Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to forward Thinking
Speaker 1: me pod guess that looks at the future and says,
Speaker 1: all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren, and I'm Joe McCormick. And uh, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I got a question for both of you. Have you
Speaker 1: ever been on an airplane? Yes? I have also, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in fact, Lauren, you've sat next
Speaker 1: to me on an airplane. So I knew that answer
Speaker 1: already for you. You You did. You're either very forgetful or
Speaker 1: asking a hypothetical question set up a deeper conversation. It
Speaker 1: was a rhetorical device. I admit I am not above
Speaker 1: such things. We wanted to talk about the future of
Speaker 1: air travel in this episode and kind of talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, why is air travel even something that we're
Speaker 1: thinking about? Why, what's important about it? And what are
Speaker 1: the various barriers to making it, you know, more awesome
Speaker 1: more awesome. I might be different than both of you
Speaker 1: and that I straight up hate air travel. I don't
Speaker 1: um I don't hate it so much that I refused
Speaker 1: to get on a plane like some of those people.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know somewhere around here who We've got
Speaker 1: a couple of people who work at hell Stuff Works
Speaker 1: who have phobias that they deal with and no no
Speaker 1: judgment about that. That's very understandable, because I I almost
Speaker 1: share it. I just very much dislike it. I Uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you know, asking me if I
Speaker 1: would ride in the trunk of a car if it
Speaker 1: was my only option to get to where I needed
Speaker 1: to go. I mean, I guess I would do it,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't be happy, but you really wouldn't be
Speaker 1: excited about. I am fine with air travel. I have
Speaker 1: no problem with it whatsoever. I actually I can find
Speaker 1: flying on an airplane to be relaxing. I can fall
Speaker 1: asleep before we end up taxing to par take off.
Speaker 1: But but on the other hand, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I hate everything else about it, Like I don't. I
Speaker 1: find actually getting the most stressful thing for me is
Speaker 1: just getting to the point where I'm at my gate.
Speaker 1: That's actually the most stress Well, the security checks these days,
Speaker 1: and the fact that in the Atlanta airport you have
Speaker 1: to travel approximately forty seven miles before you ever get
Speaker 1: to the gate that you need to get to. That
Speaker 1: also helps. Uh So non Euclidean design of airport certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't help. Yeah, though, there's a wonderful comedy factor to
Speaker 1: the narration of the between terminal train. Oh, the plane
Speaker 1: train is what it's called now, and I wish I
Speaker 1: were making that up. There's some there's some great voice
Speaker 1: voice acting actually, but I'll have to play for you, guys.
Speaker 1: My wife found a sound clip of the old plane train,
Speaker 1: which was in the early days of the Atlanta Airport,
Speaker 1: voiced by apparently a Cylon for the original Billstar Galactica
Speaker 1: series that had that kind of robotic voice. May like,
Speaker 1: by your command, we're not moving the concourse. B I
Speaker 1: didn't do the buy your command part, but you get
Speaker 1: my point anyway. You know, there are some problems with
Speaker 1: air travel, even on a perfect flight, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just our biases, but they're sort of actual problems. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we've gotten to a point where, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's still amazing to think that we're
Speaker 1: able to travel anywhere in the world with within you know,
Speaker 1: a fraction of the time it would have taken a
Speaker 1: century ago. I mean, obviously that is amazing. Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: You can get to the opposite side of the globe
Speaker 1: within about twelve hours of travel, which is again like unthinkable.
Speaker 1: I mean earlier generations would have thought this was amazing
Speaker 1: that we can travel from one point to another so
Speaker 1: relatively quickly. But I mean there's still improvements to be had.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at some of commercial air flight,
Speaker 1: we're not traveling as quickly as some aircraft used to travel.
Speaker 1: So we want to look at the future of air
Speaker 1: travel and kind of look at it. Well, everything from
Speaker 1: can we get to point A to point B? From
Speaker 1: point A to point B faster? Uh? And how much
Speaker 1: fuel are we using? What is the environmental impact of that?
Speaker 1: Is there any way of making aircraft more efficient so
Speaker 1: that we don't use as much fuel? Obviously, energy is
Speaker 1: always something we're thinking about here on this this podcast,
Speaker 1: right because our needs for energy are just going to
Speaker 1: continue to rise over time, and so we have to
Speaker 1: be smarter about the ways we we end up getting
Speaker 1: at energy. Well, okay, let's start with energy. Um I
Speaker 1: am no physicist sist, but obviously professional that it takes
Speaker 1: a lot more energy to move something through the air
Speaker 1: than to move that same amount of mass just along
Speaker 1: the ground, uh in general. Yeah, yeah, I mean without
Speaker 1: it falling. Yes, although this is part of why airplanes
Speaker 1: are so keen these days on getting as many people
Speaker 1: as is physically possible crammed into a single airplane, because
Speaker 1: it becomes a lot more efficient the more people you're
Speaker 1: conveying from one place to another. From a cost perspective,
Speaker 1: from a you know, you think of it as the
Speaker 1: number of miles per passengers. I mean, you know, if
Speaker 1: if you're if you're thinking about it, a plane might
Speaker 1: burn like a gallon of fuel every second, which is
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of fuel. But if you even that
Speaker 1: out to about five hundred passengers, that that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's really you're you're getting like a hundred miles to
Speaker 1: the gallon, right, Yeah, So it's it's a little different
Speaker 1: from looking at a car. You know, in a car,
Speaker 1: we tend to just think of how far can this
Speaker 1: car go on a full tank of gas? Like that
Speaker 1: tends to be the way we think about mileage, uh
Speaker 1: in in as far as regular car vehicle type stuff goes.
Speaker 1: But if you're talking about aircraft, then we start looking at, well,
Speaker 1: how many people can it carry? For um, it's point
Speaker 1: of origin to its destination and how much fuel is
Speaker 1: it burning, and then you kind of figure out the
Speaker 1: efficiency based on both of those things, not just how
Speaker 1: much fuel did it burn, but how many people was
Speaker 1: it able to carry? Right um And there's there's more complications. Basically,
Speaker 1: all of this is really complicated to discuss because because
Speaker 1: planes don't use the same fuel that cars do, UM
Speaker 1: and so all of the all of the emissions are
Speaker 1: going to be different, and your efficiency is going to
Speaker 1: vary widely based on different aircraft. Also, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: guys um chemical companies aren't really excited about publicizing their
Speaker 1: proprietary formulas. I don't know if you've ever heard about this,
Speaker 1: but they're a little bit secretive about their secret formula.
Speaker 1: I've been familiar with this ever since my first trip
Speaker 1: to KFC, when I discovered that proprietary secrets are something
Speaker 1: they take very seriously. When I sit there and I say,
Speaker 1: I've identified seven out of your eleven secret herbs and spices,
Speaker 1: and then they just from the building masks came out ugly.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, the people in the aircraft
Speaker 1: industry are almost as intense about it. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: imagine they're not super forthcoming about, say like exactly what
Speaker 1: the fuel efficiency standards of their vehicles are and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what kind of emissions come out of it as
Speaker 1: a result. Yeah, and you can you can check out
Speaker 1: there's a few governmental websites that will talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about, um, really really basic concepts of of averages
Speaker 1: across standards. So so you know, you can you can
Speaker 1: look it up and say that a jet fuel emits
Speaker 1: some nine point six of carbon dioxide per gallon burned. Um,
Speaker 1: So then you have to extrapolate that by how many
Speaker 1: gallons are burned on a typical flight, and then figure
Speaker 1: out how many flights are there on a typical day.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this gets complicate. And also only that, but
Speaker 1: I mean aircraft can burn different amounts of fuel depending
Speaker 1: upon on how much weight they're carrying. Oh absolutely, and
Speaker 1: how you know how long the distance is, how long
Speaker 1: they spend at an optimum speed versus the takeoff and landing,
Speaker 1: like the weather conditions are like, um, all sorts of
Speaker 1: stuff like that will go into that number. You know,
Speaker 1: on on an average comparison, your your you know, automobile
Speaker 1: is going to emit some eight point nine kilograms of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide per gallon burned. And yes, but you're also
Speaker 1: not talking about the same kind of gasoline. Jet fuel
Speaker 1: is kerosene based. It's it's kerosene or UM or naphtha
Speaker 1: UM plus some other hydrocarbons purified to remove various contaminants
Speaker 1: up to an including like water. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: crystals device are really bad if they get into your
Speaker 1: jet engine. UM and plus a few additives to prevent
Speaker 1: stuff like a corrosion and static build up UM. You know,
Speaker 1: as opposed to to to auto gas or mo gas,
Speaker 1: which is the kind of aviation term for automobile fuel,
Speaker 1: which is patrol neum gasoline modified with some ethanol to
Speaker 1: burn cleaner, had to increase the octane and and another
Speaker 1: couple of additives to prevent a couple of things. Okay,
Speaker 1: but jet fuel emissions, we're not just talking about like
Speaker 1: a carbon problem right there. There's some other contaminants, right Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stuff like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen
Speaker 1: oxides that wind up in jet fuel emissions. And a
Speaker 1: study out of m I T just recently found that
Speaker 1: it's it's it's pretty toxic stuff. They were looking at
Speaker 1: flight paths and wetter weather patterns and um premature deaths
Speaker 1: in various areas that have roots in air pollution. You know,
Speaker 1: you're you're talking about deaths you know, with with cardiovascular
Speaker 1: respiratory problems, lung cancer, stuff like that, and jet plane
Speaker 1: emissions can kill about ten thousand people every year. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: according to according to m I. T Um, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: looking at at the way that these these areas of
Speaker 1: increased risk of death from car de vascular from air
Speaker 1: pollution related causes are turning up ten thousand deaths per
Speaker 1: year in areas that receive a high concentration of jet
Speaker 1: fuel emission. And yeah, well okay, okay, for for for
Speaker 1: the record, ships are a lot worse and can cause
Speaker 1: as many as sixty people to die every year. And
Speaker 1: I did not find a number on cars, so that
Speaker 1: is completely unhelpful. But that's a lot. And some of
Speaker 1: this might be impacted by something as simple as regulatory
Speaker 1: measures like filtering out sulfur, which could cost as little
Speaker 1: as five cents a gallon according to some researchers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keeping in mind that these these aircraft have hundreds of
Speaker 1: gallons of gas. But still, yes, when you compare that
Speaker 1: to deaths. It's still cheap. Yeah, if you could, if
Speaker 1: you could save people from from dying from the inhalation
Speaker 1: of particulates and the development of these deadly diseases, then yeah,
Speaker 1: And you brought up something else I just want to
Speaker 1: address really quickly before we move on, which is that
Speaker 1: the idea that there are other vehicles that also create
Speaker 1: harmful emissions that can contribute to health hazards and even
Speaker 1: contribute to someone dying earlier than what they normally would have.
Speaker 1: We totally understand that, we do understand there are other
Speaker 1: vehicles that do this, but that you can't. You can't
Speaker 1: say because these other things do this, then this isn't
Speaker 1: a problem. Clearly, it's a problem that we need to
Speaker 1: look at across multiple types of vehicles. So, um, we're
Speaker 1: focusing today on on aircraft because we could go on
Speaker 1: for a very long time about many different kinds of travel,
Speaker 1: and probably will in future episode. Yes, exactly. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to bring that up so that we don't
Speaker 1: get the people who respond with, well, if vehicles contribute
Speaker 1: to x number and aircraft are only x number, then
Speaker 1: why are you saying let's let's fix you know, just
Speaker 1: the aircraft at the expensive vehicles. That's not what we're saying. Sure. Also,
Speaker 1: air travel is on the rise in the United States.
Speaker 1: It saw a I don't have the number in front
Speaker 1: of me, but I remember seeing like a one point
Speaker 1: three increase from twelve, you know, which which over the
Speaker 1: course of several years worldwide. That was just in the
Speaker 1: US could be pretty significant. And noise pollution is is
Speaker 1: a thing too with aircraft. A couple of studies published
Speaker 1: in the British Medical Journal in October um we are
Speaker 1: recording this podcast in November found that people who lived
Speaker 1: with higher levels of aircraft noise a k a. Closer
Speaker 1: to airports had increased risks of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's after adjustment for stuff like socioeconomic status and
Speaker 1: demographic factors. Air pollution close to closeness to roadways. And
Speaker 1: you know, we we talked a little bit about noise
Speaker 1: pollution in our wind Turbine episode, so if if you
Speaker 1: guys want to go back and listen to that one.
Speaker 1: But basically, noise pollution of any kind can cause stress
Speaker 1: and sleep disturbance through this kind of nasty, self perpetuating
Speaker 1: cycle of what's called annoyance and is actually more serious
Speaker 1: than it sounds when you just say it like I'm annoyed,
Speaker 1: but but it's it can it can lead to chronic stress,
Speaker 1: which is bad. Yeah, yeah, but which we've talked about
Speaker 1: also in previous podcasts about how stress can really impact
Speaker 1: your quality and uh and length of life as it
Speaker 1: turns out. So you know, these are these are all
Speaker 1: things that we could look at to say, well, the
Speaker 1: future of air travel needs to address certain things like
Speaker 1: how efficient the aircraft are, how quickly they travel, how
Speaker 1: much noise they produce, how many types of emissions do
Speaker 1: they emit can we limit that? And and some of
Speaker 1: these questions are really complicated already, And then you complicate
Speaker 1: them more by saying, well, what's the best approach because
Speaker 1: obviously we don't have a magic solution to addressing all
Speaker 1: of these issues at once. Some of them you're going
Speaker 1: to have to weigh against others and decide what's the
Speaker 1: most important. But let's talk about some of the some
Speaker 1: of the proposals we've seen for making aircraft more efficient. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some groups, for example, NASA have started to get heads
Speaker 1: together basically and say, well, let's look at aircraft design
Speaker 1: and see what we can do to actually fix these
Speaker 1: problems instead of just you know, worrying about them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't they put together a whole like report on outlining
Speaker 1: some some good future guidelines for how to get planes
Speaker 1: to get safer. And in two thousand nine, NASAs Aeronautics
Speaker 1: Research Mission Director, it's Integrated Systems Research Program. Does that
Speaker 1: not have like an acronymic that that has is? See
Speaker 1: that's perfect? The NASA armed is yeah, there we go, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: NASA NASA there they released UM, the Environmentally Responsible Aviation
Speaker 1: Project UM, and this basically it was to challenge people
Speaker 1: to come up with new aircraft configurations that they could
Speaker 1: deploy by UM they've got to and right now on
Speaker 1: their website they've got a list of goal that include
Speaker 1: reducing aircraft drag by eight PERCENTUM, reducing aircraft weight by
Speaker 1: ten percent, reducing specific fuel consumption of aircraft engines by
Speaker 1: fi reducing ox sides of nitrogen emissions by seventy five percent,
Speaker 1: reducing aircraft noise by one eighth compared to current standards.
Speaker 1: And I think those were based on aircraft as they
Speaker 1: were measured in n but that's I think not a
Speaker 1: whole lot different than now, because a lot of the
Speaker 1: aircraft that are in service have been around for a
Speaker 1: long time. Even the ones that have been constructed, you know,
Speaker 1: relatively recently, were in the engineering planning department for years
Speaker 1: before they were ever unveiled to the public. So even
Speaker 1: if you were to say, oh, but the such and
Speaker 1: such plane only came out in two thousand four, so
Speaker 1: clearly it's well, there's chances that planes at least ten
Speaker 1: years of testing exactly. Um. Yeah, And so I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about a few things ideas I've seen in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the response to this project. Uh. And some
Speaker 1: of some of these are aerodynamic redesigns to the body
Speaker 1: of airplanes, because it turns out this matters a whole lot.
Speaker 1: It's not just your engine, but it's um dealing with
Speaker 1: this thing, the drag coefficient, the resistance that your plane
Speaker 1: is experiencing as it's flying. And I guess you're also
Speaker 1: trying to increase the lift to drag ratio um to
Speaker 1: lower the amount of energy you need and therefore probably
Speaker 1: also the emissions you create when you're flying through the air.
Speaker 1: Your engines don't have to work as hard if the
Speaker 1: drag is lowered yeah. UM. And so one of the
Speaker 1: cool things I saw was the idea of the boxed
Speaker 1: wing or the closed wing system. Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 1: I have not seen pictures of it. I read a
Speaker 1: little bit about it, and it it basically made my
Speaker 1: mind go by the way it's um. On one hand,
Speaker 1: it seems really said bowl. It's so normally imagine a
Speaker 1: plane body like a passenger jett to bowing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's got wings sticking out. Well, Apparently, when a plane
Speaker 1: is flying through the air at its maximum efficiency, you know,
Speaker 1: high speed UM, there is this phenomenon known as wingtip
Speaker 1: vortices UM. So at the ends of the wings there's
Speaker 1: this turbulent spiraling of air that creates drag on the
Speaker 1: airplane as it's moving through UM. Because in general, turbulence
Speaker 1: is bad. And so one idea is that you have
Speaker 1: these things called winglets wingtip devices, and they try to
Speaker 1: cut down on wingtip vortices by you've probably seen something
Speaker 1: like this before. Instead of just the wings ending, they've
Speaker 1: got like a little little thing flips up on the end,
Speaker 1: and so that helps cut down on that sum, but
Speaker 1: it's still there. Well, what if you um sort of
Speaker 1: extend that idea and just keep those winglets coming up
Speaker 1: intil they come all the way around and form a
Speaker 1: closed loop system of wings. Well, apparently Locke and Martin
Speaker 1: offered a design like this in response to the e
Speaker 1: r A program. Yeah. Um, and so it looks I
Speaker 1: don't know how else to describe it. I mean, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's got a boxy wing. Other people throughout
Speaker 1: history have tried to do this with like say, loop wings,
Speaker 1: like ring wings. They come out and they're sort of
Speaker 1: a circle around the plane. Um, this would be one
Speaker 1: that like modern passenger planes, the wings are are built
Speaker 1: right into the fuselage. So, um, it's not like a
Speaker 1: loop around the fuselage. But I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: feasible for any reason or not. All Right, So so
Speaker 1: that's what that's what Lockheed's been working on. What what
Speaker 1: other designs are out there? Um, Well, there's here's one.
Speaker 1: You ever seen a B two bomber. Yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's this thing about it. It's kind of different than
Speaker 1: the body of most passenger planes, and that most of
Speaker 1: them have this kind of uh, you know, cucumber tube
Speaker 1: in the middle and then wing A B two is
Speaker 1: what's referred to as a flying wing. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: flying wing design. So the whole thing is a wing.
Speaker 1: And why does that help. Well, the wings are the
Speaker 1: part of the plane that gives you lift, because a
Speaker 1: plane stays in the air essentially by throwing air down
Speaker 1: off the bottom of it. So is it is it
Speaker 1: moves through the air very quickly. It's um, it's throwing
Speaker 1: air downward, and this lifts the body of the plane up. Now,
Speaker 1: the more flat surface you have along the bottom of
Speaker 1: the plane to to sort of get the oncoming air
Speaker 1: to rush under, the more lift you have. And so
Speaker 1: a flying wing design helps give you a better lift
Speaker 1: to drag ratio. UM. Now, apparently there are a lot
Speaker 1: of difficulties with the design like this, like it might
Speaker 1: be harder to make the plane stable, but of course
Speaker 1: we've got some smart people out there who are aeronautics
Speaker 1: engineers and UM. The thought is if you could create
Speaker 1: a passenger plane that had a fuselage built into the
Speaker 1: wing design instead of separately, that would also help increase efficiency. UM.
Speaker 1: A similar plan to this is a sort of what's
Speaker 1: been called a blended wing design, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like somewhere in the middle between what a modern passenger
Speaker 1: plane looks like today and that flying wing totally flat
Speaker 1: design where there's sort of a still a separate fuselage,
Speaker 1: but it's more evenly built into the wing. Um So
Speaker 1: those are some new body designs, but also there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things just about the more specific individual
Speaker 1: parts of the plane that can help improve efficiency while
Speaker 1: it's in midflight. For example, one thing is, uh what
Speaker 1: I've read about is called hybrid laminar flow control. So
Speaker 1: when air moves over a plane or where really when
Speaker 1: anything's moving through a fluid, there are two different ways
Speaker 1: that it that the fluid outside like air or liquid
Speaker 1: or whatever, can move over the vehicle, and it can
Speaker 1: move over it in turbulent flow, which usually happens at
Speaker 1: higher speeds, and that means it's it's getting all churned
Speaker 1: up and it's moving in a lateral direction. Um Or
Speaker 1: it can move in lamin or flow, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like smooth parallel motion. And so when you're rushing
Speaker 1: through air, the air that flows over you is going
Speaker 1: to be I guess smooth when you first encounter it,
Speaker 1: but as it moves along the surface at high speeds,
Speaker 1: it's more likely to become turbulent. But um lamin or
Speaker 1: flow control on the outside of a plane is designing
Speaker 1: the surface of the plane to try to reduce this,
Speaker 1: to make the air flow over the plane as smooth
Speaker 1: as possible for as long as possible. And so does
Speaker 1: this have to do with with materials science figuring out
Speaker 1: the best materials to create this laminar flow. It could,
Speaker 1: but it also could just have to do with like
Speaker 1: designing the skin of the airplane, like you could. Apparently
Speaker 1: designing it with holes placed in certain places can allow
Speaker 1: suction of air down through that offset some of this
Speaker 1: like outward spiraling of air that creates the turbulence. And uh,
Speaker 1: in any case that I know this is complicated engineer stuff,
Speaker 1: but basically what it is is it's designing the skin
Speaker 1: of an airplane to make it flow more smoothly. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got all these things like that, and these
Speaker 1: redesigns could help increase the efficiency of airplane steering flight.
Speaker 1: Another one might just be like, well, surely you can
Speaker 1: boost your lift to drag ratio if you just make
Speaker 1: bigger wings, right, But there are also some limits on
Speaker 1: that because the bigger your wings are, the stronger you
Speaker 1: have to make them, and then that adds weight. So
Speaker 1: there is some optimal optimalization of of weight to Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well not only that, but I mean there's a practical
Speaker 1: issue too, right, Uh so a problem with a lot
Speaker 1: of these. Actually, I talked to a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who studied aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, and he I
Speaker 1: was talking to him about this episode, and he pointed
Speaker 1: out something interesting, which is just that it might be
Speaker 1: a problem implementing these designs simply because they might be
Speaker 1: harder to put into operational capacity within existing airports. It
Speaker 1: might be hard to get them up to airport gates.
Speaker 1: That sounds so you know, banal as a as an objection,
Speaker 1: but it's totally practical though. I mean, like, Okay, so
Speaker 1: I travel fairly frequently, and I travel on lots of
Speaker 1: different types of aircraft, and some of the larger aircraft
Speaker 1: at the Atlanta Airport. You you realize that if you're
Speaker 1: going to certain destinations, you're almost always going to have
Speaker 1: to walk to the very end of the concourse, which,
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, as approximately forty and miles long,
Speaker 1: and so uh that's that's you know, you just know
Speaker 1: it if you're going to certain destinations, because those destinations
Speaker 1: tend to use certain types of aircraft, Like if I
Speaker 1: go to Las Vegas or Orlando, I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a long walk ahead of me because they
Speaker 1: tend to use tiny They're using larger aircraft for both
Speaker 1: of those because they're both high traffic destinations. Atlanta, of course,
Speaker 1: is a big hub city for for air travel. So
Speaker 1: for anything that's a high you know, a high profile
Speaker 1: destination that a lot of people are going to and
Speaker 1: they're changing through in Atlanta, those aircraft tend to be
Speaker 1: larger to take as many people as possible. The larger
Speaker 1: aircraft do not fit into the gate areas that are
Speaker 1: closer into the middle of the concourse, where it would
Speaker 1: be the most convenient for the passenger who's just stepping
Speaker 1: off the train and wants to get on the plane.
Speaker 1: They fit at the ends of the concourse. That's where
Speaker 1: they have a little more space for those. So if
Speaker 1: we're talking about changing the um the design of planes
Speaker 1: so radically that just the actual profile of the planes,
Speaker 1: then that becomes a problem. We've got all this existing
Speaker 1: infrastructure which has been built over decades and cost billions
Speaker 1: of dollars collectively just for like a single city. It
Speaker 1: could be billions of dollars and then you multiply that
Speaker 1: all the cities around the world that have have, you know,
Speaker 1: international airports or large domestic airports. This is a huge challenge,
Speaker 1: you know. I won't go so far as to say
Speaker 1: it's a problem, but certainly a challenge. Now. One way
Speaker 1: of addressing that challenge is to completely rethink the way
Speaker 1: that we have people get on and off of aircraft.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about either of you. Have
Speaker 1: either of you ever flown into an airport where you
Speaker 1: got off the aircraft onto a set of stairs on
Speaker 1: a tarmat, Yeah, but only I think it was like once,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was someone fancy in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties when I didn't. Yeah, I did it when
Speaker 1: I was flying to a very small airport, not very
Speaker 1: large one, because we had to get on a little
Speaker 1: plane that was like made out of cell phane apply
Speaker 1: not tall enough to not tall enough to set the
Speaker 1: big boy table with all the other planes. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the sort of thing like, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about planes that can't fit into the existing infrastructure,
Speaker 1: we may be looking at doing that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: That might be a practical approach, a practical answer to
Speaker 1: that problem as opposed to, rather than building entirely new airports,
Speaker 1: are entirely new wings on existing airport, or yeah, or
Speaker 1: just saying well, this entire concourse is going to go
Speaker 1: down for renovation and we're going to have half the
Speaker 1: number of gates that we had. Yeah. There's another cost obstacle,
Speaker 1: which is simply that airplanes are mega expensive, and they're
Speaker 1: they're usually designed, I think, to work for a while.
Speaker 1: The airplanes that are already out there, nobody's in a
Speaker 1: hurry to retire them, right, certainly not. And and some
Speaker 1: of the basic designs that we're using today have been
Speaker 1: in use for for thirty years. Yeah. Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: look at it again, like even going into the point
Speaker 1: of of prototyping a design, testing it, making sure it's safe,
Speaker 1: making sure it actually is doing the things you intended
Speaker 1: it to do, because sometimes people design stuff and when
Speaker 1: they tested out they realized that it's not as efficient
Speaker 1: as they thought, or maybe it's even less efficient than
Speaker 1: than conventional aircraft already are. You have to test all
Speaker 1: of that, and then once all that is done, assuming
Speaker 1: it works, you still have to go into manufacturing. All
Speaker 1: of this is costly, consestly and it takes a long
Speaker 1: long time. All that aside, I am excited about these
Speaker 1: aerodynamic redesigns and I hope that some can be tested
Speaker 1: and found to be useful and actually put into practice.
Speaker 1: But I had another idea. Um, so all that was
Speaker 1: about just body design, aerodynamic redesign. I mean, what about
Speaker 1: the engines themselves, the part of the plane that does
Speaker 1: the flying. We'll sit yourself down, Joe, I got a
Speaker 1: tale to tell you, Yeah, something about the future of
Speaker 1: I got. I got a couple of big aeroplane engines.
Speaker 1: I'll start this off by telling you a little, a
Speaker 1: little story about how stuff works. So how stuff works.
Speaker 1: As the office we work in and uh, we used
Speaker 1: to do this thing every year where we would write
Speaker 1: an April Fools article to go on how stuff works.
Speaker 1: That was just a joke and it was just one
Speaker 1: article out of the hundreds of articles on the site.
Speaker 1: And uh, one year, my former editor Chris Palette wrote
Speaker 1: about a new version of Air Force one that was
Speaker 1: going to be launched that year that was a hybrid airplane.
Speaker 1: And he wrote about the fuel cells that were on
Speaker 1: the plane and how many batteries there were and the
Speaker 1: fact that it added so much weight to the plane
Speaker 1: that it required even more batteries to you know, it
Speaker 1: was just sort of a joke that was all about
Speaker 1: how difficult this problem was, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: a funny little joke, and it went on the website
Speaker 1: and did well and great. Now we've got people who
Speaker 1: are working on building hybrid airplanes, and not just an
Speaker 1: airplane that can carry a single passenger. We're talking out
Speaker 1: the application for potentially commercial jets. Woe. Yeah, hybrid. I
Speaker 1: assume you mean a combination of like gas turbine and electric, well,
Speaker 1: jet fueled turbine and electric. Yes. So, for example, one
Speaker 1: of the ones is and this is merely in the
Speaker 1: concept phase, this is not even prototype phase, but Boeing's
Speaker 1: Sugar Vault. So Sugar is an acronym. SUGAR stands for
Speaker 1: sub sonic ultra green Aircraft Research. So you don't just
Speaker 1: give a candy bars and let it get really excited.
Speaker 1: Now you give it a little bit of kisses, give
Speaker 1: you some sugar butterfly. Um. Yeah. So so this this
Speaker 1: was one of the the things that came out one
Speaker 1: of the projects that came out of those discussions at NASA.
Speaker 1: NASA sort of approach to an entire team and it
Speaker 1: was led by Boeing UH to look into how feasible
Speaker 1: would it be to create some form of hybrid commercial
Speaker 1: jet And so it's very similar in a way to
Speaker 1: electric cars or hybrid cars really the kind of cars
Speaker 1: that you gasoline for some features and then switch over
Speaker 1: to electric same basic ideas. So anything that would require
Speaker 1: a great deal of power to operate, So anything like takeoffs,
Speaker 1: you know that takes a lot of power to get
Speaker 1: an aircraft into the air. That would still rely on
Speaker 1: conventional fuels for aircraft, but then once you've got into
Speaker 1: a cruising speed, the idea would be to switch over
Speaker 1: to electric motors as opposed to jet you know, jet
Speaker 1: fuel engines, and continue to operate using the electric UH
Speaker 1: power source. And the idea would be that you would
Speaker 1: have batteries that would provide the electricity. UH. Ultimately, Boeing says,
Speaker 1: this would allow you to design aircraft that would consume
Speaker 1: less fuel on a typical flight that compared to today's
Speaker 1: conventional aircraft. So that's yeah, that's a huge amount of savings, right.
Speaker 1: So the design of this aircraft went beyond and again
Speaker 1: it's a concept, but it went beyond just the hybrid
Speaker 1: nature of the power source, the engines and the motors.
Speaker 1: It also went toward the aircraft's wings, which were designed
Speaker 1: to create more lift and less drag, just like we've
Speaker 1: been saying, which would also allow the aircraft to take
Speaker 1: off earlier than other aircraft, thus also adding to those savings,
Speaker 1: because if you're say earlier they take it would take
Speaker 1: less time let's say, or less distance either way you
Speaker 1: want to put it for them to take off. And again,
Speaker 1: the goal there's to get them to an altitude where
Speaker 1: they could switch over as quickly as possible so that
Speaker 1: you consumes as little fuel as possible. And although the
Speaker 1: wings were designed to be very large, they were also
Speaker 1: designed to fold in on themselves so that you could
Speaker 1: in theory use existing infrastructure, thus getting rid of that
Speaker 1: practicality problems talking about the yeah exactly, just to be
Speaker 1: able to use the existing airports that are already popular
Speaker 1: throughout the world. Um. And the timeline they gave for
Speaker 1: such an aircraft to actually become reality and as opposed
Speaker 1: to just a concept, would be sometime between twenty thirty
Speaker 1: and twenty fifty, which sounds a lot like our standard
Speaker 1: rolling deadline. Yeah, by then we're we'll all reach a singularity,
Speaker 1: so then we'll be on Mars according to Mars one.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only hybrid vehicle I can talk about.
Speaker 1: There's actually another one I really want to mention because
Speaker 1: and the reason I want to mention this is because,
Speaker 1: unlike the Sugar Vault, this one exists like it, It's
Speaker 1: been built and it's even undergone a test flight on
Speaker 1: a passenger plane scale. Not a passenger plane scale, but
Speaker 1: it is. It's it's a design that storetically, theoretically could
Speaker 1: be scaled up to commercial jet size. Here it's the
Speaker 1: d A thirty six E Star two, which was a
Speaker 1: plane that where they yeah, the engine was built by
Speaker 1: Siemens and they created an electronic electric series hybrid drive system,
Speaker 1: and it's actually been built and it's been flown. This
Speaker 1: is a propeller based aircraft, though not a jet aircraft. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is a hybrid plane uses both fuel and electricity.
Speaker 1: They claim that it could be scaled up for commercial
Speaker 1: aircraft use. However, Uh, Whereas the fuel savings on the
Speaker 1: Sugar Vault are predicted to be at around sev which
Speaker 1: is incredible, it's much more modest gains with the star
Speaker 1: to we're talking about twenty gains still better, right, but
Speaker 1: again not jet engine. It's got an electrically driven motor propeller,
Speaker 1: so it can possibly be scaled up to aircraft that
Speaker 1: could carry between fifty two passengers depending upon the design.
Speaker 1: So not as large as some more more like a
Speaker 1: puddle jumper than than your regularly you know, between the
Speaker 1: puddle jumper and you know, your your standard jets. Cell
Speaker 1: depends like there's some aircraft out there that have around
Speaker 1: between eighty and a hundred seats, so it all depends
Speaker 1: upon the ones you're looking at. It's certainly not nearly
Speaker 1: as large as something like a seven forty seven, which
Speaker 1: can carry more than two. If you stack them horizontally,
Speaker 1: you can fit one around there. Um and beyond that,
Speaker 1: there's one other person who has talked about the possibility
Speaker 1: of a fully electric supersonic jet. Can you guess who
Speaker 1: would be interested in building a supersonic jet that's completely electric.
Speaker 1: It's someone that we've talked about before. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a hint. He's interested in space and electric vehicle. Elon Musk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking Tesla and SpaceX guy. So Elon Musk said,
Speaker 1: he has some interest in looking into designing such a vehicle,
Speaker 1: not that he has started to have a concept or anything,
Speaker 1: just that that was one thing that he would a
Speaker 1: challenge he would like to try and and meet at
Speaker 1: some point. Now, keep in mind that Musk has got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff on his plate already, including Tesla,
Speaker 1: SpaceX and the hyper loop. So how although technically the
Speaker 1: hyper loops not on his plate, Yeah, I think, and
Speaker 1: so I don't know how likely it is that he
Speaker 1: or his engineering team are ever going to seriously look
Speaker 1: into this. It would be really remarkable to build a
Speaker 1: fully electric supersonic jet. I mean, creating an electric motor
Speaker 1: capable of getting an aircraft into the air let alone
Speaker 1: going into supersonic speed is pretty hard. Well, yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: have to imagine there's so many challenges to that, and
Speaker 1: my guests would be the huge problem is the batteries.
Speaker 1: That would be enormous city you store all this energy
Speaker 1: right right, And that was going to be my question
Speaker 1: for for that savings of the normal energy that we
Speaker 1: would use that you were talking about with the Sugar
Speaker 1: vault is you know, batteries aren't charged with magic, They're
Speaker 1: they're also charged with energy. And fuel. Well yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and that's that's what I meant to say and
Speaker 1: not what I physically say. But but but, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it brings us back to that common um
Speaker 1: argument that we make about like, well, even if you
Speaker 1: are plugging something into a wall socket, that's where's the
Speaker 1: electricity coming from somewhere, right, So if that electricity is
Speaker 1: coming from a coal plant that's right down the road. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's different kind of fuel, different kind of emissions.
Speaker 1: But still it's still something that you have to think about.
Speaker 1: Whereas if that electricity is coming from a solar farm
Speaker 1: or a wind farm, or some dude peddling a bicycle
Speaker 1: really fast in the back of the airport, you know
Speaker 1: that that's different. Joe, She was like, no, man, that
Speaker 1: guy peddling that bike is just like a coal plant.
Speaker 1: Oh you're a tough man, Joe. Alright, So um, but
Speaker 1: you know, I want to talk about something besides just
Speaker 1: electric and hybrid vehicles too, all right, So we we
Speaker 1: talked about the hybrids, the idea of electricity and jet fuel.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the pie in the sky electric vehicle
Speaker 1: that has no parameters around it other than the fact
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk said one of the things he wanted
Speaker 1: it to be vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. Why don't
Speaker 1: you just add another impossible thing and it's going to
Speaker 1: be the size of an aircraft carrier. Yeah. No, he
Speaker 1: wants a jet that could take off vertically and land
Speaker 1: land vertically, meaning that you know it could It wouldn't
Speaker 1: need you wouldn't need an airstrip. You could just take
Speaker 1: off straight from wherever you were. Yeah. But even the
Speaker 1: planes that are capable of vertical takeoff and landing, like
Speaker 1: say the Harrier jump jet or the V two Offsprey,
Speaker 1: they're not They don't like to do that. You want
Speaker 1: to avoid it at all, crossed. Yeah, but this is that,
Speaker 1: you know, Musk is like, go bigger, go home though.
Speaker 1: So but the other thing I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: was the solar impulse. You guys have heard about this, right,
Speaker 1: the solar powered airplane. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so solar powered aircraft.
Speaker 1: That's one of those things that when you first hear it,
Speaker 1: you think, well that's crazy. Well you think there's a catch.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, so they use gas to get up
Speaker 1: in the air or something. Um, this is a solar power.
Speaker 1: It's a solar powered aircraft. It's pretty awesome. Uh. Once
Speaker 1: I start describing it, you're going to realize, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome, but not practical. So it's a one seater plane.
Speaker 1: So there's striper strike one. Yeah, because I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're going to have something that's using solar power,
Speaker 1: you are limited by how much energy you can get
Speaker 1: at any given time. Even if you have batteries on
Speaker 1: this thing. The batteries can only supply so much energy.
Speaker 1: But let's be clear to not downplay this achievement. This
Speaker 1: is not just something that we're talking about as a concept.
Speaker 1: Has completed a flight across the United States in stages, right,
Speaker 1: and it's the plan is to have it fly all
Speaker 1: the way around the globe. Um. So it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it exists, and it's it's an incredible achievement. It's just
Speaker 1: one of those things where are you realize that while
Speaker 1: this is an incredible achievement, it also kind of illustrates
Speaker 1: the actual, yeah, the problem of things like the efficiency
Speaker 1: of solar panels, as well as trying to come up
Speaker 1: with a design for an aircraft that is truly efficient
Speaker 1: and is not emitting any greenhouse gases. So what you're
Speaker 1: saying is you don't think the solar impulse means that
Speaker 1: there's ever going to be a solar powered passenger. Well,
Speaker 1: let me give you a few more examples of what
Speaker 1: this thing does, all right. So, so it's a one
Speaker 1: seater plane, and part of that is to really control
Speaker 1: exactly how much weight this aircraft has, because weight is
Speaker 1: one of those really important things about you know, the
Speaker 1: more weight you have, the more power you need to
Speaker 1: get that thing going through the air. Um, it's got
Speaker 1: a really large wingspan to try and maximize lift, and
Speaker 1: it also the design is there to minimize drag, just
Speaker 1: like we've been talking about, and that also gives it
Speaker 1: a little bit more surface area for solar panels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got more than eleven thousand solar panels on it. Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: by the way, is giving a probably just enough tristy
Speaker 1: to fly it at regular cruising speed, maybe with a
Speaker 1: comfortable margin, but not a huge amount over over that.
Speaker 1: And with a plane that size, you're talking about a
Speaker 1: light sport craft which is is going to only be going, um,
Speaker 1: a very small fraction of what a jet plane. You
Speaker 1: want to know how fast the sucker goes do your
Speaker 1: car goes faster? Actually, yeah, your car at idle can
Speaker 1: go from now it's it's forty three miles per hour
Speaker 1: average flying speed or seventy kilometers per hour. That's that's
Speaker 1: the average flying speed that's on the slow end for
Speaker 1: a light sport craft. Of those those can generally go
Speaker 1: up to UM. I guess like autobonn speeds like like
Speaker 1: maybe like a hundred and thirty miles per hour is
Speaker 1: what you're normally going to hit. This thing flies so
Speaker 1: leisurely that you can get to where you're going faster
Speaker 1: in a car. UM it's got it's got a maximum
Speaker 1: altitude of about seven thousand nine feet or and uh
Speaker 1: yeah it just um it flies by so or power
Speaker 1: and and by batteries so that if if it's overcast
Speaker 1: and you're not you're not flying in an altude high
Speaker 1: enough to be over the clouds. So if it's overcast,
Speaker 1: your your batteries can maintain flight as well as if
Speaker 1: it you know, if it's nighttime, you could still fly
Speaker 1: this thing. Um And in fact that's important for a
Speaker 1: flight that's going to go around the globe and it's
Speaker 1: not always going to have full exposure to the sun,
Speaker 1: not unless you timed it extremely carefully, right, So you
Speaker 1: have to remember, like these these solar panels like lots
Speaker 1: of stops, and you have lots of aircraft carriers between
Speaker 1: California and Asia. Um so, Joe to your question, like,
Speaker 1: could this ever be a commercial aircraft? No, I mean
Speaker 1: the limitations are just too great. Are Our efficiency for
Speaker 1: solar panels is pretty low we're talking, right, and it's
Speaker 1: I think really good for solar panels is usually like
Speaker 1: efficiency is like is like in the field, that's considered
Speaker 1: a really good goal posts, right, And in the lab
Speaker 1: we've gotten up to a blazing efficiency. And that's an
Speaker 1: extremely hypothetical situation, right, it's to a point where you
Speaker 1: would never see that ever. And keep in mind again
Speaker 1: that's under ideal conditions. So efficiency under ideal conditions, then
Speaker 1: you have other things that are not percent efficient. I mean,
Speaker 1: your drive train is never going to be a hundred
Speaker 1: percent efficient. I think that they calculated that out of
Speaker 1: all the potential energy this aircraft could, in theory gather
Speaker 1: if everything worked perfectly, the actual amount of energy that
Speaker 1: goes into operating the plane is something like twelve So
Speaker 1: that means you've got a twelve percent efficiency ultimately for
Speaker 1: this aircraft, which is not great. And even if you
Speaker 1: were to increase the efficiency of the solar panels, you
Speaker 1: can only do that so much. And adding the extra
Speaker 1: weight and size of the aircraft would make it like
Speaker 1: the problem is that that extra weight and size would
Speaker 1: rapidly go well beyond whatever extra capacity you had by
Speaker 1: bumping up that solar panel EFFICI and see, so it
Speaker 1: does not look like it would ever be an effective
Speaker 1: way of of creating a commercial jet aircraft. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: even if it's really light, I don't imagine you could
Speaker 1: just keep making the wings infinitely longer and eventually you
Speaker 1: have some struct you have some metal fatigue already with
Speaker 1: regular aircraft. And I read that apparently the solar impulse,
Speaker 1: when you factor in all the efficiency problems, uh, is
Speaker 1: ultimately about as powerful as the Right Brothers plane. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you wouldn't expect to fly on an aircraft powered
Speaker 1: by the Right Brothers engine that would allow you and
Speaker 1: your closest friends to hop on over to the Bahamas. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I just want to say once
Speaker 1: more that just because this thing doesn't do the thing
Speaker 1: we're asking about, it's still pretty amazing. What the fact
Speaker 1: that it was. You know, it's truly a feat in engineering.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that people were able to have it work.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't mean to take anything away from
Speaker 1: the people who worked on the project, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just not a solution to commercial aircraft. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it won't teach us lots of valuable things, right,
Speaker 1: But I've got a better idea I think, actually, which
Speaker 1: is a wind powered aircraft. Because you've got all this
Speaker 1: wind coming at you when you're flying. If you just
Speaker 1: put some like wind turbines right next to the jet engines, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got wind turbines. People just looking at like this
Speaker 1: is totally confusing me. Well, I mean technically, that's that's
Speaker 1: what supersonic planes use to ignite the fuel in their
Speaker 1: jet and scramjets. Scramjets. Yeah, you know that that brings
Speaker 1: us to the concept of supersonic I'm glad that we
Speaker 1: were able to segue seamlessly. Then that's dead right now,
Speaker 1: I mean not entirely. I mean for commercial jets right now,
Speaker 1: it's not it's definitely not what people are looking at.
Speaker 1: I don't mean for the military. I mean like commercially
Speaker 1: like supersonic passenger jets. Is that just the thing in
Speaker 1: the past, or is there any future? It's it's tough,
Speaker 1: all right. I think there's a future in the sense
Speaker 1: that there's certainly a do ire for it from the
Speaker 1: consumer standpoint, right, I mean if you are told, right,
Speaker 1: if you're told like, well, if you fly on a
Speaker 1: standard aircraft, it's gonna tell you eight hours to get
Speaker 1: from New York to London. But then you're told or
Speaker 1: you could jump on this other aircraft, it's going to
Speaker 1: take you three and a half hours. Yeah, the Concorde.
Speaker 1: Uh so that yeah, we of course there was the
Speaker 1: supersonic commercial jet, the Concorde. There are only twenty of
Speaker 1: them ever built, I believe. And uh it was a
Speaker 1: premium customer aircraft, right, so like take the highest amount
Speaker 1: you would ever pay for a first class ticket and
Speaker 1: add about that ticket. That's how much your average ticket
Speaker 1: was on for just a ride on the Concorde. It
Speaker 1: had a capacity of a hundred passengers and for a
Speaker 1: while it was operating at capacity, so it was fairly
Speaker 1: profitable for a while. But the aircraft, uh suffered some
Speaker 1: some major setbacks. For one, the economy of jet fuel
Speaker 1: began to change over time, and that began to impact
Speaker 1: the bottom line. For another there were obviously, there was
Speaker 1: the terrible tragedy in Paris where the Concorde UH completely
Speaker 1: was completely destroyed when it was I think it was
Speaker 1: on takeoff when it uh it collided with something and
Speaker 1: UH like I think a piece of the jet broke
Speaker 1: off and ended up a catastrophic failure and absolute terrible
Speaker 1: tragedy that impacted the entire industry, not just the Concorde
Speaker 1: but the entire commercial airline industry. UM. And then there
Speaker 1: were other things that happened that got the f a
Speaker 1: A and other organizations interested in making sure that aircraft
Speaker 1: were at certain levels of safety, and that would have
Speaker 1: meant retrofitting the entire fleet of Concords, which would have
Speaker 1: cost millions of dollars. Ultimately, the Concorde program was shelved.
Speaker 1: But if you're curious how fast it could go. So
Speaker 1: your average commercial jet travels at a speed of around
Speaker 1: five right, that's that's average UM. Now cruising average cruising speed,
Speaker 1: which is different than say, like takeoff speed exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: average cruising speed is about fighter miles prour or a
Speaker 1: hundred four kilometers per hour. The Concorde traveled at mock
Speaker 1: two point oh two, which is about one thousand, three
Speaker 1: hundred fifty miles per hour or two thousand hundred seventy
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. That's that's a decadent. Average travel time
Speaker 1: was three and a half hours between New York and London,
Speaker 1: although the fastest travel time between New York and London
Speaker 1: was two hours, fifty two minutes and fifty seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a kind of a proof of concept. See
Speaker 1: how fast you could get there? Nose. These are supersonic.
Speaker 1: That means they go faster than the speed of sound. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask a few questions. So I
Speaker 1: assumed supersonic jets mean, uh my, get correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Massive consumption of fuel yeah. Also sonic booms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and both of these things are bad. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: depending upon whom you ask. If you if you are
Speaker 1: a person who sells jet fuel, you think it's awesome,
Speaker 1: but no, in general, we consider both of these to
Speaker 1: be strikes against supersonic jets. So, yes, the Concorde was
Speaker 1: a fuel hungry aircraft. It consume more fuel than your
Speaker 1: regular commercial jets would uh to to operate at that level,
Speaker 1: and because it had fewer passengers on the concorde than
Speaker 1: say a seven forty seven would that you're not making
Speaker 1: back as much. Right, we talked about we talked about
Speaker 1: the fuel efficiency being thought of in terms of how
Speaker 1: many passengers you get from point A to point B
Speaker 1: plus the distance and everything else in between. If you
Speaker 1: look at that, the concorde was something like seventeen miles
Speaker 1: per gallon of fuel per passenger and seven forty seven
Speaker 1: was like eighty. So that's a big difference. Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get there faster, but it's much less efficient,
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost a lot more in fuel, gonna have
Speaker 1: a lot more emissions on top of the Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then uh, now let's talk about sonic booms. All right,
Speaker 1: So sonic booms. Now, when you travel through the air
Speaker 1: and you're traveling at a good speed, you are creating
Speaker 1: these waves in front of you, all right, And as
Speaker 1: you start to travel faster, these waves get compressed more
Speaker 1: and more until you hit about you know, when you
Speaker 1: break over the speed of sound, you have compressed these
Speaker 1: waves to a point where they cannot be compressed anymore.
Speaker 1: And that's where you get the sonic boom now fighter
Speaker 1: sonic boom um. No, there's a common misconception that you
Speaker 1: get the sonic boom when the aircraft goes from sub
Speaker 1: sonic to supersonic speeds. That's not true. When you get
Speaker 1: to supersonic speed, the sonic boom is going until you
Speaker 1: get out of supersonic speed. It's it's a rolling carpet
Speaker 1: of sonic booms. So, which explains why you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: it um not only in the place where it a
Speaker 1: rich nates, but also anywhere along It's if you are
Speaker 1: anywhere along the path of this aircraft while it's traveling
Speaker 1: at supersid speeds when it passes over. Assuming there are
Speaker 1: multiple things that that factor into this, but assuming the
Speaker 1: factors are right, you will hear the sonic boom. Those
Speaker 1: factors include everything from the speed of the aircraft, the
Speaker 1: size of the aircraft, how high up the aircraft is,
Speaker 1: how far away it is from you, because if it's
Speaker 1: not flying directly overhead, that's a that's another difference, UH,
Speaker 1: and the temperature of the air. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: because sound travels at different speeds depending upon the air's temperature.
Speaker 1: So when we say mock one we're talking about the
Speaker 1: speed of sound. That's not a standard speed. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to consider how what the temperature of the
Speaker 1: air is. That will determine what the actual speed of
Speaker 1: sound is. So all of these different factors will will
Speaker 1: determine whether or not you hear a sonic boom. However,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna hear some sonic booms if you happen
Speaker 1: to be along the pathway of a supersonic jet route.
Speaker 1: So people in certain villages in England who are along
Speaker 1: the path of the concord, they started seeing things like
Speaker 1: the windows and they're houses would keep on vibrating whenever
Speaker 1: a jet was flying over. Sometimes the tiles on their
Speaker 1: roofs would come loose because the sonic booms were creating
Speaker 1: these concussive little blasts and they build up over time.
Speaker 1: They weren't they weren't powerful enough to like shatter windows
Speaker 1: and a go. Sure, but but talk about annoyance. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a big one. So it's definitely a problem.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to bring up the idea of hypersonic
Speaker 1: because supersonic is just not fast enough. You But hypersonic
Speaker 1: now I'm talking about this only so I can compare
Speaker 1: it against supersonic because hypersonic are these are aircraft that
Speaker 1: are not meant for commercial use at all. These are
Speaker 1: military use, fancy military plane, sometimes scientific research, but none
Speaker 1: of it is for you know, getting your Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be hopping on this to go down to Disneyland. Um,
Speaker 1: if you are, then you're an astronaut apparently. But but hypersonic,
Speaker 1: like the fastest hypersonic jet speed ever was mock twiny.
Speaker 1: So the Concorde went two point oh two. The fastest
Speaker 1: jet to ever fly was mocked twiny. Now that was
Speaker 1: an unmanned aircraft. Was about to say that sounds uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Thousand miles per hour, Yeah, thirteen thousand miles per hour
Speaker 1: by an unmanned Falcon HTV two, which if it were
Speaker 1: to travel between New York and London, would make that
Speaker 1: trip in twelve minutes. Yeah, twelve minutes to get from
Speaker 1: New York to London. Now this was an unmanned flight.
Speaker 1: This is a military flight that would be launched from
Speaker 1: another aircraft. Like the HTV two Falcon was one of
Speaker 1: those that you would have a secondary aircraft flying through
Speaker 1: the air. It would be launched from that and then
Speaker 1: once you got to the right speed, because for scramjet
Speaker 1: engines to work, you already have to be going what
Speaker 1: is commonly referred to in the industry as wicked fast.
Speaker 1: And then once you reach wicked fast speed, you can
Speaker 1: you can initiate the scramjet engines right the same theory
Speaker 1: as the hybrid planes that you were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: where you've got a conventional jet engine that's going to
Speaker 1: bring you up to state exactly yep so um. The
Speaker 1: fastest speed for manned flight, I hear you ask me,
Speaker 1: is uh, let me guess, yes, it is the seventy
Speaker 1: one black Board. Do you know when that record was set?
Speaker 1: I guess the seventies. That's pretty good. Nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy six was when the fastest manned flight was recorded,
Speaker 1: and that was in an s R seventy one Blackbird,
Speaker 1: the successor at least in theory to the U two
Speaker 1: spy plane. It ultimately would not live longer than we're
Speaker 1: still using the YouTube. We're not still using the Blackbird. Um.
Speaker 1: The Blackbird top speed was two thousand, one hundred ninety
Speaker 1: three miles per hour, which could get between New York
Speaker 1: and London and a little over an hour and a
Speaker 1: half if you were to fly at that again, obviously
Speaker 1: not a commercial jet. You're talking about spy plane. If
Speaker 1: you're taking a spy plane to get from New York
Speaker 1: to London, you're clearly archer and you live in a
Speaker 1: fantasy universe. The rest of us have to go, well
Speaker 1: that how is that? I don't discriminate against cartoons, all right,
Speaker 1: I'd imagine that the fuel costs they're really cut into
Speaker 1: the peanut and tiny soda can budget snacks are not
Speaker 1: complimentary on The movie was just biodome. It was terrible
Speaker 1: bringing it back, alright. So anyway, yeah, that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of like an overview of of And now now you
Speaker 1: were asking, like a supersychature supersie not a near future?
Speaker 1: I would say I don't think there's a near future
Speaker 1: for it, mainly because the costs of operating it and
Speaker 1: maintaining it are so high and the return on investment
Speaker 1: is so relatively low that I think it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a while before we see supersonic jets on a commercial level,
Speaker 1: and you know, rolled out on a wide a wide level,
Speaker 1: Like we're not going to see that for you know,
Speaker 1: several years, a greater amount of efficiency would really be
Speaker 1: necessary to make it anywhere near worthwhile. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's again, if you if you were if you were
Speaker 1: looking at the numbers with the Concorde program, it looked
Speaker 1: at least on paper that it was profitable, and maybe
Speaker 1: it was, and there were other issues that caused UH
Speaker 1: cause the program to be shelved. But it's such an
Speaker 1: expensive thing to even ramp up. And then too, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to have the clientele there because obviously if
Speaker 1: it's expensive to maintain, then you have to offset that
Speaker 1: cost through the cost of the ticket. Right. It sounds
Speaker 1: less profitable than applying some of those efficiencies to UH
Speaker 1: to larger passenger jet engines, right, especially if you could,
Speaker 1: if you can retrofit an existing fleet with with you know,
Speaker 1: gradual improvements and then increase your efficiency that way, that
Speaker 1: one might make way more sense than building out a
Speaker 1: new fleet of aircraft that are super fast but are
Speaker 1: not efficient. So I wish I could say that supersonic
Speaker 1: commercial jets are right around the corner and soon we're
Speaker 1: going to be getting to you know, around the world
Speaker 1: and and no time flat. But I just don't think
Speaker 1: it's there, maybe in the far future, but not the
Speaker 1: near future. You've given me sad face. Well now, actually, no,
Speaker 1: I feel pretty good because I I feel frustrated by
Speaker 1: a lot of the practical obstacles, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I feel excited about the ideas we've just talked about.
Speaker 1: Well and see, and the things that all the ideas
Speaker 1: we talk all the ideas we've talked about are ultimately
Speaker 1: not only great for improving things like energy efficiency and
Speaker 1: the environmental impact, ultimately they also are financially um attractive
Speaker 1: to airlines. So it's not like airlines are necessarily going
Speaker 1: to drag their feet on making changes to the to
Speaker 1: their aircraft because if it means that they end up
Speaker 1: saving money through operational costs, then that's better for the
Speaker 1: bottom line. So it's one of those things where these
Speaker 1: are in alignment, which is that's great, that's fantastic when
Speaker 1: that happens, because we see one of the problems we
Speaker 1: see with alternative energy is that often the alternatives are
Speaker 1: more expensive than what we're using right now, whether that's
Speaker 1: because they're just well initially initially certainly also you have
Speaker 1: subsidies that end up offsetting things too. But but that's
Speaker 1: one of those issues. Rightly becomes a goodness at the
Speaker 1: company's heart, right issue, rather than and if you can
Speaker 1: make it profitable, then obviously it's a lot easier for
Speaker 1: someone to to want to adopt. Yeah, exactly. And in
Speaker 1: this case, it looks like that's one of those you know,
Speaker 1: it's things are coming into alignment. So I think we
Speaker 1: will see changes over the next couple of decades. But
Speaker 1: you know, this is a huge industry we're talking about,
Speaker 1: so rapid change is probably something we're not going to see.
Speaker 1: I would say would be gradual, but you know, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping it will be positive change. Yeah. No, but all
Speaker 1: this is cool. I'm excited we do all right, So
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap up this gushion. Guys, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: If you want to join in on the discussion, I
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Speaker 1: dot com because it's awesome. We have blog, post podcast
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