Originally published at: Texas Start-Up Looks To Revolutionize Air Freight
Aerolane demonstrated its “sky-train” technology, which uses traditional aircraft to tow autonomous cargo gliders
Towing a glider will reduce the capacity of the carrier aircraft. And transport category airplanes make awful gliders. There is no way this is more efficient.
How’d that massive glider force work out for you on D-Day? >50% crashed or misdirected? Of course somewhat fewer people will be shooting at you in Texas… somewhat fewer. Unless they think you’re carrying illegals.
This is possible, and many larger aircraft do have impressive L/D ratios, but there’s no way this would work in practice. Imagine the first time a glider had to be released to save the crew in the tow aircraft after an engine failure or similar, and that glider ends up on I-35 at 5 PM on a Friday. I can’t imagine it would be that much more efficient either in that you wouldn’t get the increased aerodynamic efficiency seen when “tailgating” 18-wheelers on the freeway. Of course the close following distance truck idea has been floated for decades and has never actually been put into practice. I’ll file this under “looks good on paper”…
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