First Unmanned Commercial Flight a Success

Details are emerging of the first unmanned 'passenger plane' to successfully complete a flight. The Flying Test Bed flew 500 miles, from Warton in Lancashire to Inverness, however it wasn't completely alone. Aparently, the take-off and landing were performed by an on-board pilot however that actual flight itself was performed by a pilot situated on the ground, controlling via the high-tech instruments on the aircraft as well as help from Air Traffic Control.

Though only a small 16-seater, the feat is being hailed as a leap forward in the future of air travel as the experiment successfully proved that unmanned civilian aircrafts can operate in the commercial airways. The one big concern that they do have however is that the technology is not yet available that can replace the detection of the human eye-ball.

It's no secret that the systems of modern day planes are so sophisticated that they can basically fly themselves, however they do lack that human ability to make quick judgement calls that can potentially save lives. You only have to look back to the US Airways Flight 1549 where the pilot managed to successfully save the entire crew and passengers by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River. I very much doubt any modern day computer system would have been as successful (if at all) in repeating such a task.

The big question is however, would you want to fly in a plane that has no pilot? The mere fact that the pilot is safe on the ground while you are the ones trapped in a metallic object flying at 800km/h is enough to make anyone uneasy. Then again, planes are practically the safest places to be right now given all the safety testing they must go through.


[via BBC and New Scientist]

Global Warming to Possibly Affect Air Travel

Let's assume for this story that global warming is 100% real (I'm not arguing it's not however I think it's a lot more complicated than people are allowing it to be) and that the earth will be gradually getting warmer. Sure we'll have melting ice caps and warmer weather plus rising sea levels but this is all land based. People forgot about what would happen in the

Aircraft companies will have their work cut out for them if the recent discoveries are true as global warming could have severe repercussions on the speed of high-altitude jet streams that the aircrafts are so reliant on. Rising CO2 emissions would more than likely increase the speed of the streams which would increase the likelihood of turbulence occurring.

Aircrafts in general are well built to withstand extreme cases of turbulence in the air however pilots are still instructed to avoid severe patches where possible. The major problem global warming will have is that it will increase the amount of clear-air turbulence which is invisible to both the human eye and the high-tech instruments on planes and is pretty much unavoidable until you know it's there.

The effect this would have on current aircraft in service could be rather dangerous as it would result in them undergoing extended periods of time under turbulence, causing them to experience stress loading that they would not normally have to endure and thus considerably reducing the life-cycle of the aircraft components. This could prove to be very costly to airline companies if after every few trips they had to replace different parts of the plane.

The simple solution to this would be to say "Let's just make sure all future aircraft designs take this into account". Unfortunately things aren't so simple as it normally takes around 20 years for an aircraft design to become a reality. If CO2 levels are rising as rapidly as we thought, by the time we have planes capable of withstanding these expected increases in turbulence it may be too late.

Of course, that's just assuming everything we're being told about global warming is true...


[via New Scientist]

Stanford Research Department Looking at Noiseless Jet Engines

Gizmodo reports that the Centre for Turbulence Research at Standord is currently imploring the use of a super computer to crunch numbers to help build a silent jet engine.

The implications of this would be huge as noise is currently one of the biggest disadvantages of using jet engines. Current noise regulations for aircrafts can often result in the performance of the engine taking a hit just to ensure that the noise levels are within the legal limit.

Flying a Plane on Another Planet

What If has a nice little article about the effects certain planets would have if you happened to be flying over them in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. And they do so with humour.

Most of the time you can pretty much guess what will happen (plane will be crushed by the atmosphere/intense gravity) however they still offer a nice summary of what you would expect to happen should you decide to try such an endeavour.

The most interesting is that Titan would appear to be a good place to fly a plane, so long as you don't mind freezing to death.