The next big thing coming soon to an airliner near you: Propellers!

[krispos42]

And not puddle-jumpers, either. Jets the size of a 737 or A320

Fewer trips for the fuel truck
Developments debuted at the Paris Air Show put airliners on a track toward flying more passengers while using less fuel.

Robert Rowe
Contributing Editor

"It really was way ahead of its time."

We're talking about the Piaggio Aero Industries P180, a perennial regular at the Paris Air Show. The Avanti is an ‘efficiency machine' conceived out of the oil crisis of the late ‘70s and hatched by the late ‘80s. Despite wise-cracks about its looks when it first appeared (like, "Is it flying back wards?"), events at this past summer's Paris Show foretell its re-emergence as in-vogue platform because of its high performance and fuel economy. It has props but cruises at 41,000 ft, runs 460 mph, and on a typical 345-mile flight arrives within five minutes of a jet. But that jet will burn 50% more fuel!



<snip>

It's not like aviation has stood still in operational efficiency or in reducing noise and pollution. Consider the often-cited productivity factor, passenger miles/gallon (pmpg), a measurement that accounts for the economics of the engine and airframe as a system. This is the fuel economy of a transport airplane averaged over its passenger capacity. The Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787, both now close to entering service, are expected to get over 80 pmpg. This is a whopping 3X improvement over early jets (i.e. 707-120). The air transportation fleet overall average today is about 47 pmpg. Modern 70-seat twin-engine short-haul turboprops get about 52 pmpg.

<more>

http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/70215/Fewertripsforthefueltruck.aspx

And this is about the easyJet ecoJet:

The “easyJet ecoJet”: to cut CO2 emissions by 50% by 2015
easyJet has today become the first airline to outline the environmental requirements that must be met by the next generation of short-haul super-clean aircraft; and unveiled its design of what such an aircraft could look like for operation by 2015.

Dubbed the “easyJet ecoJet”, the aircraft would need to be 25% quieter and would emit 50% less CO2 and 75% less NOx than today’s newest aircraft (the 737 and A320 families of aircraft).

<snip>

In easyJet’s current configuration and operation, the projection for the eco-liner would generate less than 47g of CO2 per passenger km. For comparison, easyJet’s current operations generate 97.5g of CO2 per passenger km, the Toyota Prius emits 104g of CO2 per kilometre; and the European car industry has recently been given a target to achieve 130g of CO2 per kilometre.

<more>



http://www.easyjet.com/EN/News/easyjet_ecojet.html

[midnight]

1. Uses 50% less fuel than a jet, but arrives only five minutes

slower in arrival time compared to the jet. Very cool.

[Warpy]

2. I look forward to that

because there has to be a better way than wasting that much fuel on conventional jet engines that ram the plane through the air.

Now if only we can get DHS to adopt common sense air security instead of harassing passengers solely to cause as much inconvenience as possible in a vain attempt to convince them they're safe when they're still not.

[MADem]

3. Piaggio

That's some distance from these Piaggio beauties!!!!!

They're fuel efficient, too!

[Javaman]

4. I want a P-51! LOL nt