Tag: airplane

Lilium

A start-up company—hosted in a ESA business incubator center released an idea for an egg-shaped 2-seater plane called Lilium that’s currently in the works. With a top speed of 400 kmh and a range of 500 km, the plane can travel between Munich and Berlin in 90 minutes. If the testing succeeds, this will be the world’s first vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for personal use.

and the first flight:

With the first flight now a memory, Lilium will run its aircraft through increasingly complex maneuvers, including the transition between vertical and horizontal flight, runs between cities, in inclement weather, and with a variety of degrees of automation. If all goes well, passengers will experience the flights in trials well ahead of the 2025 target for a fully operational service.

Unban supersonic travel

In 1973, shortly after Boeing abandoned the 2707, its Mach 3 government-funded competitor to the British- and French-made Concorde, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rule banning supersonic transport over the US

2023-03-23: A new proposal

If we’re lucky, we’ll have a sonic boom standard implemented in the United States by the late 2030s.

There is a better way. Congress could repeal the supersonic ban this year in the FAA reauthorization act. I have proposed text along these lines:

Until such time as the FAA creates standards that allow supersonic aircraft to operate over the United States, civil supersonic flight shall be allowed as long as mean cruise sonic boom directly beneath the flight track is less than 90 PLdB for daytime operations or 80 PLdB for nighttime operations.

I think this proposal is very clever, if I do say so myself. It would change nothing overnight, because no aircraft that can do a cruise boom less than 90 PLdB exists.

What it would do is signal to the aviation industry that America is open for business. It’s time to build new low-boom aircraft. Manufacturers would start working on new designs, knowing that when they are ready to be certified there won’t be any further obstacles.

Super-cheap flights

If the cost of international flights drops to the $300 to $400 range instead of $700 to $1500 or more and better cabin air pressure means no jet lag, then shorter one week international vacations would open up as a far bigger market and more frequent option.

2017-09-05:

After 2050, there will likely be 6-7B people that are the equivalent of today’s developed world middle class or affluent class. 2 to 4 trips per person per year is not inconceivable (higher incomes and low transportation costs). This would be 12-28B international arrivals.

Perpetual passenger

about a guy who has literally lived in the first class cabin for the last year.

His trip reports betray a theme, in photo after photo entirely devoid of human companionship, empty lounges, first-class menus, embroidered satin pillows — inanimate totems of a 5-star existence. On our next flight, a 7-hour run from Jakarta International to Tokyo, Schlappig tries to get himself motivated about the champagne selection, holding forth on the best meal pairings with a $200 bottle of Krug.

The lost luggage store

If you’ve ever wondered where your lost airline baggage in the US ended up, there’s a good chance it’s Alabama. More precisely, the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a retail store filled with treasures from unfortunate travelers’ misplaced bags. For decades the operation has been quietly buying up the unclaimed checked bags and carry-on items that airlines find themselves holding for more than 90 days, after which they legally become airline property. The sprawling store in the small town of Scottsboro, Alabama—spanning the length of a city block, with a retail floor measuring 4000 m2—stocks some 6000 items daily, 85% of which come from lost luggage. The remainder comes from the unclaimed cargo the company also buys up.

SkyMall

one of america’s greats. snif.

The SkyMall catalog has always been good for a chuckle when you have absolutely nothing else to read during a flight and you just can’t sleep. Some people have presumably even bought stuff through the publication, as it’s difficult to sustain a business if the only revenue is punchlines. But apparently not enough of us are doing our inflight shopping through SkyMall, as the company has filed for Chapter 11.