Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Technology transfer

Did you know that our seemingly frivolous avocation has spun off some fantastic commercial applications?

First, there was the Gravity Plane, a concept so obvious, I'm surprised it took this long to make it to the almost-practical stage. The video tells the whole story.

Now, we have the Air Trailer, a brilliant application of one of the most straightforward and easy phases of flight, the aerotow. Their website needs work, but the video is just as convincing as the one on the Gravity Plane.

Both projects probably need investors. I hope I'm not too late.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd go for it but all my money is in the Moller Sky Car. There will be one in every garage...

Anonymous said...

I thought all gyrocopters were disposable.

JS said...

So, we have a perpetual motion (er, flying) machine, and a glider trailer.

Nothing like a rocket-blimp, I say. And, one pitch up of the latter on takeoff will be the end of their liability insurance coverage.

What WILL they think of next?!?!?

Rick said...

A rocket-blimp! Good idea. I bet we could find one of them on the web if we looked.

Moshe said...

Sounds like a perpetual motion device to me.

Moshe said...

Meanwhile, I vaguely remember reading in recent years about an actually built (or perhaps also only an idea?) "gravity submarine" doing the same thing this aircraft is supposed to do, but underwater.

S2 said...

Could we use a gravity plane to tow an air trailer full of fuel to Post Mills? That would be useful.

Anonymous said...

If you combine the Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery system to the Air Trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5GJ4cu311o

And put some seats in the trailer. The airlines could provided a door-to-door pickup/drop off service.

Anonymous said...

Moshe:

Here is a gravity powered submarine:

http://spray.ucsd.edu/pub/rel/info/spray_description.php

It has a max glide ratio of about 3:1 at 0.5 kts (going up or down).

It would be interesting to see if it could work as an underwater sailplane by finding upwelling or downwelling currents. Of course if the glide ratio was better than 3:1 (its more of an underwater hang glider) it would work a lot better.

Tim

Anonymous said...

Moshe:

Here's one that any glider pilot can tell works better:

http://www.onr.navy.mil/~/media/Files/Fact%20Sheets/advanced_underwater_glider.ashx

Tim

Rick said...

Cool. I wonder why it isn't symmetrical. It seems that upgliding and downgliding should be treated the same.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it does a roll and flips "upside-down" when upgliding.

Tim

Unknown said...

sounds like something Brian Borland would build

Rick said...

Just don't tell him about this:
http://tinyurl.com/yhc2ba9

Anonymous said...

Here are 2 more up and coming technologies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV0qBU_u3tQ&feature=player_embedded

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Mw9RBOK_w&feature=related

Tim

Anonymous said...

Those seem real.

Anonymous said...

It's long past time that NASA was disbanded.

Rick said...

The Air Trailer people took down their video. Too bad. It was quite convincing.