Topic awaiting preservation: The plane of the future soon to be the plane of the past?

It seems to me that at one point we'd walked on the moon, had manned space stations and sleek supersonic passenger aircraft - then we never went back, Skylab came crashing down to earth and now Concorde looks rocky.

Only yhe other day its future was in review:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2800519.stm

and it has just had to make an emergency landing as a bit of rudder fell off - in this day and age with less trans-Atlantic traffic it looks like its days are numbered.

I suppose its just another sign that technological progress isn't always upwards and onwards


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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I always thought that super fast and/or super large air transportation was a waste of money.

There are so many other things to invest in when spending money on technology...with so many more uses.

I must admit I am in favour of the bringing back zeppelins/dirigibles so what do I know??

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Here is a site about the future of planes.
http://www.boeing.com/phantom/flash.html

Cell 816 ~ teamEarth ~ Asylum Quotes

GN: Yeah you see that was the proression I was thinking of Concorde -> upper atmosphere jets, etc.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Waste of time an money.


We should focus on personal teleportation.


Ask Jeff Goldblum.

hehe

Maybe, but then we'd have to put up with those nasty microorganisms that land in teleportation pod.
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The era of the graf zeppelins, ahhh yes. There is something incredibly appealing about those. I remember seeing those old pics of the zeppelin docking at the top of the Empire State Building and thinking it was so Jules Vernesque. Perhaps when we overcome their vulnerability to poor weather, we will see a resurrection of these beauties.

I was always a very big fan of Jack Northrop's "flying wing" designs but during his time the technology just wasn't there for horizontal stability. But with the advent of microcomputers his dream child lives on in the B2. It is an utterly gorgeous piece of aerial tech just like the zeppelins.

I guess I'm just very partial to certain types of airships, like Emps.

. . : slicePuzzle

Bugs: There have been a few attempts to ressurect airships for none time essential cargo (like barges of the air) with their VTOL abilities they could still have potential

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Sure 'tis the journey that is important not the destination...

Welcome to the Asylum, Taobaybee. Enjoy.

Well, often, as is the case, to go forwards, one must go backwards...this is often true with technology, where the science has advanced to a point, that any increase takes huge amounts of money, time and expertise...and may lead to a dead end, anyway...back to the starting block.


WebShaman

For the sake of argument, I'd like to add here that development of the "plane of the future" dates back to the 60s. It's been flying for more than 30 years.

Oh, and Skylab was considered a great success, despite some damage incurred during liftoff. Once missions were complete and Skylab had served its purpose, it was shut down and allowed to remain in an orbit that was expected to last around 8 years. It reentered the atmosphere sooner than expected, though, due to unpredicted solar activity, but its destruction was not an accident.

I think we've come a long way, personally.

Ah, yes. And just to blow this topic in as many directions as possible, did you know that it's been virtually proven that the Hindenburg wasn't destroyed because of its use of hydrogen, which so many people have assumed, but because of the extremely volatile nature of the doping compound used to treat its skin? It's also well argued that it may have ignited due to the ineffectiveness of its skin panels to properly distribute static charge, which some say can be contributed to their being improperly lashed together.

And another bit of trivia fo you: An airship docked with the Empire State Building's mooring mast only once. The first time they did it, they realized what an insanely bad idea it was to have people walk across a swinging bridge attached to a moving airship at over 1,400 feet.

Man, I know way too much useless information.



[This message has been edited by Wes (edited 02-28-2003).]

Whoa, I must be really tired. When I read the thread title I thought we were going to be talking about inter-planar/temporal travel or something.

Considering my current state, though, it's probably better this way.

not to take away from this story but when going to the link Emp provided I couldn't but notice one story under the TOP UK STORIES NOW

Asylum figures at record level .. ok sorry back onto topic


.::. cEll .::. 513

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Maybe, but then we'd have to put up with those nasty microorganisms that land in teleportation pod.
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Funnily enough, that movie never mentions bacteria. Think about it. We are practically covered with microscopic germs. Tiny little mite things live on our eyelashes. If teleportation were to occur in that fashion, one would have to have themselves perfectly clean.

Unless you want a six-foot germ with your head walking around killing people.

RN3, if you're referring to the Star Trek universe, I believe they did address nasty microorganisms on a few episodes I think they even had a "bio-filter" built into the transportation units.

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Biofilter- Part of the transporter system that recognizes and filters out potentially hazardous viruses and bacteria from the matter stream. The biofilter is normally used only in transport to the ship.
--Star Trek Destiny Technical Dictionary

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Daystrom Institute Technology Library

quote:

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The transporter is probably the single greatest revolution in the movement of people and goods in recorded history; invented in 2135, the first transporter cleared for for the transport of biological organisms was installed aboard the NX class starship Enterprise in 2151. Although many crewmembers did not trust the new device, with some justification, the transporter eventually became a common feature of 22nd century life.
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The Biofilter is an image processing device which analyses the data from the molecular imaging scanner in order to locate any potentially damaging organisms which may have infected the subject. The biofilter is not generally a part of civilian transporter systems, though it is mandatory on all Starfleet transporters.

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[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 03-02-2003).]

You frighten me.

But, that aside, the reference was to 'The Fly'.

=)

LOL!!! Thanks for the correction. The original movie gave me nightmares for weeks and the remake was extremely well done too.