The world’s commercial airline fleet vanishes overnight. What do you replace it with?

MT: And once again I’ve been beaten to the punch by the commentators (Tim Pratt is the guilty party this time). Without further adieu:

Sean Williams:
Airships, of course! Actually, this thought isn’t so unreasonable. Quite apart from the safer designs and materials we have today, compared to those of a century ago, there’s a growing concern about vapour trails and global warming that might put the brakes on our love of air travel in the near future. The same goes for sea transport, the environmental impact of which just seems to get worse and worse. Smarter automated systems and better solar power generators might turn this pipedream into a reality, at least for freight. Having spent ten years living under the flightpath of my hometown’s international airport, I thoroughly approve of the idea of blimps in our skies.

Sean Williams is an australian science fiction author who has published sixty published short stories and twenty novels, including the Books of the Change and (with Shane Dix) the bestselling Evergence and Orphans trilogies

Matthew Jaunich:

AN INNOVATIVE AIRCRAFT CONCEPT: AN AIRCRAFT BODY THAT ACCOMMODATES PRIVATE TRANSPORT POD-CARS

If the entire fleet of commercial jet aircraft vanishes overnight, it would represent a huge opportunity to rethink aviation transportation in a broad context. Perhaps an investment in networks of high-speed, zero-emission trains, for example, would be viable. Of course, air travel would continue to be a preferred mode of transportation for overseas travel. However, the basic design of commercial jet aircraft hasn’t changed in 35+ years, and an opportunity would exist to entertain innovative ideas. A common design concept for future aircraft is a highly aerodynamic triangular design, which does nothing to address the basic human-centric inefficiencies of current aircraft travel, including airport transport, parking, check-in lines, security hassles, frequent delays, cattle-like boarding methods, and waiting for luggage.

There are people working on personal transport vehicles capable of driving on roads, and flying (see SUV with retractable wings here (link), but I have an additional, possibly complimentary, vision for the future of aircraft mass-transport. Futurists, for many years, have proposed personal rapid transport: a private, light-weight pod-car hybrid would travel on monorails within cities, and exit an elevated monorail network to travel on roads and freeways to suburban areas, or to other cities. My aircraft vision embraces this future. I would propose building jet aircraft that have the capability of holding hundreds of pod-cars per fuselage or body (think of a Swiss train or a Ferry that accommodates cars), so a person or a family could leisurely board their pod-car at home, travel to an airport, pass through security, and board an aircraft — without ever needing to leave the comfort of their pod-car!

Commercial aviation pioneer Juan Trippe audaciously pushed for larger and larger aircraft, in an effort to reduce the consumer cost of air travel. The future of aviation, however, will likely favor more numerous, smaller aircraft. Air taxis and relatively inexpensive personal business jets, which are currently being developed, will proliferate, in the near future. Perhaps the pod-car aircraft concept would require more aircraft bodies to accommodate the pod-cars, which require more space, for a comparable number of travelers, than current aircraft herd seating. These realities may cause more airport congestion and delays, if we maintain status quo thinking of aircraft physics, which requires a long runway for takeoff and landing. VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) technology for commercial aircraft will likely one day be a feasible reality, and this would alleviate current bottlenecks for takeoff and landing, which will become more of a problem, as aircraft proliferate.

Matthew Jaunich is an entrepreneur and blogger for SHARKRIDE.com

Tim Pratt:Um, small, local, sustainable communities that minimize the need for long-distance travel? Ha, no, but seriously… luxury zeppelins? An extensive network of awesome monorails? Or, if we’re positing a universe where airline fleets can vanish overnight, why not teleportation? I’d travel a lot more if I could teleport. Assuming the weight limits on my luggage weren’t unreasonable.

Tim Pratt is the author of The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl

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