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Practical aircraft for everyday use -concept

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karoliina.t.salminen

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
407
Location
Finland
I have been talking about long range concepts before but there is another category where there is a hole on airplane market, such plane does not exist today (that would be available):

- Practical everyday commuter that is geared towards the fact that airports are closing and also airports are not where the actual destinations are
on daily commute. Ability to operate without airports.

Background: In Finland many Finns own summer cottages next to a lake. It is possible to have a seaplane on the lake. In the Southern Finland
and in many other coast cities, there is also the sea nearby, and in fact my work office is located next to the sea. The closest airport to office is EFHF
and it takes 50 minutes to go from the work to the airport with bus and on heavy traffic, it can take one hour by driving car. There is also parking fee
at the airport and leaving car there is extremely costly. Landing fees and navigation fees and what not are also eating the earned salaries which make
the airport not usable for daily commute unless your job title is very high in the ladder of a big corporation and those guys often don't have the time
to learn flying, to build a plane and so on. And in addition to that the city wants to close the airport down, making the closest airport to be not so close
anymore. Instead of the 50 minutes travel time, the airport can be hence more like 1 hours 30 minute travel away, and the uncontrolled airfield is not usable
in darkness because night flights can be only flown from controlled ones which have runway lights. And that kind of airport anyway is not for getting somewhere,
but getting up into the air.

I personally (like many Finns), have summer house which is not exactly next to the work place, but also not that far away. It takes 1 hours 30 minutes to travel to work
by car. That is by keeping around 85 km/h average speed for the trip. That is quite long time to invest per day twice, but that's what I have been doing
for couple of last years almost every day in the summer time. Still this distance is quite short, especially by airplane terms. Travelling that distance with our
Diamond takes a lot less time and the only problem is that it is not possible to land the thing there. Or it is but the plane can be landed only once and never again ;).
Even in the rainy Finland, there are lot of days where VFR conditions prevail, and it would be safe and convenient to commute this trip by air and not needing thus
any IFR approach procedures which would ruin the commute time as flying the procedure would take the time difference between car and the plane.

Our car is Toyota Prius and that is a reference commute method. 1.5 hours of travel time and around 4 liters fuel spent for the commute to one direction,
making 8 liters of gasoline per day. The fuel cost per day is hence around 12 euros (with 95E10 autogas price).

The requirement specification for the plane would be hence this:
- airplane which would be capable to make STOL takeoffs and landings from/to water.
- airplane which would also be able to land on airport whenever needed
- the airplane should have reasonable range to not require refueling on every trip because fuel is not available on either end but
fueling needs to be arranged by a flight to airport or by filling tanks from canisters anyway. Ideally the fuel would last for 5 days of commute.
(the reference car lasts for the work week approximately between refuelings).
- the airplane must not use more fuel than the Toyota Prius. So the commute should only use 4 liters of 95E10 autogas for the 100 kilometer trip.
This is the fuel consumption for the whole airplane and not a mpg rating per hypothetical passenger. This way it matches the reference car.
This can be achieved by high cruise L/D, which calls for sailplane-like wings.
- The STOL-capability would be achieved by active boundary layer control and slotted fowler flaps.
- Because of the low fuel consumption, the weight of the fuel would be low. Roughly only 60 liter tank would be large enough to fullfil this criteria and it would have
even reserve fuel.
Of course the plane would be more versatile if it had larger tanks, and it could be also used for other purposes than just commuting this typical distances.
- The commute time should minimally be cut to around 1/2 ... 1/3. This would result in required cruise speed of around 200-250 km/h, which is
very similar to the reference airplane: the Diamond DA40.
- The pre-flight check should be as simple as possible and as automated as possible, for not spending time for preflight. It would need to just work to be
car replacement for the commute.
- It should be able to be docked next to sailboats on nearby harbour.

Before someone points out the Rutan SkiGull, indeed this spec is very near to SkiGull and SkiGull would be such practical daily commuter in fact.
However there is only one SkiGull so it is not mine so it is not a possibility.

Just mentioning this spec because I have thought that this could be quite useful for many. Any thoughts?
 
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