Re: Acme Personal Phone Boxes
The one flaw with this approach is the plummeting anvil that invariably strike them as they start to walk away from the impact site.
Why a detachable cabin probably won’t save your life in a plane crash
Falling out of the sky may well be most passengers' worst fear when they board a plane. With this mind, a Ukrainian inventor has proposed building airliners with detachable passenger cabins that could separate from the rest of the plane and parachute safely to the ground in the event of an emergency. This may sound like a …
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Saturday 30th January 2016 17:47 GMT SteveK
I distinctly remember reading a story in the newspaper (possibly even the Telegraph) in early 1989 proposing exactly the same concept where the passenger compartment was ejected and parachuted to safety.
I remember it because I was one essay short for my English coursework so was banished to the school library with some newspapers and told to find an article to write an analysis of, and that's the article I chose. Probably still got the essay somewhere.
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Saturday 30th January 2016 18:06 GMT x 7
lets think about this clearly.....
you have an aircraft at risk of crashing, and you want to improve the surviveability of the crash by removing the aircrafts wings?
Thats real brain-fart logic.
Only way thats going to work is if you have a second set of booster engines which can carry the cabin to altitude clear of the rest of the aircraft, and then have a secondary collapsing wing which can handle the stresses of the emergency acceleration - and deploy in fractions of a second. No chance given modern technology
Only thing which might be of value could be the ability to jettison a burning engine, leaving the rest of the aircraft intact - but I expect in reality even that would be of minimal use
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Saturday 30th January 2016 18:31 GMT SimonL
"Only thing which might be of value could be the ability to jettison a burning engine, leaving the rest of the aircraft intact - but I expect in reality even that would be of minimal use"
Especially when said burning engine lands on a school or shopping mall killing more people than if the plane had just carried on in to the field the pilot was aiming for - even though he knew he would certainly die.
By the same logic, ejecting the cabin anywhere near population and it hitting a populated building (and probably being destroyed by the impact) would result in say 1000 deaths instead of the 300 who were on the plane heading for the field mentioned above...... Hmm...
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Tuesday 2nd February 2016 02:51 GMT Vic
Only thing which might be of value could be the ability to jettison a burning engine, leaving the rest of the aircraft intact
You sort of have that - the engines are fixed to the airframe with low melting-point pins. In the event of a (serious) fire, the pins melt and the engine falls off.
I expect in reality even that would be of minimal use
ISTR an aircraft dropping an engine over Schiphol about 20 years ago. It didn't end well...
Vic.
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Saturday 30th January 2016 18:24 GMT jason 7
If weight is such an issue...
...then why don't the airlines start charging extra per pound/kilo in weight for the obese?
Anyone weighing over say 200lbs has to pay extra per every 5lbs they are over that limit. Some of these people carry more round their waist than my checked luggage for free!
Also a safety issue.
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Monday 1st February 2016 13:07 GMT Brenda McViking
Re: If weight is such an issue...
Samoa air services does indeed charge by weight, and have done for years now, and they say it's been a success.
It makes perfect sense, as fuel burn (the majority of the cost to the airline) directly correlates with weight (via lift, produced by thrust, produced by fuel burn) The lengths some of us in the aerospace industry go to to shave a kilo off a part for a plane... followed by passengers undoing all that hard work by loading up on cheap vodka in duty free in heavy glass bottles is just ridiculous.
However they indirectly pay our wages so we aren't too vocal about it.
The airline pays more to transport a heavier person, and the general demand to go towards razor thin margins and cheap flights means that at some point, the price you pay will be close to the cost of the airline to provide it to you, and it's fundamentally cheaper to transport less weight. It might feel like discrimination but it's actually physics. Currently though, the skinnies are subsidising the fatties, so BRING MOAR PIES!
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Monday 1st February 2016 15:10 GMT DavCrav
Re: If weight is such an issue...
"Samoa air services does indeed charge by weight, and have done for years now, and they say it's been a success."
Indeed they do. Any move to do so in the UK, and presumably the rest of the EU, would get a sex discrimination suit dropped on your desk the same morning.
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Monday 1st February 2016 16:32 GMT jason 7
Re: If weight is such an issue...
Well then just apply a total weight allowance for passenger AND luggage. When you check in you stand on the plate with your bags. Over the weight allowance you stump up. If you come well under then you can get a discount.
It's going to happen one day.
Airlines will also then get fairly accurate info on how much weight they are carrying per flight. I would have thought that would be useful info to have.
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 17:32 GMT Charles 9
Re: If weight is such an issue...
"It's going to happen one day."
But as said, how do they do that without running into age- or sex-discrimination lawsuits since some people naturally tend to be lighter than others due to their physical characteristics (thus the sex discrimination suit--women on average tend to be lighter than men). The plaintiffs would just counter, "Find another way to reduce the load; remove seats if you gotta..."
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Wednesday 3rd February 2016 19:45 GMT Swarthy
Re: If weight is such an issue...
Simple: Person plus luggage. Women may weigh less, on average; but we all know that men pack less in their luggage. In terms of gender, it evens out.
Now, this plan does discriminate against techies. We who have to carry around the penalty weight of
avoiding exercisebeing chained to a desk all day and tech gear which can be quite hefty...
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Saturday 30th January 2016 18:43 GMT phil dude
Thunderbird 2?
However, there is merit in the idea that the *cabin* (which is after all an airline fashioned thing), could be separate from the plane.
Imagine not having to file in to a small metal tube, and instead be seated in a land-based boarding area (a bit like Heathrow) - still shaped like a tube, but without the massive inconvenience of the wait.
Of course, this will never fly....(I'll get my coat)
P.
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Sunday 31st January 2016 03:05 GMT Adam 1
Re: Thunderbird 2?
> how did X get a patent for something they patently did not invent, merely copied from fiction?
You must be new to the way that the USPTO operates.
Step 1 - fiction
Step 2 - Copy and patent the idea
portable display device USD670286
Step 3 - profit
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Saturday 30th January 2016 22:40 GMT Stoneshop
Re: Thunderbird 2?
Imagine not having to file in to a small metal tube, and instead be seated in a land-based boarding area (a bit like Heathrow) - still shaped like a tube, but without the massive inconvenience of the wait.
Then, to save time, instead of having to wait until the flying bits are attached, the tube can have its own wheels so it can roll to its destination all by itself. You can choose to use "rubber" wheels and stuff called "tarmac", which is abundantly available, allowing you to be quite flexible in choosing a destination, or the wheels can be made of steel requiring them to roll on "tracks", also made of steel. The latter option offers less flexibility but higher speed. The tubes can even be within bigger, underground tubes, again on rubber or steel wheels, so that no-one above ground notices you're moving
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Saturday 30th January 2016 19:43 GMT Peter Christy
Nothing new.....
Back in the late 60s, the father of a school-mate of mine was a senior manager at Bristow Helicopters. At the time they were investigating buying one of those big, Russian, "Flying Cranes". These were designed so that different pods could be attached to the skeletal fuselage for different purposes - a bit like Thunderbirds!
Following a demonstration ride in the thing, the management bods were questioning the pilot. One asked about passenger loading. "VIPs travel in the cabin behind the cockpit, and the peasants go in the pod!", came the unexpected answer!
"And what happens in the event of an engine failure?", asked another.
"We drop the pod!"
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Pete
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Saturday 30th January 2016 21:41 GMT x 7
Re: Nothing new.....
" big, Russian, "Flying Cranes"."
They were actually built in the USA by Sikorsky, who was Russian by origin but very much part of the USA industrial complex
To be precise the S-64 SkyCrane, which in military service became the CH-54 Tarhe
The design has now been sold off and someone else still has them in limited production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
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Saturday 30th January 2016 20:01 GMT arctic_haze
I wonder why the detachable section does not include the pilot cabin. After all the thing would then at least have aerodynamics better than a flying barn.
Is this to penalize the pilots for their mistake? Or to allow them a safety landing after they drop the peasants over Niagara.
Speaking of dropping passengers. The crazy German second pilot who killed everybody on-board flying into the Alps, could have even more fun dropping the passenger cabin with the captain still in the loo on top of the Matterhorn and flying into the sunset.
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Monday 1st February 2016 11:35 GMT Holleritho
Parachuting into the Arctic
I regularly fly to Canada, and about 80% of the flight is over Greenland, the Arctic islands of Canada, Nunavut and the especially cold bits of the country. To float down in a passenger pod into -40 degree weather with nothing but my bag of peanuts and the elderly couple beside me to share body heat with, I think I am still dead.
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Saturday 30th January 2016 20:02 GMT Diodelogic
I'll tell you one thing...
Having been a passenger on an aircraft that came 'way too close to crashing, and having talked with a couple of people who survived an air crash (Eastern Air Lines Flight 401), I can tell you that the last thing passengers consider as the end approaches is "Wow, this doesn't happen very often!"
The basic objection to any kind of bulk rescue is cost. The article makes this point many times. It would be nice, if, rather than throwing out the entire concept, someone with the know-how came up with some way of doing it that would be acceptable.
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Saturday 30th January 2016 22:11 GMT Richard 12
Re: I'll tell you one thing...
No, the main argument is that it wouldn't bloody work.
Almost all crashes and deaths on aircraft are at takeoff or landing, controlled flight into terrain, pilots forgetting how to fly the plane or due to cabin failure.
This wouldn't help in any of those, and would even make cabin failure more likely.
In fact I can't think of an air accident in the last decade where this could have saved the passengers - and a few where it'd make it worse.
- Perhaps help with MH370 as we still don't know what happened there. But probably not as the pilots appear to have been incapacitated.
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Sunday 31st January 2016 00:45 GMT Diodelogic
Re: I'll tell you one thing...
Richard, perhaps I wasn't clear in my post: I was not saying that there ought to be some way of making the detachable cabin idea work. What I was trying to say is that there might be some other way of saving the passengers that would work. Especially for controlled flight into terrain--whatever happened to things like avoidance radar, and so forth, to force the aircraft to avoid flying into a mountain or the ground? It doesn't/won't work? Too expensive? I don't know. The basic construction of an airliner doesn't seem to be much different now than it was 50 years ago, but I'm not an aeronautical engineer and I may be very mistaken.
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Sunday 31st January 2016 06:21 GMT Charles 9
Re: I'll tell you one thing...
I think the problem is that CFIT sensors can be fooled, throw false alarms, or be overridden. As long as there is meat in the cockpit, there's always the risk of a CFIT. Also, many CFITs occur during the already-dangerous landing phase, where planes are supposed to be close to the ground, rendering a CFIT sensor useless.
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Tuesday 2nd February 2016 03:02 GMT Vic
Re: I'll tell you one thing...
I think the problem is that CFIT sensors can be fooled, throw false alarms, or be overridden
Such alarms are regularly ignored.
When I was doing my retractable undercarriage training, the aircraft I was flying had an alarm that sounded below a certain height if the wheels were still up and the engine revs dropped below a certain level.
During the week, we fly a lower circuit than at weekends[1]. So as soon as I reduced power, the alarm would sound. Every single circuit. And so the alarm gets ignored.
Vic.
[1] Thruxton is situated within the Boscombe Down / Middle Wallop CMATZ, so on weekdays, when Boscombe is active, we have to keep low to make sure we don't interfere with anything they might be flying.
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Sunday 31st January 2016 21:26 GMT Richard 12
Re: I'll tell you one thing...
CFIT now basically requires the pilot to deliberately do so. Commercial aircraft have very good navigation, mapping and radar that warn with plenty of time now.
Commercial air travel is rapidly approaching the point where it'd be safer to remove the pilots completely - and we're already at the point where the dog* would help.
*The pilot feeds the dog, and the dog bites the pilot if they try to touch the controls.
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Sunday 31st January 2016 13:30 GMT Charles 9
I don't think it was the loo. Rather it was one of the flight attendants in the backwards-facing attendant's seat all the way in the back of the plane (which broke up in mid-flight) and landed upside-down, meaning she didn't get the full brunt of the impact. The top crumpled, taking most of the impact while she (strapped in) didn't fall the rest of the way.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
