Posted on 01/04/2020 12:35:32 AM PST by Olog-hai
Planes could soon by flying in V-shape formations like migrating birds in a bid to save fuel and emissions.
Airbus says flight technology is now mature enough to use the formation which would allow aircraft to effectively ride on the coattails of each other.
The tactic is often seen in cycling, where racers “draft” behind leaders of the racing peloton, following in their slipstream.
Within six months, two A350 planes will make a long-haul formation flight to prove the so-called “wake energy retrieval” can be accomplished, according to The Times.
Then early in 2021, an airline will pair two jets, with the second flying nearly two miles from the first, on a transatlantic passenger route.
Within five years, airlines will be encouraged to use the formation in a bid to save up to 10 percent of fuel, lowering costs, as well as lowering carbon emissions. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The ideas just keep getting dumber.
Same thing on the other end at destination approach also.
Another good idea: stop breathing out CO2 to help the environment.
Another stupid, hare-brained idiotic feel-good ignorant scheme.
The logistics of getting more than 2 planes to fly in formation are more than I would impose on an airline pilot! Ok for military pilots - they have the fortitude to do it, but please, not for airlines, with passengers!
The one who proposed this needs to be in a straight jacket.
Not to mention a rough ride.
Standard separation between aircraft is 3 miles, not 1 mile.
How do the planes owned by different carriers split profits and cover extra cost for lead plane? Do they rotate lead? How does switch posistion work?
Read up & watch videos of Al Bowers, and the NASA Prantl wing. Our wing twist distribution has been all wrong, birds fly like this because the catch the vortex of the other guy, shed 20% in.
Perhaps we have been doing it all wrong, birds don't need a rudder, & the Hortens stumbled into Prantl (and a few others) & they were both ahead if their time.
Please note that these jets flew in the opposite directions, and the Bombardier jet was totaled after this mid-air non-collision.
It was a wild ride.
In 2017, a Challenger 604 business jet was passing under a much larger and heavier Airbus A380 over the Indian Ocean. The A380 was flying 1,000 feet above in the opposite direction. (This may seem dangerously close, but a separation of 1,000 feet is standard procedure.) The smaller jet rolled over at least three times, injuring several passengers. Its cabin looked like a bag of Halloween candy dumped out by a kid, and while it managed to make it safely to an emergency landing in Oman, it was written off. The G-forces it endured exceeded the structural limits of the aircraft.
What had happened?
Two words: wake turbulence. The smaller jet had been caught in the vortices generated by the huge A380. Fortunately, pilots actively avoid situations like this one, and wake-turbulence incidents are very rare. But they are serious.
I think it’s a great idea. Load up a group
, convoy? gaggle? of planes filled with democrats and fly them all to china, one way.
It’s all good until the first mid air collision. Commercial pilots aren’t the Blue Angels.
This wins the award for dumbest idea of the week. Formation plying works for large birds because they beat their wings creating compressed “waves” of air for birds behind them to “surf”. Jet engines, on the other hand, produce an unstable vortex of air which is of no benefit to any aircraft following it.
I won’t fly on with company that alters anything at all based on “climate change”.
Starting with Boeing.
It takes a real idiot to make the claims the article claims.
God help us with these know-nothings.
Don’t forget that when you fly now you might get a muslim pilot who, at 30,000 feet may decide that he wants his 72 virgins and he will take a plane load of passengers as company. It has happened at least one time.
What’s next, bump drafting?
I fly so very rarely, however, the last time I flew, which was to Denver and back, I met my pilots both times, and as far as I could tell, none were from the lunatic cult of death.
I’m not sure what I would have done if one or both were.
I don’t know, maybe nothing, maybe I turn around and walk away.
It’s hard to say, because a muslim surgeon saved my life.
I understand. It gets complicated, doesn’t it? I do not have any answers. I just watch, listen,observe, and learn. And sometimes comment.Take care.
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