I know this design was for safety, with a shit ton of parachutes on the passenger cabin, but modularity generally fucks the economics of a plane design. You have to have a self-contained module, a plane that is flyable (and landable) without it, and you need a way to securely connect one to the other. Things get chunky real quick, and chunky is expensive, and modern passengers are basically "walking mozzarella sticks who think that $300 and a photo I.D. gives them the right to fly through the air like one of the guardian owls of legend. ([email protected]) For cargo planes, a lot of older designs would drop capacity by 20-30%.
The mechanical failure category of crashes happen when the flying parts of a plane become less good at flying than they used to be.
Things like rudder hardovers, hydraulic failure, uncontrolled engine fire, engine detachment and similar are all things which can make the plane unflyable, and if flying isn’t possible anymore then all the previously useful fly-parts become huge and unpredictable liabilities that get in the way and make your problem worse - the forces that once kept you in the air now spiralling your plane out of control.
I’m not saying this crazy idea is a good one, but the theory is that you can just throw away all the problem parts and become a dumb capsule, which in that scenario would be desirable because it returns things to a predictable state.
In theory, if something goes catastrophically wrong, it’s going to be with the “flying parts” of the airplane. Flight controls locked up or ripped off.
In practice, safely jettisoning the passenger compartment would require a degree of flight stability far in excess of that required to land safely.
Without giving it any specific thought, ditching over deep water assuming it has big chutes designed to slow it, you’ve now got a capsule that’ll hit the water at a reduced speed, falls vertically so an asymmetric touchdown won’t rip the aircraft apart and a built in life raft to keep the passengers safe until help arrives.
But then we start asking if this is the best way to do it. Are there alternative ways of achieving the same - or better - safety margins? Could we reduce the risk of deep-water ditching by avoiding flight over deepwater? Could we restrict the distance from shore that aircraft are allowed to fly? Could we require additional redundancy (third, fourth engines, larger fuel reserves) for aircraft flying beyond glide distance to land? (We do both of these. Single engine planes require passengers and crew to be prepared to ditch before leaving glide range to land. Twin engine planes are restricted by ETOPS. Both are strictly limited on how far they can fly from shore.)
Adding a third engine and 30 additional minutes of reserve fuel would achieve at least the same degree of safety against ditching, and vastly improve safety in all sorts of situation where a detachable cabin would not be beneficial. Do we improve a wide variety of safety measures, or do we have a reason to focus on this one particular type of incident?
modern passengers are basically "walking mozzarella sticks who think that $300 and a photo I.D. gives them the right to fly through the air like one of the guardian owls of legend.
What does that mean? Do you want only Pilots with 5k flying hours minimum on a plane that have a military survival training?
Public transportation needs to be boring, and for some reason airplanes are not there yet it seems.
I don’t think airplanes ever will be there. It’s just too expensive to fly a plane, there’s too much risk, it’s never going to be boring to the level of a bus or train.
It could definitely be way closer than it is, though.
Do you want only Pilots with 5k flying hours minimum on a plane that have a military survival training?
Unironically yes. Private air travel needs to die for the planet to survive.
Limit flying to emergencies, organ transport, the military, things like that.
I know this design was for safety, with a shit ton of parachutes on the passenger cabin, but modularity generally fucks the economics of a plane design. You have to have a self-contained module, a plane that is flyable (and landable) without it, and you need a way to securely connect one to the other. Things get chunky real quick, and chunky is expensive, and modern passengers are basically "walking mozzarella sticks who think that $300 and a photo I.D. gives them the right to fly through the air like one of the guardian owls of legend. ([email protected]) For cargo planes, a lot of older designs would drop capacity by 20-30%.
What does it achieve in the first place, ditching all the flying parts of the aircraft I mean. Like in what scenario does that help
The mechanical failure category of crashes happen when the flying parts of a plane become less good at flying than they used to be.
Things like rudder hardovers, hydraulic failure, uncontrolled engine fire, engine detachment and similar are all things which can make the plane unflyable, and if flying isn’t possible anymore then all the previously useful fly-parts become huge and unpredictable liabilities that get in the way and make your problem worse - the forces that once kept you in the air now spiralling your plane out of control.
I’m not saying this crazy idea is a good one, but the theory is that you can just throw away all the problem parts and become a dumb capsule, which in that scenario would be desirable because it returns things to a predictable state.
I don’t care what anyone else says, this is fucking poetry.
Why not just put a big plane size parachute on the whole plane?
Nothing quite so predictable as an uncontrolled plane collising with your dumb capsule
Less good is better than missing entirely…
In theory, if something goes catastrophically wrong, it’s going to be with the “flying parts” of the airplane. Flight controls locked up or ripped off.
In practice, safely jettisoning the passenger compartment would require a degree of flight stability far in excess of that required to land safely.
Without giving it any specific thought, ditching over deep water assuming it has big chutes designed to slow it, you’ve now got a capsule that’ll hit the water at a reduced speed, falls vertically so an asymmetric touchdown won’t rip the aircraft apart and a built in life raft to keep the passengers safe until help arrives.
As an initial theory, it’s solid.
But then we start asking if this is the best way to do it. Are there alternative ways of achieving the same - or better - safety margins? Could we reduce the risk of deep-water ditching by avoiding flight over deepwater? Could we restrict the distance from shore that aircraft are allowed to fly? Could we require additional redundancy (third, fourth engines, larger fuel reserves) for aircraft flying beyond glide distance to land? (We do both of these. Single engine planes require passengers and crew to be prepared to ditch before leaving glide range to land. Twin engine planes are restricted by ETOPS. Both are strictly limited on how far they can fly from shore.)
Adding a third engine and 30 additional minutes of reserve fuel would achieve at least the same degree of safety against ditching, and vastly improve safety in all sorts of situation where a detachable cabin would not be beneficial. Do we improve a wide variety of safety measures, or do we have a reason to focus on this one particular type of incident?
What does that mean? Do you want only Pilots with 5k flying hours minimum on a plane that have a military survival training?
Public transportation needs to be boring, and for some reason airplanes are not there yet it seems.
I don’t think airplanes ever will be there. It’s just too expensive to fly a plane, there’s too much risk, it’s never going to be boring to the level of a bus or train.
It could definitely be way closer than it is, though.
Unironically yes. Private air travel needs to die for the planet to survive.
Limit flying to emergencies, organ transport, the military, things like that.