Airliners of the Future
THUNDERTAILED
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: L200
Posts: 325
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Airliners of the Future
Passengers check in and are ushered into a long, slim lounge to take their seats and await the arrival of their airliner. The lounge in fact looks surprisingly similar to the interior of an airliner, with ten seats abreast, and windows running along each side. It is in fact a large pallet, already stocked with water, food & drink trolleys, newspapers, magazines, fresh blankets, pillows and cabin crew. The passengers luggage is being loaded underneath them in the pallet even as they take their seats.
The airliner they await lands, taxies to the terminal and hinges it's nose upward to allow the removal of the pallet of arriving passengers with it's full toilets, empty water tanks and depleted catering trolleys. The pallet slides out and docks with the airport terminal where the passengers are disembarked, to collect their luggage from a dedicated carousel at the pallet docking station whilst the pallet is serviced, cleaned and re-stocked.
The wings of the aircraft are quick-released and new wings, ready-fuelled, are attached, and systems checked.
The boarding passenger pallet is undocked from the terminal and loaded into the aircraft. The aircraft nose closes, the crew ensure all systems are in order and call for pushback and start, a mere 15 minutes after stopping at the terminal.
During flight the passenger pallet is pressurized, as is the separate cockpit area, to which there is no access from the pallet, eliminating possible interference with the flight crew. In the case of structural failure, fire or other emergency at altitude, the pallet may be ejected from the aircraft to descend (hopefully) safely by parachute, it's ERB's transmitting it's position during descent.
Upon arrival at their destination, the passenger pallet is again offloaded and within 15 minutes the aircraft with fresh crew is again calling for start, this time with a fully-laden cargo pallet aboard. No need for aircraft reconfiguration. But as the cargo mission is an extra long-haul one, the cargo pallet is a shortened version which allows an additional fuel pallet to be loaded after it, providing the aircraft with the extra range required.
Sometimes the route is flown in Kombi configuration, with a half-size passenger pallet being loaded together with a half-size cargo pallet, again requiring no aircraft reconfiguration...
The possibilities are fun!
Right, lets hear from the knockers...
The airliner they await lands, taxies to the terminal and hinges it's nose upward to allow the removal of the pallet of arriving passengers with it's full toilets, empty water tanks and depleted catering trolleys. The pallet slides out and docks with the airport terminal where the passengers are disembarked, to collect their luggage from a dedicated carousel at the pallet docking station whilst the pallet is serviced, cleaned and re-stocked.
The wings of the aircraft are quick-released and new wings, ready-fuelled, are attached, and systems checked.
The boarding passenger pallet is undocked from the terminal and loaded into the aircraft. The aircraft nose closes, the crew ensure all systems are in order and call for pushback and start, a mere 15 minutes after stopping at the terminal.
During flight the passenger pallet is pressurized, as is the separate cockpit area, to which there is no access from the pallet, eliminating possible interference with the flight crew. In the case of structural failure, fire or other emergency at altitude, the pallet may be ejected from the aircraft to descend (hopefully) safely by parachute, it's ERB's transmitting it's position during descent.
Upon arrival at their destination, the passenger pallet is again offloaded and within 15 minutes the aircraft with fresh crew is again calling for start, this time with a fully-laden cargo pallet aboard. No need for aircraft reconfiguration. But as the cargo mission is an extra long-haul one, the cargo pallet is a shortened version which allows an additional fuel pallet to be loaded after it, providing the aircraft with the extra range required.
Sometimes the route is flown in Kombi configuration, with a half-size passenger pallet being loaded together with a half-size cargo pallet, again requiring no aircraft reconfiguration...
The possibilities are fun!
Right, lets hear from the knockers...
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: EGTE / EHAM
Posts: 42
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I like the idea of this (utopian?) vision - and look forward to countless hours perusing PPRuNe to read the discourse between the Airbus and Boeing camps on the merits of their (incompatible) pallet designs 
m.
m.
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Grobelling through the murk to the sunshine above.
Age: 60
Posts: 562
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
It's a nice idea but even a non-technical person like me can think of a few snags:
The 'pallet' would be a huge thing, and very heavy. In order to be able to load it into the aircraft shell, it would need to be rigid, and therefore rather heavy. If such a size of pallet were feasible, then I suspect modern freighters would use them in order to reduce loading times.
The 'quick release wings' (already commented on) would have to be very quick indeed to be quicker than pumping fuel in. I think I'd prefer permanently attached ones myself.
The majority of pax would rather ride out an emergency with the crew than be ditched in the Atlantic in an aluminium box, I think. Those parachutes would also be a lot of weight to haul around the World.
Assuming the off-going crew get out quickly, the departing crew only have about 10 mins to check the aircraft, programme the FMS, and depart. That's not a lot of time for an aircraft that's just had its wings changed!
The 'pallet' would be a huge thing, and very heavy. In order to be able to load it into the aircraft shell, it would need to be rigid, and therefore rather heavy. If such a size of pallet were feasible, then I suspect modern freighters would use them in order to reduce loading times.
The 'quick release wings' (already commented on) would have to be very quick indeed to be quicker than pumping fuel in. I think I'd prefer permanently attached ones myself.
The majority of pax would rather ride out an emergency with the crew than be ditched in the Atlantic in an aluminium box, I think. Those parachutes would also be a lot of weight to haul around the World.
Assuming the off-going crew get out quickly, the departing crew only have about 10 mins to check the aircraft, programme the FMS, and depart. That's not a lot of time for an aircraft that's just had its wings changed!
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: 5 km from ESGG
Posts: 42
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I have some vague memory of palletized passengers being tried quite seriously back in the 70's...
Don't recall why it didn't workt out though but the problems were mostly social/psychological and logistic.
Don't recall why it didn't workt out though but the problems were mostly social/psychological and logistic.
Join Date: Nov 2000
Posts: 645
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If you'd like to check your concept today why not use any quick change aircraft? They already have seats on pallets. Let everyone take his seat elsewhere and move them in on a highloader. And even 747Fs might get a second daytime job.
You are quite right: check in procedures and duration certainly need improvement.
You are quite right: check in procedures and duration certainly need improvement.
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Posts: 47
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
if more of the blatently bright pilot community turned their attention to 'esoteric propulsion systems' (plasma, ion cannons etc) and away from arguing about being paid 5k less than next door, we'd all be doing hyperdrive hand break turns around the galacticus by 2020, not short haul to Amsterdam for the son of a shipping magnate.
Try the AVD course at Cranfield: forget forklift truck friendly cabins for a bit
Try the AVD course at Cranfield: forget forklift truck friendly cabins for a bit
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: 38N
Posts: 356
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Modularity seems like a useful step forward IF the value of the improved turnaround time is high enough to justify it.
Expansion of ground facilities on existing airports ranges from difficult to near impossible, with major cost inevitably attached. This might be where the desired financial leverage is greatest, but for the problem that the airport operators don't pay for the aircraft themselves, so increasing the capital costs for air carriers to reduce them for airport operators represents an unwelcome (and impractical) transfer of wealth between fundamentally different types of organization -- and away from spending it on the next generation of Pilots .
Unlike, say, railroad carriages, the pax and freight modules for aerial use will need to tolerate some unforgiving mechanical and operational constraints relating to the precision and security of fit (to avoid destruction by undamped vibrations), fatigue life (ditto), well-mated coefficients of thermal expansion (for repeated enviro changes of (100 C in a matter of minutes), etc. To endure the frequent insults of ground handling they will have to be tough in certain spots and inexpensively repairable all over.
If one looks at the distribution of manufacturing cost in an airframe, the engines, avionics, controls, and wiring are high cost items one does not want to repeat. The backbone structure of gear and fuselage and wings, and the ever-so-carefully contoured and attached skins are also fairly expensive. It's best to keep these elements together as a unit, because disrupting the mechanical and electrical integrity of the aircraft structures is surely a path to increasing trouble as the airframe ages, and probably is also more costly to build that way at the onset because the cost of reliable interface hardware (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, etc connectors) is humbling.
So, what comes into focus from this pile of assumptions and constraints is a modular airframe system with something that looks a bit like the C5A for the flying part, loading up cargo modules that resemble passenger busses for the revenue.
Question is, HOW do the economies justify the added expense?
Expansion of ground facilities on existing airports ranges from difficult to near impossible, with major cost inevitably attached. This might be where the desired financial leverage is greatest, but for the problem that the airport operators don't pay for the aircraft themselves, so increasing the capital costs for air carriers to reduce them for airport operators represents an unwelcome (and impractical) transfer of wealth between fundamentally different types of organization -- and away from spending it on the next generation of Pilots .
Unlike, say, railroad carriages, the pax and freight modules for aerial use will need to tolerate some unforgiving mechanical and operational constraints relating to the precision and security of fit (to avoid destruction by undamped vibrations), fatigue life (ditto), well-mated coefficients of thermal expansion (for repeated enviro changes of (100 C in a matter of minutes), etc. To endure the frequent insults of ground handling they will have to be tough in certain spots and inexpensively repairable all over.
If one looks at the distribution of manufacturing cost in an airframe, the engines, avionics, controls, and wiring are high cost items one does not want to repeat. The backbone structure of gear and fuselage and wings, and the ever-so-carefully contoured and attached skins are also fairly expensive. It's best to keep these elements together as a unit, because disrupting the mechanical and electrical integrity of the aircraft structures is surely a path to increasing trouble as the airframe ages, and probably is also more costly to build that way at the onset because the cost of reliable interface hardware (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, etc connectors) is humbling.
So, what comes into focus from this pile of assumptions and constraints is a modular airframe system with something that looks a bit like the C5A for the flying part, loading up cargo modules that resemble passenger busses for the revenue.
Question is, HOW do the economies justify the added expense?
Last edited by arcniz; 1st Aug 2002 at 16:51.
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Posts: 47
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
they don't and never will (at least for passenger systems) -do some maths
..try a purpose-built unpressurised freight transport (modular) system.. if you are pursuing a throw away thesis topic..
otherwise..join the alternative energy propulsion gang and put engineering into an arena with serious economic prospects..
where will the next frontier in aviation be? affordable supersonic travel, space tourism, environmentally neutral engines? pick one.. guranteed it ain't going to be flying boxcars (for a while).. economics rules.. always sad to see young engineers fencing with ether
King Patience
..try a purpose-built unpressurised freight transport (modular) system.. if you are pursuing a throw away thesis topic..
otherwise..join the alternative energy propulsion gang and put engineering into an arena with serious economic prospects..
where will the next frontier in aviation be? affordable supersonic travel, space tourism, environmentally neutral engines? pick one.. guranteed it ain't going to be flying boxcars (for a while).. economics rules.. always sad to see young engineers fencing with ether
King Patience
