A3xx900 From Germany, joined Jan 2004, 335 posts, RR: 0 Posted (9 years 3 months 3 weeks 5 days 11 hours ago) and read 1823 times:
Hi all,
I was just wondering what the future developments in aviation will be? What is your opinion? I don't want to know which airline will buy which A/C or that A is better than B. What will the technical developments be?
Maybe a One-pilot cockpit? Maybe remotely steered A/C from the ground? Will the aircraft of our grandchildren look just like ours do or will they have splended wing bodies? Or maybe they will cruise in outer space on their holiday trip to Mars?
Tell me where you think the technical future will be!
Yanksn4 From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 1392 posts, RR: 13 Reply 2, posted (9 years 3 months 3 weeks 5 days ago) and read 1728 times:
There's a lot ideas out there. I mean I've seen shows saying NASA is developing computers that fly planes without human pilots, and they are also thinking of starting a program where a rocket takes people in Space. So again there are tons of ideas out there today.
Caribb From Canada, joined Nov 1999, 1627 posts, RR: 9 Reply 3, posted (9 years 3 months 3 weeks 5 days ago) and read 1709 times:
Ok I'm anything but an expert so here's my amature layman's comments... or more precisely an ordinary passenger's perspective on what I've heard so far about future aircraft.. So please don't shoot me if I get it all wrong LOL.. Whatever design it will be there must be commerical sense behind it or else it's doomed. Airbus & Boeing are showing us fancy cabins for the A380 & 7E7 with extra wide aisles, stores, gyms, lounges and whatnot.. looks good in the brochures and fancy graphics but most people here seem to think it will all be replaced by passenger seating as economic reality hits home and airlines try and pay for the plane.
Blended Wing Body aircraft have been put on the table as a future development. These concepts sure look cool and they may happen. God knows if they'll ever look like the concept vehicule. Some comments I've read here suggest they cannot be stretched, people want to be able to look outside and have natural light and the placement of the engines is top heavy etc.. so some work to be done on it techincally I suppose and some marketing to prepare passengers for a totally different type of flying vehicule if it ever materializes. I'm not sure if there are any great advantages over the current designs though.. other than seating large numbers of people in one plane.
You mentioned a single pilot or pilotless aircraft. I think that might be a possibility if America continues to focus on the airline industry in it's war against terror for any prolonged length of time. That is the USA though not the entire world and planes are supposed to be designed for many markets not just one. I'm not convinced the flying public is ready to get into a 400 seat widebody knowing only a computer is flying it. I think this would have to evolve out of a military concept aircraft first... so also a long way into the future for this one.
Hypersonic aircraft have also been thrown out as future possibilities. One I saw involved a jet like aircraft able to skip along the surface on the Earth's atmosphere firing it's engines only when it enters the atmosphere pushing it up and forward into open space and coming dawn for another "skip" into the next piece of atmosphere it finds itself in. The idea was to go from JFK to NRT in about 2 hours. Passengers would be going in and out of gravity as the plane enters and leave the Earth's atmosphere to make the roughly 25 skips to Japan from New York. An interesting concept but quite far out there.. again maybe good for FedEx and the USAF at least to start.
So unless someone pulls out a Concorde replacement in the near future I'm afraid airliners will more or less continue evolving as they have over the past 100 years. Perhaps getting bigger, more aerodynamic & fuel efficient, probably with more techinical wizardry for both the crew and passengers, hopefully more comfortable and hopefully more safe. I also hope the concept of the airport evolves with it so we don't find ourselves getting from A to B more efficiently and comfortably only to find we get bogged down in endless lines as we try to enter or leave the airport.. no doubt the whole evolution will be fascinating.
TWISTEDWHISPER From Sweden, joined Aug 2003, 709 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (9 years 3 months 3 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 1664 times:
Hi Rene and everybody else,
I'm not an engineer or anything, nor do I possess the ablility to see into the future, but I think that all of the things you mentioned is in the pipeline, but the largest development will probably take place on the ground... Airport security, faster and better transfers, multilingual information systems and improved navigation...
I think that we will not see more, smaller planes, but rather, fewer but larger ones.... On second thought, maybe not fewer, but larger. And I think, sooner or later, Boeing and Airbus will join team, just like car corps do...
A3xx900 From Germany, joined Jan 2004, 335 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (9 years 3 months 3 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 1648 times:
Thanks for your replies.
Anyone knows anything about hydrogen-powered/fuel cell engines? I think considering the amount of fuel/passenger aircraft burn on a flight, developments must lead into this direction?
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