Internet Travel Monitor - Technology Bits
February 19, 2004

What's Next in Flight?

Reston, VA -- Orville and Wilbur, meet Paul Moller. Moller is developing the closest thing yet to the 21st-century flying car that George Jetson drove in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Moller's is not the only vision of flight's future (following) the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight (last December).

An enthusiastic clan of engineers, designers and entrepreneurs is working on aircraft of tomorrow and the technologies that will enable them. In addition to Moller International's M400 Skycar, other machines in development include:

• Individual flying units. Trek Aerospace is developing the Springtail. It's essentially a strap-on backpack similar to the rocket-powered pack that comics-and-TV hero Buck Rogers uses in the 25th century. The Springtail's small motor drives two 38-inch ducted lift fans that pivot in flight for forward thrust. The California company plans to move beyond tethered flight test in 2004. Springtail and the M400 Skycar are touted as possible ways to ease traffic congestion.

Originally developed under the name SoloTrek, the Springtail also received some Defense Department funding.

• Lightweight, inexpensive private jets. Companies in Albuquerque, Denver, Wichita and Duluth, Minn., are working on designs for four- to six-seat conventional-looking planes that use small, lightweight engines, advanced composites and new manufacturing processes to cut manufacturing costs to less than $1 million a plane. With prices of $1 million to $2 million, corporate jet ownership and charter rates would be within reach of the average small business. That could lead to a new business: on-demand jet air taxis.

• A hypersonic jet. A plane capable of flying at Mach 8, or more than 5,000 mph, would cut the flight time from Los Angeles to Sydney from 15 hours to less than two hours. Military applications are foremost in designers' minds, but the huge leap in time savings might appeal to the most time-sensitive of business travelers. The key technology is an air-breathing "scram jet," which would suck oxygen from the thin upper atmosphere and use it to ignite hydrogen fuel. The first flight test of such an engine took place in June 2002 in Australia.

• Hybrid airplane/helicopter aircraft. Civilian versions of tilt-rotor aircraft like the new V-22 Osprey are in early production for the Marines. But aircraft designers also are working on other ways to marry the concept of vertical takeoff and landing -- good for operating in congested cities -- with the faster speeds of jet planes. Boeing's Canard Rotor/Wing aircraft features a rotor atop the aircraft that locks into place as a static wing to achieve speeds faster than a helicopter can fly.

• Giant airplanes. The first of these will be the Airbus A-380, a triple-decker scheduled to enter service in 2006. It will carry 550 passengers in a three-class configuration and up to 800 in an all-coach layout. Range: 8,000 miles.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta doesn't know which, if any, of these concepts will play a major role in air transportation in 100 years. But the former chairman of the House aviation subcommittee and a strong booster of private aviation says, "There's no doubt in my mind that commercial aviation will change. It's already happening."

The current group of inventors, researchers and visionaries "may remind me of some of those guys in the 19th century who strapped wings to their arms and jumped off barns," he says. "But it's important to remember that guys strapping wings to their arms and jumping off barns eventually led to Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk in December 1903."

Moller, an inventor and former engineering professor who struck gold with a specialty auto muffler, has spent four decades trying to realize his dream of a practical flying vehicle for individuals and families. The M400 Skycar, propelled by four tilting lift fans, is the closest he's come. The prototype has made a few very-low-altitude test flights. Skeptics dismiss the concept as an impractical, ill-advised form of transportation. They cite concerns about air traffic management, pilot training and licensing, vehicle maintenance and liability, on top of engineering challenges.

But Moller says his Skycar will be in widespread use in 10 to 20 years because societal trends demand it. "It will change the way people live," he says.

"People live in big cities like San Francisco today because of the enormous cost and time associated with commuting," he says. "But with this kind of travel, you could live further away and commute faster and more economically."

Harry Falk shares much of Moller's vision. The CEO of Trek Aerospace in Lodi, Calif., says technology is catching up with science-fiction books and movies.

"The Fifth Element,the Star Wars films and others show multiple levels of traffic in the air and on the ground," he says. "That's not just the movies. It's the real future."

Tom Crouch, senior curator of aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum, appreciates the developers' passion. "The importance of enthusiasm in the development of new technologies" is "one of the most interesting things about the history of flight."

But he's not convinced that small, personal flying machines operating outside the airline-based, centralized model of commercial flight really are the future.

"An airplane for everyman is one of those dreams that won't die," Crouch says. But previous "flying cars" concepts failed because of engineering, legal and public-acceptance issues. "I won't say that it won't ever happen, but... the odds are against it."

More likely, at least in the shorter term, experts say, is a new generation of affordable small jets.

The Eclipse 500, made by Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque, is expected to reach the market in 2006 at a price just over $1 million. Corporate jets today sell for $6 million to $45 million.

Eclipse founder and CEO Vern Raburn, the former head of Symantec, says that at that price, charter or air-taxi operators could sell the tremendous time savings to business travelers at prices 20% above the airlines' walk-up fares.

Bob Krieger, president of Boeing's Phantom Works advanced research and development unit, says Boeing continues to build and promote conventional aircraft like the 737 and the proposed 7E7, which will incorporate new technologies as they are developed. Boeing also is working on radical designs and monitoring development of personal aircraft.

But whatever comes about, he says, the key is low costs. "The public won't accept it if it costs an arm and a leg. The technology has to be affordable."