The Future of Flight

Roland Piquepaille writes "With "High Times," the Economist delivers a very long and extremely well-documented article about the future of aviation during the next fifty years. It tells us about pilotless planes, with 32 countries currently developing more than 250 models of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), primarily for combat purposes. The article also looks at future civilian pilotless planes and at the future of personal aviation. But what captivated my attention in this article was the last part about future commercial supersonic and hypersonic (at least five times the speed of sound) planes. In particular, the Economist describes the HyperSoar. "The HyperSoar is a concept for a craft flying at ten times the speed of sound and able to reach any point on the globe within two hours." This overview contains more details and references about the HyperSoar which would fly from Los Angeles to New York in 35 minutes."

flying cars

[potpie]

planes!? Where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars!

high times?

[orion67]

hmm, I thought High Times was a publication of a different sort...

It's nearly 2004....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Where are the flying cars?

Enough said.

Laptop makers will finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

HyperSoar which would fly from Los Angeles to New York in 35 minutes.

...be able to claim coast-to-coast on one battery.

*coast-to-coast claim only valid when flying at over 5 times the speed of sound.

Re:flying cars

[atommoore]

"If cars were meant to fly, God would have given them wings", Bishop Milton Wright, 1903

Amusing aside in the article

[richg74]

It may be my weird sense of humour, but I liked this joke quoted in the article:

There is a joke in the airline industry that the future crew of an airliner will consist of a pilot and a dog. The pilot's job is to watch all the computers, and the dog's job is to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.

/Rich

Re:It's nearly 2004....

[iamdrscience]

I forget where I found this, but it's freakin' awesome and voices your and my concerns very well.

Dear Gerald Glaser, Executive Officer of the National Science Foundation,

We the people are upset at the so-called 'world of tomorrow' which still hasn't gotten here yet. We were promised a lot by cartoons and optimistically naive '50s scientists ... Instead here we are driving gas-powered cars and masturbating with our hands like suckers. Well no more. My fellow taxpayers and I are planning a revolt if our demands for unrealistic scientific advancements are not satisfied.

The list is as follows; -Meal pills. How come we have to spend so much time eating and shitting? We should at least genetically engineer some 10-breasted chickens with skin like KFC's Extra Tasty Crispy recipe and small, colorful donkeys full of candy to bash at kids' birthday parties. -What about Spanish fly? GHB is for creeps (who likes having sex with people who are passed out?), but it seems OK to slip a girl a mickey if it makes her hot in the pants. Where are the flying cars? "Back to the Future II" promised us flying cars by 2015 - do you guys have a prototype yet, or are you still working on designing the spoiler and stuff? For that matter, how go the electric/hyrdogen cars? Are those almost done, because I don't want my grandkids riding around on rickshaws or bicycles. And it's a fucking travesty that we don't have hoverboards. They had them in Japan when I was in middle school, or at least that was the rumor. Where are the helpful robots? Robots could be washing our cars, frying our fries and exciting our genitals (without all the nagging). George Jetson had a conveyor belt of robot arms that brushed his teeth and clothed him, and if such a thing is possible in the cartoon future, it's possible now. We could give disabled people helpful robots instead of helper-monkeys that just screech and fling excrement. We could give the first robot servants to blacks as reparation for the years of slavery they endured. Robots fix everything. Why can't we control the weather? It would revolutionize sports and agriculture, since it would rain on farms and not baseball fields, and we could even assassinate dictators in other countries with tornadoes and hail and we wouldn't be responsible since it's an act of God. Supposedly Nike is already working on this, but it's high time that they invent a shoe that allows white people the ability to run fast, play better basketball and have the coordination to dance well. Word up. X-ray glasses that work like the ad says they do. I want to look at panties and stuff; I'm not interested in who has a metal hip or a weapon taped to their genitals.

Scientists are always missing the big picture. If our demands aren't met, we'll kick the NSF's ass with our space shoes on. Once they're invented, that is.

Re:Mach 5?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been known for some time that the earth's core is quite effective in preventing upside down flying aircraft from reaching space.

Good grief

[skinfitz]

"HyperSoar's trajectory follows a skipping pattern. Passengers would feel 1.5 times the force of gravity at the bottom of each skip, and weightlessness out in space. The experience would be comparable to being on a swing, although HyperSoar's motion would be 100 times slower." [llnl.gov]

Anyone else thinking about investing their life savings into sick bag companies?

Re:high times?

[motardo]

I thought it was a magazine for very tall people

Re:Pilotless Planes?

[Admiral Burrito]

There doesn't seem to be any R&D towards developing unmanned targets so I'm sure there will be plenty of employment opportunities there. And with GWB as president I'm sure there will be plenty of growth in that field.

Zero to three hours

[Afbc0m]

"This overview contains more details and references about the HyperSoar which would fly from Los Angeles to New York in 35 minutes."

Sure the flight would be 35 minutes, but the trip time would be 3 hours, sitting on the runway, sitting on the runway, sitting on the runway, waiting while the FBI takes the person without white skin off the plane, sitting on the runway...