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Geese-Inspired Towed Cargo Gliders
The Aerocart: Saves fuel, no engine nor pilot required
If you need to carry more cargo than your car can hold, you can use a trailer. This is more economical and logistically simpler than, say, adding a second vehicle and driver.
Fascinatingly, this concept may soon be applied to cargo planes, thanks to a Texas-based startup called Aerolane. They were inspired not by U-Haul, but by geese, who fly in formation to save energy. (Stronger birds in the front deal with the bulk of the wind resistance, while the ones behind benefit from the windbreak.) They also point to the usage of towed gliders by the Allies in WWII.
Thus Aerolane is working on the Aerocart, an autonomous cargo glider that would be towed behind a cargo airplane. The Aerocart needs no pilot nor engine, and Aerolane's technology would allow the glider to both take off and land in-tow.
The company also says it's possible to tow more than one Aerocart.
The benefits would be enormous. "When towing Aerocarts, standard planes instantly double or triple their capacity when flying a mission," the company says. "This is possible because planes are capacity-limited by the takeoff / landing weight – not what they can safely pull through the air."
"Aerocarts dramatically upsize capacity but marginally increase fuel burn on the tow plane. Moving cargo by Aerocart uses 65% less overall operating costs per pound driven primarily by a massive reduction in fuel used when compared with flying that cargo on additional standard planes."
The concept is likely to be popular with air freight companies; the incumbent way to increase capacity is to add another plane, and another pilot. The Aerocart would be a simple and less expensive add-on. "Towed cargo gliders are conceptually capable of flying behind any plane. Aerocart takes advantage of this to be a true 'drop-in' upgrade capable of instantly increasing the capacity of existing fleets of aircrafts."
Also, Aerolane says that 65% cost savings could make air freight cost-competitive with ground freight. If that's true, we'd receive packages a heckuva lot faster.
The company is currently developing "a number of Aerocart sizes to accommodate towing behind a wide range of aircraft, pending FAA certification." They expect to start rolling them out in 2025.
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If gliders like this really were a great way to haul things, then the military probably wouldn't have abandoned them after WWII.
Gliders at that point in time were more about how fast can we get planes that can carry soldiers built cheaply and essentially disposable rather than low speed cargo capacity. Also, helicopters were developed shortly after that made the role of gliders quickly obsolete.
I gotta say, the *idea* of a "sky train" of an engine aircraft and its following gliders sounds almost romantic in its appeal. But there's probably a lot of good reasons this hasn't been done before.
Wait, why does the towed unit need to be a plane? Why not just an oversized parafoil attached to a streamlined cargo container with landing wheels?
Hard to see this getting off the ground. The safety hurdles alone seem immense...
It is routine for small planes to lift piloted recreational gliders into the air. However, the two aircraft land separately, as the glider is released once aloft.