From Wikipedia:
The Aeroscraft uses a combination of aerodynamic and aerostatic principles to remain airborne. Approximately two-thirds of the craft's lift is provided by helium gas. The remaining lift is provided by the forward thrust of the craft's propellers, in combination with its aerodynamic shape, and its canards (forward fins) and empennage (rear fins).
As well as its horizonal propellers, the Aeroscraft has six downward-pointing turbofan jet engines for vertical take-off and landing. The craft also uses Dynamic Buoyancy Management, a novel technology which controls buoyancy by taking in air from the surrounding atmosphere and holding it in pressurised tanks. These systems make the Aeroscraft capable of landing on rough or snowy terrain, or on water.
From the Aeroscraft website:
The Aeroscraft will have a particular advantage relative to other means of transportation for certain types of cargos. Time sensitive cargos that are currently shipped by land due to cost size and weight limitations of airfreight will be attracted to the speed of the Aeroscraft. Shipments that require multiple shipping vectors, such as truck to ship to truck, truck to aircraft to truck, etc. will benefit from the direct delivery capabilities of the craft. Where infrastructure is limited or does not exist, Aeroscraft will deliver the goods in a more timely and efficient manner.
Additional series of Aeroscraft is on the drawing board and will be scaled to payloads of up to 60 tons.
60 tons is more than even First Airs new cargo plane at 49 tons (both assuming Aeroscraft uses US short tons). Cruising speeds of 185km mean cargo can travel from a southern location to Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge in a day or less. It could even travel and re-supply smaller communities since it has VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing), and doesn't require a traditional runway.
Economically this thing makes sense. Imagine not having to refuel in the north - the costs of fuel up north are very high even with government subsidies. With a maximum range of 5,000 kilometers, this thing would only have to refuel in the south, saving businesses, consumers, and the GN and Federal Governments a buttload of money. Without having to pay airport access fees and associated costs, one can envision even more savings. In theory, all this would need is a flat landing surface (requiring minimal maintenance) and some local heavy equipment to offload. It can even land on water or on sea ice.
It could have other uses too; tourism (Aeroscraft already has a commercial tourism model planned out, including observation decks), regular scheduled passenger or passenger/cargo combo routes between communities, a regular scheduled transit route between Baffin and Greenland, scientific aerial surveying, chartering, military surveillance, surveillance and monitoring on the Northwest Passage, search and rescue, escape from a future zombie apocalypse. The possibilities are limitless.
It is only going into production this year, and I have no idea what the pricing would be. Whatever the cost, I'm willing to bet that long-term savings would more than pay for the initial purchasing and infrastructure costs.
Get on it Nunavut. You can thank me later.
You mentioned not having to re-fuel in the north. If that's the case then it wouldn't be able to go much father than Iqaluit.
ReplyDeleteOttawa to Igloolik is 2655 kms one way, it wouldn't make the return trip without having to re-fuel.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distanceresult.html?p1=188&p2=1161
Unless your talking about re-fueling in Iqaluit.
That's a good point. Perhaps what could be done is departing from Churchill or Winnipeg - Winnipeg would be an advantage as an Urban center, and Churchill or Thompson because of the railway.
ReplyDeleteBelow are links to 2500 km radii superimposed on a Google Map which will give you an idea of what destinations could be reached (return trip) from which cities.
Ottawa Winnipeg Edmonton Churchill
Blogspot comments has to be fixed, I had a long comment, one wrong click gone! Short version: what about the interwoven nature of the GN and the companies that "provide" services would require an Inuit owned company to purchase this, and the slow movement that these companies make in changing their ways? Or, if an outside private firm comes in, the pressures to undercut the jet service by as little as possible while taking as much of the business as possible? Or about the employees (and their Union(s))who will have to be seriously retrained, or more likely, be out of jobs? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just much more complicated at the moment than "Nunavut" getting on it.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting design, though we’ll have to wait until they actually start building them to see what their actual capabilities are regarding range and cargo capacity. They are pretty low flying compared to jets as well. That, and the fact that its at least partially a dirigible-type vessel, means that strong winds could very well limit its claimed range considerably. Still, I’ve often wondered whether airships or hybrids would be a good solution to our transport issues up here, and these machines do look like they have promise, particularly given they don't appear to require a numerous ground crew around to land them.
ReplyDeleteOne point from your post. None of the airports in Nunavut charge landing or airport access fees, so there would be little to no savings on that count.
It would be a damned cool way to travel if you aren’t in too much of a hurry, though. No worries about leg room and the like, and you know that can’t re-configure the design into sardine-like carrying configurations like they do some jets given the lift restrictions (another point I’ve always been fond of in airship designs).
Still, the northern airlines could save money over the long-term by purchasing passenger jets that didn't end their production runs 30 years ago like the 737-200's did and yet they haven't done that, so its a safe bet that we won't be seeing these used by them any time soon. Ah well, we can still hope, right?
@M.O. - You're right, I can envision substantial institutional resistance, and the politics of it all can be messy. Change will always be messy, but that's no reason not to pursue it. If and when this idea ever comes to fruition, the potential benefits would outweigh the drawbacks.
ReplyDelete@BJ - Sure, testing their capabilities is a must. An invitation from the GN to conduct cold-weather and range/cargo testing in the Nunavut would be a good place to start.
Regarding the airport access fees - thank you, I didn't know that. Seems like a good common sense policy.
Maybe if the northern airlines are unwilling to adapt to new technologies which could potentially save money, it should be left to others to do so. This is still theoretically a free country - what's to stop Nunavummiut from investing in a private company that could carry this out independently? It would certainly ruffle some feathers, but sometimes a good feather-ruffling is in order.
Thinking about your comment on wind resistance, I was wondering if anyone knows where to access maps of prevalent wind currents in the arctic. I imagine such maps much exist, and it could be a possibility to outfit these things with sails or kite-sails to take advantage of air currents. Something like departing from Edmonton, catching currents to save on fuel, arriving at destination X (like Ranking Inlet), and catching another current to end up at another destination Y (like Ottawa or Montreal), refueling there, and then making the trek back to Edmonton to restart another cycle.
I may just be talking out of my ass, but if it could work it could actually save more money than direct routes. One would think that the military would be interested in this kind of innovation for Arctic monitoring.