Another reason this is a fantastic rig is that it can be
naturally applied to airships. That was
the main issue. Thus we can expect
steadily improving airship design just as soon as someone contracts enough
birds to properly launch the industry.
Fed Ex could do it. It really is
their forte.
Everyone else is scared to disturb their own arrangements on
a new delivery protocol.
As I have posted in a past, an airship arrives and grabs
eight loaded shipping containers or some equivalent and then moves directly to
the urban breakdown and distribution center without any intervening handling,
storage and movement. That was and is
the advantage of long haul trucking except they are land bound.
The Turbine-Powered, Chevy Volt of Airliners Looks Fantastic
BY JASON PAUR
07.03.13
The European airline industry has seen the future of aviation. It’s
sleek and organic, carries a sextet of turbines, and its powertrain works a lot
like the Chevrolet Volt.
The European aerospace consortium EADS has recently shown everything
from its largest airliner, theAirbus A380,
to its latest electric airplane idea, the E-Fan.
But tucked inside the company’s huge chalet at the Paris Air Show was a small
model where the two concepts meet — in 2050.
The E-Thrust project is part of the EADS Innovation Works program, a
partnership with engine maker Rolls-Royce. The two companies are looking at
ways to meet the European Commission’s future vision of air travel, which
includes dramatic reductions in emissions and noise.
Like the NASA turboelectric
distributed propulsion research project (TeDP), the EADS distributed
electrical aerospace propulsion project (DEAP) uses a serial electric hybrid
system to power the airliner of the future (AotF… just kidding).
Electric airplanes like the E-Fan, the long range Solar
Impulse, or Chip
Yates’ electrified Long-EZ all point to an ending where either range,
speed or payload (often all three) are sacrificed for the ability to fly on
pure electric power.
The idea behind the E-Thrust is to use several electrically driven fans
to provide the thrust, but the power supply will be a gas-turbine engine
employed during cruising when it just needs enough juice to stay in the air.
When it needs more power — during takeoff and climbing — an “energy storage
system,” (aka batteries) will provide an additional source of grunt for the
fans.
The six electric fans and tail-mounted turbine engine in the E-Thrust
concept design from EADS. Image: Courtesy EADS
As a starting point, the EADS concept has two banks of three electric
fans tucked into the wing roots of the airplane. Because they can be much
smaller than the fan-jet engines of today, they don’t have to hang from the
wing, and are instead placed where they create less drag, and can also
re-energize the air out the back reducing drag from the airplane’s turbulent
wake. A single turbine engine in the tail ingests boundary layer air from
the top of the fuselage in an effort to further reduce overall drag.
In many ways the E-Thrust concept is an electric deconstruction of
current jet engine technology. Unlike the early days of jet aircraft, today’s
airliners only get a fraction of their push from jet thrust. Most of the
propulsion is provided by the giant fan at the front of the engine, which
accelerates air just like a propeller.
These high
bypass ratio fans are powered by the jets, and there’s no reason they
couldn’t be powered by electricity instead. But since batteries are impractical
in their current form as the sole energy source, you need an alternative supply
to provide the majority of the power. So like Chevrolet has done with
the Volt, EADS will use a relatively small jet engine as a generator to
power the fans and charge up the batteries during cruise. With power reduced
during the descent, the windmilling electric fans could recharge the batteries
on the airplane, providing a small amount of regenerative energy — or in car
terms, “regenerative braking” similar to how hybrid-electric cars recoup energy
when braking.
The E-Thrust as it currently exists on display at the Paris Air
Show. Photo: Jason Paur/Wired
The fact that the E-Thrust on display in Paris was simply a plastic
display on a podium is a clear indication that it’s still a long way from
taking to the skies. Both the DEAP system from EADS and NASA’s TeDP rely
heavily on superconducting motors to provide the electrical power needed for
flight, without the massive amounts of heat that would be generated by standard
electric motors.
We don’t expect to see an E-Thrust airliner — or a TeDP plane from
Boeing — anytime soon. But both ideas show promise and could spawn a concept
that isn’t destined to vaporplane limbo.
Fantastic!
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