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American Airlines is going thru hard times, like nearly every carrier in the airline industry. The internet replaces travel agents, more teleconferencing - less business trips, more security since 9/11, higher fuel prices....

AA is telling pilots to taxi with just one engine, flight attendants to get rid of unneeded items.

Safety will probably never let this happen, but what if a future generation of jetliners could shut down one engine while cruising and have the ability to restart?

MSNBC Story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13365942/)

MSNBC really is awful when viewed in Firefox. I'll have to read that in IE... :(

I'm not suprize that www.msnbc.com (http://www.msnbc.com) is strongly preferental to Bill's Browser....

Preferential is letting it in first at a red carpet premier. This is more like "Sorry, your skin/eyes/car is the wrong color and you cannot pass go. NEXT!" ;)

Great find, btw. That and the UPS hydraulic hybrid article make my day!

hmmm, i don't fly anyhow, but i would think pulse and glide at 30,000 feet might be a little much for some passengers to deal with LOl

hmmm, i don't fly anyhow, but i would think pulse and glide at 30,000 feet might be a little much for some passengers to deal with LOl

The closest thing to an airplane doing Pulse and Glide I can think of is the way NASA's "vomit comet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_gravity#NASA.27s_KC-135_Reduced_Gravity_Aircraft)" simulates weightlessness.


One of the best-known hypermiling pilots was Charles A Lindbergh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindberg). Before I mention his accomplishments, it's sad he was so blindly sympathetic to the Nazi's - the Jane Fonda of the far right for his day. :( On his accomplishments besides crossing the Atlantic alone:

(from Wikipedia) "His contributions (as a WWII advisor in the Pacific) include engine-leaning techniques that Lindbergh showed P-38 Lightning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_Lightning) pilots. This improved fuel usage while cruising, enabling aircraft to fly longer-range missions such as the one that killed Admiral Yamamoto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamamoto_Isoroku). He also showed Marine F4U (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F4U_Corsair) pilots how to take off with twice the bomb load that the aircraft was rated for. He is credited with shooting down one enemy aircraft"

Late in life he became an envionmentalist and died in Hawaii. I think the new National Park in Hawaii was something he had worked on. The Lindbergh Award (http://www.lindberghfoundation.org/events/award-event.html)recognizes envirnomental achievments.

The closest thing to an airplane doing Pulse and Glide I can think of is the way NASA's "vomit comet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_gravity#NASA.27s_KC-135_Reduced_Gravity_Aircraft)" simulates weightlessness.


One of the best-known hypermiling pilots was Charles A Lindbergh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindberg). Before I mention his accomplishments, it's sad he was so blindly sympathetic to the Nazi's - the Jane Fonda of the far right for his day. :( On his accomplishments besides crossing the Atlantic alone:

(from Wikipedia) "His contributions (as a WWII advisor in the Pacific) include engine-leaning techniques that Lindbergh showed P-38 Lightning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_Lightning) pilots. This improved fuel usage while cruising, enabling aircraft to fly longer-range missions such as the one that killed Admiral Yamamoto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamamoto_Isoroku). He also showed Marine F4U (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F4U_Corsair) pilots how to take off with twice the bomb load that the aircraft was rated for. He is credited with shooting down one enemy aircraft"

Late in life he became an envionmentalist and died in Hawaii. I think the new National Park in Hawaii was something he had worked on. The Lindbergh Award (http://www.lindberghfoundation.org/events/award-event.html)recognizes envirnomental achievments.

funny you should mention lindbergh....i live in the town in which he was born, we have a state park around his boyhood home, and a museum. he is well thought of here.....

If you look hard enough, everybody has something that they are not proud of - myself included.

On the positive side of "The Lone Eagle" - one of the things he taught US Navy pilots in the Pacific was to cruise just above the waves for additional lift - for a number of reasons, that would be hard to do in the age of jetliners (safety, security, etc).

His official conversation link (http://www.charleslindbergh.com/conservation/)

Navy P-3s shut down 2 of 4 turboprops on long patrols, extending a 'bag' of fuel to >13hours.

The 747 was originally engineered to be able to be able to maintain cruise altitude on 2 engines, and be able to fly several hundred miles on a single engine.

Well part of the problem of shutting jet engines down is they are still very large and when not contributing to thrust, they are a huge source of drag, thus causing the remaining engines to work much harder to compensate. For a two-engine aircraft, the severe bias in thrust must be compensated for by either flying at a major bank angle or with strong yaw input at the rudder. Both increase drag by a lot as well.

The most effective increases at this point are from the RVSM mandate that permits much more direct flight routing as well as squeezing more aircraft in to the sky at the higher altitudes where they cruise more efficiently anyway. To a lesser extent, increasing paralell runways can help by reducing the time aircraft have to wait in line to take off and land, although that takes a ton of room since you have to have sufficient room for safety.

Generally speaking, a nearly fully loaded aircraft is one of the most fuel efficient means of transportation, especially if you take in to account how quickly you reach your destination compared to car or bus. I'd like to continue to see air travel increase in efficiency so it can continue to flourish.

If you look hard enough, everybody has something that they are not proud of - myself included.

On the positive side of "The Lone Eagle" - one of the things he taught US Navy pilots in the Pacific was to cruise just above the waves for additional lift - for a number of reasons, that would be hard to do in the age of jetliners (safety, security, etc).

His official conversation link (http://www.charleslindbergh.com/conservation/)

Surface Effect Ships take advantage of this, and the Soviets built a prototype fleet in the Caspian of amphibious transports that 'flew' 10-50ft off the sea surface with incredible (ship-like) haul capacity at well over 150kts.

What *are* the person-miles per gallon figures for nominally-
loaded airliners, anyways? Last I saw it was vaguely equivalent
to a single-occupant car.
.
_H*

The most recent flight I took worked out to roughly 40 person miles per gallon. 400 miles straight-line distance, 8000 pounds of fuel burned, 120 passengers.

Regarding airplane efficiency or the lack of, I remember reading somewhere recently that one airplane flight filled with tourists from California to Egypt requires roughly the same amount of energy as it took to build the pyramids.

One thing the FAA really needs to speed up is the elimination of flight lanes and the use of direct navigation. To fly from Houston to St. Louis, if I recall my last flight, required a path to Memphis and then a turn towards St. Louis. If that flight went direct, it could probably shave a couple hundred miles of travel off the trip.

Jeff

A lot of times I believe the routes are picked because of the ability to get tail winds. Going direct is not nessasarily most fuel efficient.