6 ms·

The future of flying

37 points by fourmii 11y ago

Daviey 11y ago
Skyfaring, the book referenced in the article is the current narrated book of the week on BBC Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05q0tw0/episodes/guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05q0tw0/episodes/guide
- mcqueen888 11y ago
  And the book's website: www.skyfaring.com
melling 11y ago
8 million people fly every day. I would think that number could easily triple or quadruple over the next few decades as more people move out of poverty. We're adding another 2.5 billion people by 2050 so the number could be much larger.
- fulafel 11y ago
  That would be ruinous to the planet barring a miracle dramatically reducing air travel climate effects in that short timespan.
  - tertius 11y ago
    Do you have any source material for the effects of air travel on climate?
    - fulafel 11y ago
      Are you looking for scholarly references and scientific evidence, or more casual background material? For the former, here's IPCC on the subject. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/index.php?idp=64 http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/index.php?idp=6... For the latter, the wikipedia article looks fine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...)
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    The planet is 5 billion years old. We may change the ecology by doubling air travel, but we are unlikely to ruin it.
- bedhead 11y ago
  I disagree. Airports are already a bottleneck that will only get worse over time. There has only been one major airport built in the US in the last 30 years. It's nearly impossible to expand many airports (both gates and runways) for various reasons. There are only so many slots available. I honestly don't think the US could handle a doubling of flyers, we will have outgrown our current infrastructure yet it's almost impossible to expand it. Like it or not, the price of airline tickets is probably going in one direction for the foreseeable future.
  - steven777400 11y ago
    This doesn't have to be true. Many large airports have smaller regional airports nearby that have the capacity to handle passenger traffic. For example, I live in Olympia about 60 - 90 minutes south of Seattle (and about 30 minutes from Tacoma). The airport here is large enough to accommodate 737s, and even did have passenger service for a few years with smaller turboprops, but now doesn't. Efficiency desires are leading to larger, centralized airports which then run into capacity problems while regional airports languish.
    - koenigdavidmj 11y ago
      And on the other hand, Paine Field in Everett just got approval for commercial service: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2015/03/02/snohomish-council-narrowly-approves-commercial-air.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2015/03/02/snohomish... Though I'll grant that this is probably an exception, not a rule, and that it just barely got approved.
    - bedhead 11y ago
      It doesn't have to be, but it probably will be. I'm in Chicago and even our second airport, Midway, is showing signs of pressure. I can think of a handful of other second tier airports in major cities in similar positions. I think this is going to become a very heated topic over the next 25 years. The general public has been groomed to believe that cheap airfare on a several-hundred-million-dollar vehicle with incomprehensibly good safety standards is a birthright, so when the cost of air travel starts going a lot higher, people are going to freak out. We can make all sorts of tweaks to alleviate the problem (load efficiency, bigger planes, more seats/plane, longer hours of operation, etc) but at some point the inherent limits of a fixed number of runways, gates, and slots is going to catch up to us, and that's when the price of a ticket for many particular routes is going to go vertical.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
transfire 11y ago
The future of flying is not flying? Some solution. Let's try a future that is actually a bit more futuristic, shall we? Imagine, small electric hybrid fuel cell planes that carry less than 50 passengers flying point to point to municipal airports instead of just major hubs. Roomy accommodations, coach is almost as nice a 1st class is today. And the cost is half. The problem with the future of flying is not environmental or technical. The above is possible. The problem is regulatory (and greed).
- exDM69 11y ago
  Call me a lunatic but: Airships! I want to see airships, zeppelins, blimps come back. They can fly passengers or cargo faster than seafaring ships or travelling on land, while being able to take off and land in a smaller area than an airport runway. The speeds of airships were around 120-200+ km/h, making it comparable with a slow flying piston powered aircraft of the same era. A flight on the Hindenburg was more luxurious than flying in an airplane has ever been. There was a dining salon and a smoking lounge and plenty of room to walk around. Airships were capable of transporting close to 100 passengers. They can fly closer to a big city than an airplane can, reducing the total time of travel when you don't need to go to the airport, far away from the cities. Anecdote: my home town has a futuristic art deco hotel built in the 1930s, which has a mast that was designed as a mooring point for airships, right in the middle of the city. Unfortunately that has never been used to my knowledge. Airships might also be (partially) powered by electricity and have very large surface area that could be used for solar panels. Unfortunately, I can't see this happening any time soon. There are some ventures into building modern airships, with mixed success. I recon modern people are too impatient to travel 4-5 times slower than what they're used to. Transporting cargo overseas is so cheap that it's difficult to compete with. And whether it makes any kind of economic sense is another question.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    >There are some ventures into building modern airships, with mixed success. Where mixed ~= no. The luxury of pre-WW II zeppelin travel is something of a red herring. To the degree there were a market for travel at the equivalent cost of trans-Atlantic Zeppelin travel, you could pretty much have it in a wide body aircraft. After all, Pan Am's original 747s had a first class lounge upstairs which today is (universally, as far as I know) used for additional business class seating. High-end seating on airlines like Emirates is pretty luxurious today but the modern preference tends toward individual suites rather than space given to common areas. >I recon modern people are too impatient to travel 4-5 times slower than what they're used to. Well, even if the travel is relatively luxurious I don't have a burning desire to spend a couple of days in a relatively confined space although your general point is probably true. On the other hand, I'm sure lots of the people who travelled by ocean liner or zeppelin would have jumped at the chance to go from London or Berlin to New York in under 10 hours.
EA 11y ago
One day, to travel hundreds or thousands of miles across our planet's surface, we'll be pulled upward to a router and then drop to a port near our desired destination.
- bojan 11y ago
  The problem with that is that once you get disassembled into particles, you're dead. The guy that shows up on the other side can look, feel, think and have the same memories as you, but won't be you.
  - keeperofdakeys 11y ago
    A rather long, but relevant comic http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    This is tiresome. It's no different than going to sleep. Or indeed, one moment of consciousness to the next. You've no way to tell if your consciousness is being paused, disassembled, and reassembled every second. I know this won't persuade anyone that's already decided. This issue won't get "settled" until we actually understand the mechanics of consciousness. AFAIK, no one has any real good descriptions of what's going on. Hell, some are still supporting dualist views.
amelius 11y ago
Who needs to go on a holiday when you can just put on your VR goggles? And who needs to go on a business trip if you can use the internet?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- amyjess 11y ago
  This can't come soon enough. I can't fly because I can't risk being groped by the TSA: I have deep issues with my body, and I will not let anyone pat me down under any circumstances. My biggest fear is that an employer will order me to fly somewhere, and I'll have no choice but to get fired because I can't go through security and wind up losing my house and living on the streets.
la6470 11y ago
Flying needs to jump to version 2.0. 1) a trip across the world should take a couple of hours and not 12-16 hours. 2) safety should improve. Planes should not get lost without a trace and passengers should survive any kind of crash. To achieve these we need radical change of technology that powers modern aviation, which is basically unchanged from the 70s.

37 points by fourmii 11y ago

Skyfaring, the book referenced in the article is the current narrated book of the week on BBC Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05q0tw0/episodes/guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05q0tw0/episodes/guide

mcqueen888 11y ago
And the book's website: www.skyfaring.com

melling 11y ago

8 million people fly every day. I would think that number could easily triple or quadruple over the next few decades as more people move out of poverty. We're adding another 2.5 billion people by 2050 so the number could be much larger.

fulafel 11y ago
That would be ruinous to the planet barring a miracle dramatically reducing air travel climate effects in that short timespan.
- tertius 11y ago
  Do you have any source material for the effects of air travel on climate?
  - fulafel 11y ago
    Are you looking for scholarly references and scientific evidence, or more casual background material? For the former, here's IPCC on the subject. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/index.php?idp=64 http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/index.php?idp=6... For the latter, the wikipedia article looks fine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...)
- tomjen3 11y ago
  The planet is 5 billion years old. We may change the ecology by doubling air travel, but we are unlikely to ruin it.
bedhead 11y ago
I disagree. Airports are already a bottleneck that will only get worse over time. There has only been one major airport built in the US in the last 30 years. It's nearly impossible to expand many airports (both gates and runways) for various reasons. There are only so many slots available. I honestly don't think the US could handle a doubling of flyers, we will have outgrown our current infrastructure yet it's almost impossible to expand it. Like it or not, the price of airline tickets is probably going in one direction for the foreseeable future.
- steven777400 11y ago
  This doesn't have to be true. Many large airports have smaller regional airports nearby that have the capacity to handle passenger traffic. For example, I live in Olympia about 60 - 90 minutes south of Seattle (and about 30 minutes from Tacoma). The airport here is large enough to accommodate 737s, and even did have passenger service for a few years with smaller turboprops, but now doesn't. Efficiency desires are leading to larger, centralized airports which then run into capacity problems while regional airports languish.
  - koenigdavidmj 11y ago
    And on the other hand, Paine Field in Everett just got approval for commercial service: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2015/03/02/snohomish-council-narrowly-approves-commercial-air.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2015/03/02/snohomish... Though I'll grant that this is probably an exception, not a rule, and that it just barely got approved.
  - bedhead 11y ago
    It doesn't have to be, but it probably will be. I'm in Chicago and even our second airport, Midway, is showing signs of pressure. I can think of a handful of other second tier airports in major cities in similar positions. I think this is going to become a very heated topic over the next 25 years. The general public has been groomed to believe that cheap airfare on a several-hundred-million-dollar vehicle with incomprehensibly good safety standards is a birthright, so when the cost of air travel starts going a lot higher, people are going to freak out. We can make all sorts of tweaks to alleviate the problem (load efficiency, bigger planes, more seats/plane, longer hours of operation, etc) but at some point the inherent limits of a fixed number of runways, gates, and slots is going to catch up to us, and that's when the price of a ticket for many particular routes is going to go vertical.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

transfire 11y ago

The future of flying is not flying? Some solution. Let's try a future that is actually a bit more futuristic, shall we? Imagine, small electric hybrid fuel cell planes that carry less than 50 passengers flying point to point to municipal airports instead of just major hubs. Roomy accommodations, coach is almost as nice a 1st class is today. And the cost is half. The problem with the future of flying is not environmental or technical. The above is possible. The problem is regulatory (and greed).

exDM69 11y ago
Call me a lunatic but: Airships! I want to see airships, zeppelins, blimps come back. They can fly passengers or cargo faster than seafaring ships or travelling on land, while being able to take off and land in a smaller area than an airport runway. The speeds of airships were around 120-200+ km/h, making it comparable with a slow flying piston powered aircraft of the same era. A flight on the Hindenburg was more luxurious than flying in an airplane has ever been. There was a dining salon and a smoking lounge and plenty of room to walk around. Airships were capable of transporting close to 100 passengers. They can fly closer to a big city than an airplane can, reducing the total time of travel when you don't need to go to the airport, far away from the cities. Anecdote: my home town has a futuristic art deco hotel built in the 1930s, which has a mast that was designed as a mooring point for airships, right in the middle of the city. Unfortunately that has never been used to my knowledge. Airships might also be (partially) powered by electricity and have very large surface area that could be used for solar panels. Unfortunately, I can't see this happening any time soon. There are some ventures into building modern airships, with mixed success. I recon modern people are too impatient to travel 4-5 times slower than what they're used to. Transporting cargo overseas is so cheap that it's difficult to compete with. And whether it makes any kind of economic sense is another question.
- ghaff 11y ago
  >There are some ventures into building modern airships, with mixed success. Where mixed ~= no. The luxury of pre-WW II zeppelin travel is something of a red herring. To the degree there were a market for travel at the equivalent cost of trans-Atlantic Zeppelin travel, you could pretty much have it in a wide body aircraft. After all, Pan Am's original 747s had a first class lounge upstairs which today is (universally, as far as I know) used for additional business class seating. High-end seating on airlines like Emirates is pretty luxurious today but the modern preference tends toward individual suites rather than space given to common areas. >I recon modern people are too impatient to travel 4-5 times slower than what they're used to. Well, even if the travel is relatively luxurious I don't have a burning desire to spend a couple of days in a relatively confined space although your general point is probably true. On the other hand, I'm sure lots of the people who travelled by ocean liner or zeppelin would have jumped at the chance to go from London or Berlin to New York in under 10 hours.

EA 11y ago

One day, to travel hundreds or thousands of miles across our planet's surface, we'll be pulled upward to a router and then drop to a port near our desired destination.

bojan 11y ago
The problem with that is that once you get disassembled into particles, you're dead. The guy that shows up on the other side can look, feel, think and have the same memories as you, but won't be you.
- keeperofdakeys 11y ago
  A rather long, but relevant comic http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  This is tiresome. It's no different than going to sleep. Or indeed, one moment of consciousness to the next. You've no way to tell if your consciousness is being paused, disassembled, and reassembled every second. I know this won't persuade anyone that's already decided. This issue won't get "settled" until we actually understand the mechanics of consciousness. AFAIK, no one has any real good descriptions of what's going on. Hell, some are still supporting dualist views.

amelius 11y ago

Who needs to go on a holiday when you can just put on your VR goggles? And who needs to go on a business trip if you can use the internet?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
amyjess 11y ago
This can't come soon enough. I can't fly because I can't risk being groped by the TSA: I have deep issues with my body, and I will not let anyone pat me down under any circumstances. My biggest fear is that an employer will order me to fly somewhere, and I'll have no choice but to get fired because I can't go through security and wind up losing my house and living on the streets.

la6470 11y ago

Flying needs to jump to version 2.0. 1) a trip across the world should take a couple of hours and not 12-16 hours. 2) safety should improve. Planes should not get lost without a trace and passengers should survive any kind of crash. To achieve these we need radical change of technology that powers modern aviation, which is basically unchanged from the 70s.