Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 3 Apr 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100330/1550518796/dailydirt-cool-new-planes.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100330/1550518796/dailydirt-cool-new-planes.shtml

Supersonic planes have a problem of creating a "sonic boom" when they travel faster than the speed of sound, causing all kinds of headaches for commercial and military operations. A new biplane design with twin wings would have a much reduced sonic boom, as each wing could cancel out the effects of the other (at least in theory & simulations). [url]

NASA is interested in liquified natural gas (LNG) propulsion for creating super fuel efficient airplanes. Planes fueled by LNG won't be ready for at least three generations of airplane technologies (aka N+3 airliners), so don't expect to see any before 2030. [url]

The first production aircraft to completely satisfy FAA spin resistance standards will likely improve the safety of non-commercial general aviation. Icon Aircraft's A5 amphibious light sport aircraft is a two-seater plane design that greatly reduces the plane's potential to stall out or go into an uncontrollable spin. [url]

To discover more cool sites about aviation, check out what's currently flying around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100330/1550518796 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:11:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080822/0400212065.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080822/0400212065.shtml it simply turns out that the commercial airline business is completely unsupportable. Obviously, with fuel costs so high, it's become more and more difficult to keep airlines running (and it was never all that easy back when fuel costs were cheap). However, people seem to take for granted what cheap and readily available air travel allows. It touches on so many different businesses that it's hard to fathom how deep the eventual impact would be if air travel needs to be significantly curtailed in the future.

It's not just the obvious industries: airlines, tourism, etc. It would impact things like e-commerce companies that rely on cheap shipping. It would impact conferences. It could impact all sorts of industries when sales people can't as easily go visit customers. The more you think about it, the more industries you can find hurt by a decline in the availability of cheap air travel. Of course, there are other industries that would benefit as well, such as telecom companies and video conferencing firms.

Still, the optimist in me just sees the scenario as an opportunity for innovation. In fact, all of those other industries that would be hurt by a reduction in air travel would have it in their own best interests to help fund research and development into alternatives and improvements, so the funding for such innovation could come from many, many different places. But if it takes a while to figure out the problem -- and the airlines keep screwing things up themselves, there may be a rather unpleasant interim while everything shakes out.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> the-impact-could-be-far-reaching http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080822/0400212065 Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:27:08 PDT Joseph Weisenthal http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070815/094519.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070815/094519.shtml hard on the nation's air travel system, because these planes use up infrastructure at a level that's disproportionate to the number of passengers they carry. Of course, the problems we've seen all summer only heighten the appeal of private air travel, further exacerbating the problem. Making matters worse is the fact that the FAA has shown no inclination to find innovative solutions. As Lynne Kiesling points out, there are a number of creative solutions out there that could mitigate the problem, none of which are really being pursued. Airlines could be forced to bid on landing rights, for example, which would force companies to prioritize their routes in a positive manner. As it is, landing fees are based on weight, which doesn't account for the longer time small planes spend on the runways. It's also been argued that the GPS system could do a better job of monitoring traffic than the existing radar systems, but plans to go down this route have stalled due to politics. Ultimately, there's no reason to expect the FAA to be innovative. It doesn't face any market pressure and there's no risk of it going under if it doesn't adapt. Instead, the only solution pushed is to encourage airlines to stop using small planes, which isn't very creative at all. All that would do is reduce options for customers, particularly those on less-traveled routes.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> the-sky-is-still-falling http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070815/094519 Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:46:15 PDT Joseph Weisenthal http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070813/081205.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070813/081205.shtml temporarily left 20,000 passengers stranded. This summer has seen a bevy of glitches and delays, as the civil aviation infrastructure gets stretched to the breaking point. This time, the failure was not on the part of the airlines, but on the US Customs service, which prevented passengers from properly getting screened. Obviously, glitches are going to happen now and then, and so it's not a realistic solution to simply eliminate them. But seeing as every minor ripple ends up creating such a calamity, costing millions in lost time and profits, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on developing systems that fail gracefully.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> too-long-without-one-of-those http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070813/081205