New high capacity airplanes

Oscar Vinnals designed the "Sky whale" to be a new class of aircraft larger than the A380.

While it does not have VTOL, it's tilted wings would allow it to land at all airports with a reasonable size runway.

Quote: Pacomartin

Oscar Vinnals designed the "Sky whale" to be a new class of aircraft larger than the A380.

In the military they often use the term "paper airplane" for planes in the design stage. I think for civilian designs we should use the term "pie in the sky."

If you look at aircraft in the jet age, the military has adopted unconventional designs from time to time, and experimented with many more (the A-10, all the stealth planes, the Osprey, the F-111 and F-14 with variable geometry wings, etc.) While in the civilian realm we've been stuck with the swept-wing cylinder without much variation (Concorde, yes. Anyone else?)

The odds, then, of an unconventional design making it past the design stage are between zero and negative 1 :)

Besides, given the dearth of orders for the A380, a manufacturer would have to be suicidal to invest in a Very large Plane, unless something radical changes. By radical I mean something like a major hub outlawing planes with under 350 passengers.

Quote: Nareed

By radical I mean something like a major hub outlawing planes with under 350 passengers.

Size limitations are strictly forbidden by the FAA. An airport most always accept any plane willing to land and pay the fees. Even private planes can land at LAX if they have enough money.

San Diego is the USA's busiest single runway airport. You would think they would require at least 137 seats in a plane (minimum size Southwest configuration | Southwest carries 40% of the passengers into SAN).

Quote: Pacomartin

Size limitations are strictly forbidden by the FAA. An airport most always accept any plane willing to land and pay the fees. Even private planes can land at LAX if they have enough money.

So put in a very high fee that goes down as the plane gets larger.

I suppose there are barriers to that as well.

A rise in demand could make for bigger planes as well, but I don't see demand rising so far and so fast.

The only other way to give the VLA market a big boost, would be for Boeing and Airbus both to stop making smaller wide bodies like the 777, 787, A340, A350, A330. And the chances of that are so low as to make the chance of winning the lottery high by comparison.

Quote: Nareed

So put in a very high fee that goes down as the plane gets larger.
I suppose there are barriers to that as well.

Part of the issue is that with large hubs like LAX, there is a lot of small regional aircraft that serve that airport from all the nearby airports less than 300 miles away. At the same time LAX probably has the largest percentage of widebody passengers.

San Diego Airport with it's single runway still has a lot of smaller planes, but the Airport authority is reluctant to price them out of existence. The "air taxi" operations average about 35 per day, most of which are shuttles for the 125 miles from San Diego to LAX. But private planes average about 26 per day. Military is probably the local coast guard which is across the street from the airport.

2016 total at San Diego Airport
173,853 carrier operations
12,706 "air taxi" operations
9,676 private plane operations
897 military plane operations

With 20,725,801 passengers in 2016, the average is only 105 passengers per operation (ppo). The ppo in the USA was actually higher in the 1960's before widebodies were manufactured, simply because the regional jets didn't exist either.

Quote: Pacomartin

Part of the issue is that with large hubs like LAX, there is a lot of small regional aircraft that serve that airport from all the nearby airports less than 300 miles away. At the same time LAX probably has the largest percentage of widebody passengers.

San Diego Airport with it's single runway still has a lot of smaller planes, but the Airport authority is reluctant to price them out of existence. The "air taxi" operations average about 35 per day, most of which are shuttles for the 125 miles from San Diego to LAX.

I know LA can't take a spare airport, send all regionals there and provide complimentary high-speed rail to LAX. On the other hand, the "air taxi" ops in San Diego don't quite justify a high speed train between Lindbergh and LAX.

So just wait until demand grows enough that a plane with under 120 seats simply fails to make sense on 90% of al routes.

Problem solved ;)

San Diego airport had a record breaking 20 million air passengers last year which means 105 passengers per movement. While I cannot give a precise passenger load per movement of the air carriers (i.e. leaving out small regional air taxis, private planes and military aircraft), I know it is less than 120 passengers.


London's Gatwick airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world. Last year it carried 43.1368 million air passengers using 280,089 aircraft movements or an average of 154 passengers per movement.

Quote: Nareed

Problem solved ;)

It sounds so easy, but instead proposals were developed to build an airport in the desert and a high speed train at a cost that would rival or exceed Mexico City's new airport. San Diego county only has 3 million people. The final proposal was to simply try to get the Navy to share Miramar air base (of Top Gun fame), and to relocate some interstate highways. Voters rejected the proposal feeling, largely because the military testified that the city had no authority over military bases.

Los Angeles always said they were going to build a high speed rail to Ontario airport 45 miles from LAX. But that idea completely collapsed and LA was forced to return Ontario airport to the city of Ontario under charges that they were running it into the ground.

Quote: Pacomartin

London's Gatwick airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world. Last year it carried 43.1368 million air passengers using 280,089 aircraft movements or an average of 154 passengers per movement.

I don't' get it why Gatwick didn't get the fabled extra runway the city authorized recently. it went to Heathrow.

Quote:

It sounds so easy,

Like all easy solutions, it's obvious and wrong :)

For one thing, some markets will always be small. For another, you just move the problem from regional jets to middle-of-the-market jets. And these can have tons of frequencies and take up slots, too.

The ideal solution, practical but hard to impossible to accomplish, would be to have a narrow body airport and a wide body airport, separated by a short enough distance, and with fast, cheap transportation between them. And I think this is too simplistic to be practical.

Quote: Nareed

So put in a very high fee that goes down as the plane gets larger.
I suppose there are barriers to that as well.

You bet there are, and rightfully so. A 23 foot sailboat has as much right to transit the Panama Canal as a multi-million dollar behemoth does. And does not have to pay some gigantic minimum fee to do it.

Even in Japan a private plane can land at any airport ... its only Tokyo's airport that imposes a whopping fine if you do not have a pre-approved parking space for your tiny little private plane.

Military needs often drive innovation.
The military initiated the "cockpit and trailer" concept so they could pre-position weaponry and materiel and then just pop in the rest of the fuselage and fly the plane.
It may soon be that airlines will realize just how good an idea that was. Instant configuration choices. A luxury module and a sardines model... just snap in whichever you need for a particular set of flights on the same wings and engines.

South Korea will be building a "slightly subsonic" train... with speeds like that airports are "closer" than before, no matter where they are located. It is a combination of MagLev AND a near-vacuum tube like low air pressure resistance similar to Hyperloop. Three year funding committment to major university and manufacturers.

Of course if San Diego has a single runway... perhaps they will be more willing to build a single track also? I wonder if 'branches' could be used to create the various vacuum areas ahead of the "bullet" train.