Fantasy Concepts Under Consideration

Aeroscraft -- Flying Luxury Hotel or Cargo Craft? Tomorrow's cruise ship will sail through the air, not the water!  This is not a Blimp. It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms. Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight. The rigid and surprisingly aerodynamic body—driven by huge rearward propellers—generates enough additional lift to keep the behemoth and its 400-ton payload aloft while cruising. During takeoff and landing, six turbofan jet engines push the ship up or ease its descent. This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino. To minimize noise, the aft-mounted propellers will be electric, powered by a renewable source such as hydrogen fuel cells. A sophisticated buoyancy-management system will serve the same purpose as trim on an airplane, allowing for precise adjustments in flight dynamics to compensate for outside conditions and passenger movement. The automated system will draw outside air into compartments throughout the ship and compress it to manage onboard weight. The company envisions a cargo-carrying version that could deliver a store's worth of merchandise from a centralized distribution center straight to a major department store parking lot or, because the helium-filled craft will float, a year's worth of supplies to an offshore oil rig. "You can land on the snow, you can land on the water," Pasternak says. "It's a new vision of what can be done in the air." Aeroscraft Purpose: Long-range travel for passengers who are more concerned with the journey than the destination Dimensions (feet): 165 height x 244 width x 647 length Max Speed: 174 mph Range: 6,000 miles Capacity: 250 passengers By Joshua Tompkins -- HowStuffWorks.com  / http://www.popsci.com/popsci/whatsnew/18ac893302839010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html?s_prop18=whatsnew Aerodyne Aerodyne represents a new wave of transport. DragonHeart has aspirations to invest heavily in it if China, for example, deems it a worthwhile enterprise. It attracted our attention after we read about plans to rebuild the Silk Road. The benefit to us would be to have the facility to deliver our infrastructure (power and water from waste) to inaccessible regions. The other benefit would be the ability to place an entire infrastructure for disaster relief in one container. We would however, specify different materials and drive systems to the design. It offers a lightweight aircraft capable of major loads for cargo transport. Aerodyne (our proposed version of the present development) helps ease transfer of goods and handling to islands and remote areas where there is little infrastructure. This is especially valuable when a country is faced with the need to expand its commerce to other nearby regions of the globe to build up commercial trade to justify the expense of a road.  Either the road development is years or decades away, or cost of roads, security and maintenance is prohibitive. The US dollar cost of this project is a hundred million per ship and at this cost; it is 5% of the cost to build roads and maintenance if the only purpose is to deliver goods. Either way, this can help in certain conditions to maintain the competitive edge with rising internal cost of living factors, and reduces balance of payments on import/export activities.   ///  Back to Top  : : :  Proceed to China Gallery Page  : : :  Back to Manufacturing Strategy Page  \\\