWell then it's even simpler, carrying any worthwhile amount of cargo in a winch launched glider is not going to work.
- wildzzz 1y agoIt would work fine for sending small payloads short distances but unless you're in a hurry, it would be much easier to just send more mass by truck or train. One big benefit is having a truck or train being able to return to its origin without requiring another launch facility and also being able to travel in nearly all weather. There may be some use cases where drone gliders could airdrop payloads and return to their origin. But again, this requires very specific circumstances like good weather, a lack of roads, unavailability of av gas or jet fuel, and enough cleared space to launch a glider. I do see winches as a good way to launch lightweight fixed wing drones to reduce the amount of fuel and engine size required to deliver payloads. You'd only need to account for the fuel and power required to sustain cruise if you could winch a drone into the sky. You'd get even more distance if the drone was never intended to return like a kamikaze weapon. A small clearing in a field in Ukraine could launch cheap fixed wing kamikaze drones all day long.
- ninalanyon 1y agoIs this competitive with using trains and ships for goods transport?
- bgnn 1y agoof course not. no chance this would compete on cost and volume with those.
- bronco21016 1y agoThe physical linkage aspect of this just seems so dangerous. As other commenters have pointed out glider tow accidents are a real thing. Luckily gliders are light and typically operating at low speed. Adding a 10,000 lb aircraft to this situation seems wild. Airbus concepts like fello'fly[1] and GEESE seem significantly safer. I could see using something like a lead aircraft with several drones following in formation and breaking off for takeoff and landing operations. Reliable Robotics is already working on autonomous small cargo aircraft for these types of regional cargo operations. [1] https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/future-aircraft-operations/air-traffic-management/fellofly-and-geese https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/future-aircraft-operati...
- jmiskovic 1y agoI don't understand? "When towing Aerocarts, planes instantly double or triple their payload capacity. This is because their capacity is limited by the takeoff / landing weight – not what they can safely pull through the air." But later, on "How it works" section it is apparent that the main plane still has to tow the cart behind it when taking off. What's the trick that makes this work? Extra set of wings?
- wildzzz 1y agoYes, the wings of the glider provide lift that otherwise would not be present. The engines still need to produce more thrust to pull the glider but that's expected, the extra cargo doesn't come free.
- rob74 1y agoThat... kind of makes sense. But (the way I* see it) modern large aircraft aren't very overpowered (otherwise they would be less efficient), so their engine power is just a little bit above what's needed to get them into the air with a "usual" runway size in ~ the worst possible conditions ("hot & high"). Which means that they would need ~ double the runway length to take off with a glider in tow? So this works with the small aircraft they're currently testing with (they just have to use a longer runway), but if they want to extend it to larger cargo jets, they would risk exceeding the limitations of existing airport runways? ________ * - someone who has an interest in aviation, but no professional background or training therein
- palijer 1y agoThere's no way to make these safe - it's almost comical and this could be an April 1st joke. Case 1) how are you handling potential rapid TCAS climbs/decent? You're making the targets a lot larger and less responsive. If TCAS commands a decent and slow down, you will be overtaken by the tow. Case 2) landings thay require rapid braking, such as short runways for emergencies or engine fires (rapid brakes used so emergency vehicles don't have to chase 2km to get to you) Case 3) aborted take offs. Brakes will need to be more performant and reactive than the ones we have on the main aircraft Case 4) taxiing across active runways now has reduced margins. Case 5) go-around performance is diminished. Already sometimes tight margins on that, what happens if you need to do a go around but the landing gear on the glider collapsed and is now a ground anchor?
- leoh 1y agoLots of comments about safety issues. What if anything do we think we can do to make this all safer?
- leoh 1y agoApparently, gliders were used to deploy materiel during World War 2 https://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/20100826.pdf https://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/20100826.pdf