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The airline travel crisis has indeed affected the two largest manufacturers of large commercial airliners, Boeing and Airbus. But both say they can ride out the storm and remain profitable. With no real alternatives on the horizon, especially for long-haul travel, both companies are spending billions of dollars on designing and building new planes for the 21st century. But there is a big difference in their strategies.
After their supersonic Anglo-French Concorde fizzled, the Airbus strategy is to provide space and economics with giant jumbo jets. Their new Airbus A380 is designed to carry at least 550 passengers and to give them a completely new experience. There is space everywhere in this new giant aircraft, with even a shop where economy class passengers can stand up, move around, and buy duty-free goods.
Boeing thinks that speed is what their customers want. Their Sonic Cruiser will travel faster than today's passenger jets, with a 15-20% reduction in flight time. Also, Boeing feels that people want to fly from smaller airports, direct to where they want to go, faster than they can do now.
Further in the future, the look of the contemporary airliner disappears. Gone is the traditional cylindrical fuselage, with wings and a tail. The body is simply a chunky flying wing - in aeronautical lingo, a blended wing body, or BWB. Partitions that run the length of the aircraft will create the appearance of normal cabins. The lack of windows for passengers seated away from the outside rows will be compensated by television projections, either on artificial windows or individual television monitors that would simulate a view of the outside to reduce the feeling of claustrophobia. Boeing feels that their BWB could be carrying commercial passengers within 10 or 15 years.
It will be 20 years before we know for sure whether Boeing (with smaller, faster planes) or Airbus (with their super-jumbo?s) picked the right strategy.
Meanwhile, futurists still think that the fantasy of a personal flying machine is moving towards reality. Several individuals and groups in the US are competing to produce a safe, dependable "aircar". Many experts suggest that personal aircars are not only feasible, but inevitable.
Accelerating computer technology advances are making practical and affordable aircars a possibility within a couple of decades. Thanks to GPS, advanced navigational technologies and aerial collision-avoidance systems, aircars will fly themselves. The "driver" will simply get in, speak the destination and let the aircar carry them up, up and away - a futuristic flying carpet,
A system that could serve as the starting point for controlling personal aircars is the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS), a joint project between NASA and the FAA. SATS expects to outfit a nationwide system of more than 5,000 small airports connected by virtual "highways in the sky" for the use of a new generation of small, safe, easy-to-fly, and inexpensive airplanes. NASA and the FAA expect the system to be fully operational after about 2015.
Hey, but who knows - perhaps we'll be teleporting by then. Beam me up, Scotty!
Check this link out...
The airline travel crisis has indeed affected the two largest manufacturers of large commercial airliners, Boeing and Airbus. But both say they can ride out the storm and remain profitable. With no real alternatives on the horizon, especially for long-haul travel, both companies are spending billions of dollars on designing and building new planes for the 21st century. But there is a big difference in their strategies.
After their supersonic Anglo-French Concorde fizzled, the Airbus strategy is to provide space and economics with giant jumbo jets. Their new Airbus A380 is designed to carry at least 550 passengers and to give them a completely new experience. There is space everywhere in this new giant aircraft, with even a shop where economy class passengers can stand up, move around, and buy duty-free goods.
Boeing thinks that speed is what their customers want. Their Sonic Cruiser will travel faster than today's passenger jets, with a 15-20% reduction in flight time. Also, Boeing feels that people want to fly from smaller airports, direct to where they want to go, faster than they can do now.
Further in the future, the look of the contemporary airliner disappears. Gone is the traditional cylindrical fuselage, with wings and a tail. The body is simply a chunky flying wing - in aeronautical lingo, a blended wing body, or BWB. Partitions that run the length of the aircraft will create the appearance of normal cabins. The lack of windows for passengers seated away from the outside rows will be compensated by television projections, either on artificial windows or individual television monitors that would simulate a view of the outside to reduce the feeling of claustrophobia. Boeing feels that their BWB could be carrying commercial passengers within 10 or 15 years.
It will be 20 years before we know for sure whether Boeing (with smaller, faster planes) or Airbus (with their super-jumbo?s) picked the right strategy.
Meanwhile, futurists still think that the fantasy of a personal flying machine is moving towards reality. Several individuals and groups in the US are competing to produce a safe, dependable "aircar". Many experts suggest that personal aircars are not only feasible, but inevitable.
Accelerating computer technology advances are making practical and affordable aircars a possibility within a couple of decades. Thanks to GPS, advanced navigational technologies and aerial collision-avoidance systems, aircars will fly themselves. The "driver" will simply get in, speak the destination and let the aircar carry them up, up and away - a futuristic flying carpet,
A system that could serve as the starting point for controlling personal aircars is the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS), a joint project between NASA and the FAA. SATS expects to outfit a nationwide system of more than 5,000 small airports connected by virtual "highways in the sky" for the use of a new generation of small, safe, easy-to-fly, and inexpensive airplanes. NASA and the FAA expect the system to be fully operational after about 2015.
Hey, but who knows - perhaps we'll be teleporting by then. Beam me up, Scotty!
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