51–60 of 112 posts
The iterated version where cargo can split off and land would maybe in some cases be interesting. A drone carrier.
"Despite the higher mass, takeoff & climb performance of the consist is similar to that of the lead plane flying independently. This means the consist is capable of taking off on the same runways and with similar climb profiles as the primary tow plane is alone." This is just denying basic physics. Ask any glider pilot how the climb out on aerotow varies based on the weight of the glider being towed.
Reference on their page to the (obvious inspiration) Waco gliders of WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_CG-4
The military gliders made sense because they were landing in hostile territory, usually nowhere near a runway for a return trip. Those gliders were pretty much a one-way, one-time-use vehicle. I guess the Waco glider could be used to argue that towing is technically feasible, but it was intended for a totally different use case. I don't see how it can be argued that it's more economical to run, especially considering…
This product is for towing behind another aircraft, but what about winch towing? A winched glider implements flight with renewable electricity and it does so efficiently because the power and motor never leave the ground! A glider can climb up to 5000 feet and travel 50x that before making a landing. Wouldn’t it be glorious to see cargo being autonomously slung from site to site across the world, powered entirely by…
Is this competitive with using trains and ships for goods transport?
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Not to mention, what happens in the event of damage to the towed aircraft rendering flight operations impaired such that it affects the towing aircraft? “Oh sh1t!” at 35K feet.
Better there than at 200 feet.
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Glide ratio and weight are not related. Weight shifts the glide Polar to higher speeds and theoretically improves it slightly due to Reynolds effects.
"Weight doesn't affect glide ratio" is one of these things I learned why taking flying lessons that still feels counterintuitive every time I read it. (Don't worry, reader, I never intended to get a pilot's license.)
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> how much does it decrease the fuel economy of the towing plane Probably a lot, but I'd assume it is by less than the fuel that 1-2x more planes would use, otherwise there wouldn't be a point to doing this.
I did a masters on design a autopilot to optimize fuel consumption in formation flight. What is interesting about the aerodynamics is that if placed in the upwash wake of the leader, you are essentially increasing the wing aspect ratio of the system, resulting in gains for both the leader and the follower aircraft. Feels very unintuitive but basically the donut spool is larger and the combined wing is bigger in the s…
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The military gliders made sense because they were landing in hostile territory, usually nowhere near a runway for a return trip. Those gliders were pretty much a one-way, one-time-use vehicle. I guess the Waco glider could be used to argue that towing is technically feasible, but it was intended for a totally different use case. I don't see how it can be argued that it's more economical to run, especially considering…
If you've got a bigger plane, you also need a bigger runway. This thing should increase the number of usable airfields. That could be interesting for avoiding more expensive routes.
Your towing plane is going to have to accelerate the same mass to takeoff speed before it can get off the ground, no?