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| A new 2015 patent from Airbus 'drop and ship out' preloaded cabin. No, seriously... |
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| Thunderbirds are go...Thunderbirds 2 the 1960's inspiration for a 2015 patent application? Neater too! |
What’s the worst part about flying? The waiting, in reality you may spend more time getting to the airport and then onto the plane than actually flying.
No one likes delay and that includes the boffins at Airbus who spend their time dreaming up new ideas and filing patents, eventually the US Patents office gets around to stamping them. But this time a 1960's 'supermarionation' childrens TV series THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! must be given some credit for the latest wacky Airbus idea.
Every second a plane is stationary it is lost revenue time, not making money. The boffins at Airbus says cutting an airplanes' at the airport, on the ground “turnaround” by just 10 minutes improves utilization level 8.1 percent. Not a lot, you say, but scale it right up to many thousands of flights worldwide daily, then its an eye watering amount of money .
Or put another way, in an industry that typically earns a profit of just £10 per passenger; Airlines need you to be seated and strapped in ASAP. Or in terms of airfreight, loading and unloading of air pallets is also time consuming.
Time is money... so did the Airbus boffins catch the Thunderbirds TV series? Probably best remembered for the runaway best selling Christmas toy ever Tracey Island, which rapidly became out of stock, and BBC TV Blue Peters' helpful suggestion that making one in time for Christmas with sticky back plastic was easy ( it wasn't although a young Konnie Huq would have you believe otherwise).
So decades later Airbus looking at the whole the boarding and loading process 'acquired' the bright idea of turning the cigar tube aircraft cabin into what amounts being handled like a shipping container. You've heard of zoo class, enter cattle class...
Airbus, manufacture the A380 and very popular A320,
but this latest patent idea—filed in February 2013 but only approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month, shifts the focus from seats to the cabin itself.
Airbus proposes “a removable cabin module, comprising a floor, an upper aircraft fuselage portion connected to the floor, and a first and a second end wall, wherein the first and second end walls, the floor and the upper aircraft fuselage portion form a cabin for transport of passengers, luggage, freight or combinations thereof.”
In other words, it’s Gerry Andersons THUNDERBIRD 2, instead of cargo pods, Airbus suggest detachable cabin pods allows passengers to board inside the terminal then is lowered into the aircraft frame while its at the gate.
In the make believe Thunderbirds world, the aircraft just lowers itself onto the pod, to my mind, a much better idea! Totally self contained, even.
At your destination the process is reversed the still loaded Airbus cabin pod is removed, and another pre-loaded immediately takes its place, and the plane is set for take off... The time spent on the ground is thus drastically reduced.
Airbus has called this the “aircraft pod concept,” saying “passengers could be pre-seated in cabin pods before the plane actually arrives, ready for integration on the aircraft, saving time and making processing much simpler.”
The “Method for boarding and unloading of passengers of an aircraft with reduced immobilization time of the aircraft, aircraft and air terminal for its implementation” might not be coming to an airport near you any time soon, but there again Thunderbirds 4 had the removable pod idea licked way back in 1965. Thunderbirds 4 was the yellow runabout jet which fitted into Thunderbirds 2 Number 4 pod...do keep up.
As Pilot Virgil would say F.A.B! or Forget Air Bus, we thought of it first...
Now that Tracey island... just need a few yoghurt pots, bit of chicken wire...sticky back plastic......string..
JULIAN BRAY +44(0)1733 345581, Aviation Expert, Journalist, Broadcaster, Aviation Security & Airline Operations Expert, Travel / Maritime & Cruise Industry, NUJ, EQUITY, LIVE ISDN LINK, Broadcast ISDN COOBE ++44 (0)1733 345020 (ALL CODECS) e&oe Old faithful NOKIA: 07944 217476 iPhone 0743 530 3145 www.aviationcomment.com Contrib. Account #104764 53 FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BraysDuckhouseBlog
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