10 hours in a plane! 6 hours too long!

The last time I was flying from London to LA, I couldn't help but
think, having been in that darn plane for 10 hours already, with the
guy sitting next to me almost in my face while he tries to sleep
sideways in the business class seat, that humanity has to do something
about the mode of transportation over long distances. I feel we are
way far behind in air travel, it is just too painful.

Like the internet has changed our ways of life, I wonder when we will
experience radical change in air travel where one can go from LA to
London in 4 hours! or LA to Istanbul in 6 hours! Is this going to
happen in our life time, you think? I am 33!

FirstVoyager

First Voyager wrote:


Like the internet has changed our ways of life, I wonder when we will
experience radical change in air travel where one can go from LA to
London in 4 hours! or LA to Istanbul in 6 hours! Is this going to
happen in our life time, you think? I am 33!


Yes

First Voyager writes:

The last time I was flying from London to LA, I couldn't help but
think, having been in that darn plane for 10 hours already, with the
guy sitting next to me almost in my face while he tries to sleep
sideways in the business class seat, that humanity has to do something
about the mode of transportation over long distances. I feel we are
way far behind in air travel, it is just too painful.

Like the internet has changed our ways of life, I wonder when we will
experience radical change in air travel where one can go from LA to
London in 4 hours! or LA to Istanbul in 6 hours! Is this going to
happen in our life time, you think? I am 33!

Air travel used to be considerably faster and far simpler. The need for fuel
economy and traffic regulation has forced aircraft to fly more slowly and over
less direct routes, and extreme paranoia over security has made it impossible
to simply walk onto an aircraft in the way one did thirty or forty years ago.

Indeed, one of the fastest aircraft around is also one of the oldest: the
Boeing 747. It was designed before oil crises and flies faster than just
about any other aircraft currently made. The aircraft designed after the 747
were designed for greater fuel economy, and they achieve that in part by
flying more slowly. Notice that the 747 is more streamlined than its alleged
future competitor, the A380; it's also faster.

The current trend seems to be towards increasing economy to lower costs,
rather than improving speed. And the hassles of "security" are not likely to
disappear for the foreseeable future.

I like flying, but I hate commercial air travel. If one could just hop onto
the plane, fly to one's destination at high speed, and hop off, that would be
great, but I think those days are gone, perhaps permanently.

The improvements over time have been an enormous decrease in ticket prices
over the history of commercial aviation, and also a somewhat more casual
attitude towards air travel. In the old days, people used to dress up in
their Sunday best just to get on a plane, which seems odd in the extreme to
me.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

First Voyager,

In 1854, my 18-year old great-great-great-great grandfather, Gustav
Gottfried Theodor Wagner, traveled from Hamburg to New York City on
the sailing ship St Charles, a speedy voyage of thirteen weeks. He and
his 59 y/o mother were given a little over 8 ounces of muddy water to
drink each day, and food that makes me gag to read about. It took all
their savings to pay for the voyage.

Think about that next time you're feeling stuffy after a few hours on
a long flight!

-ted
Longest flight in a glider -- 9 hours, 10 minutes, spam in a can.

On 21 Feb 2007 20:31:05 -0800, "Tuno" wrote:

First Voyager,

In 1854, my 18-year old great-great-great-great grandfather, Gustav
Gottfried Theodor Wagner, traveled from Hamburg to New York City on
the sailing ship St Charles, a speedy voyage of thirteen weeks. He and
his 59 y/o mother were given a little over 8 ounces of muddy water to
drink each day, and food that makes me gag to read about. It took all
their savings to pay for the voyage.

Think about that next time you're feeling stuffy after a few hours on
a long flight!

-ted
Longest flight in a glider -- 9 hours, 10 minutes, spam in a can.

Way back in 18 and 54
I left The Ukraine out the back door
They kept on sniffing me out their way
And I got away on the Tennessee bay....

First Voyager schrieb:
The last time I was flying from London to LA, I couldn't help but
think, having been in that darn plane for 10 hours already, with the
guy sitting next to me almost in my face while he tries to sleep
sideways in the business class seat, that humanity has to do something
about the mode of transportation over long distances. I feel we are
way far behind in air travel, it is just too painful.

One might try sleeping bunks like in sleeping cars for very long
distances. Won't be cheap. Beds exist (one one level) on government and
top executive jets.

Regards, ULF

First Voyager schrieb:

The last time I was flying from London to LA, I couldn't help but
think, having been in that darn plane for 10 hours already, with the
guy sitting next to me almost in my face while he tries to sleep
sideways in the business class seat, that humanity has to do something
about the mode of transportation over long distances. I feel we are
way far behind in air travel, it is just too painful.

One might try sleeping bunks like in sleeping cars for very long
distances. Won't be cheap. Beds exist (one one level) on government and
top executive jets and for pilots on very long range jets, IIRC.

Regards, ULF

Tuno writes:

In 1854, my 18-year old great-great-great-great grandfather, Gustav
Gottfried Theodor Wagner, traveled from Hamburg to New York City on
the sailing ship St Charles, a speedy voyage of thirteen weeks. He and
his 59 y/o mother were given a little over 8 ounces of muddy water to
drink each day, and food that makes me gag to read about. It took all
their savings to pay for the voyage.

Think about that next time you're feeling stuffy after a few hours on
a long flight!

Just because things were bad in the past doesn't mean that we must accept what
we have now.

If you don't go quite so far back, air travel used to be better, in the sense
that you got where you were going faster, and the conditions were better, and
the hassle was less.

For me, the hassle (meaning mainly security and to a lesser extent delays) is
the biggest problem, and in fact I don't travel at all by air today if I can
avoid it, even though I like airplanes.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

I don't know where you and FirstVoyager do most of your flying, but
the substantial commercial travel I've done in the last ten years
(including visits to 15 countries all around the globe) has on the
whole been better than the ten before that, even accounting for the
increased "hassle" of security, which itself has improved quite a bit
in the last year as airports ramp up their TSA stations (the lines are
practically gone now at LAX T1).

Another major difference I've observed over the last 20 years is
simply the number of people flying. It's increased substantially, in
large part because it's so much more affordable than it was before
deregulation.

Mxsmanic wrote:

I like flying, but I hate commercial air travel. If one could just hop onto
the plane, fly to one's destination at high speed, and hop off, that would be
great, but I think those days are gone, perhaps permanently.


Those days are not necessarily gone forever. In my town you CAN just
drive to the airport and hop on the plane. They are commuter jets,
and go where they go to as fast as any plane that ever flew out regularly
from here. Whether they will land and get to the other end fast is
the question you raise. Getting onto the plane fast and into the air fast
need not be a problem, as it isn't here. All one needs is adequate
infrastructure, which we have. Other places can have it too if they wish to.

There is no need for security lines, just as there is no need for
lines at supermarket checkout. Just have enough scanner machines and
people to man them and it will go fast. Ditto for immigration
for international flights, etc.

Backed up planes on taxiways are the hard bottleneck to fix, but even that
could be fixed with improved technology.

Doug McDonald