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Flying cars may be 25 years or more away。Next generation
small aircraft may look like this Farnborough F1
concept。 | |
As motorways become more
and more clogged up with traffic, a new generation of flying cars will be
needed to ferry people along skyways.
That is the verdict of
engineers from the US space agency and aeronautical firms, who envision
future commuters travelling by "skycar".
These could look much like the concept skycar shown in the picture,
designed by Boeing research and development.
However, such vehicles could be some 25 years from appearing on the
market.
Efforts to build flying vehicles in the past have not been very
successful.
Such vehicles would not only be expensive and require the skills of a
trained pilot to fly, but there are significant engineering challenges
involved in developing them.
"When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very
heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that's hard to use," said Mark Moore, head
of the personal air vehicle (PAV) division of the vehicle systems program
at Nasa's Langley Research Center in Hampton, US.
But Boeing is also considering how to police the airways - and prevent
total pandemonium - if
thousands of flying cars enter the skies.
"The neat, gee-whiz part is thinking about what would the vehicle
itself look like," said Dick Paul, a vice president with Phantom Works,
Boeing's research and development arm.
"But we're trying to think through all the ramifications of what would it take
to deploy a fleet of these."
Past proposals to solve this problem have included artificial
intelligence systems to prevent collisions between air traffic.
Nasa is working on flying vehicles with the initial goal of
transforming small plane travel.
Small planes are generally costly, loud, require months of training and
lots of money to operate, making flying to work impractical for most
people.
But within five years, Nasa researchers hope to develop technology for
a small plane that can fly out of regional airports, costs less than
$100,000 (￡55,725), is as quiet as a motorcycle and as simple to operate
as a car.
Although it would not have any road-driving capabilities, it would
bring this form of travel within the grasp of a wider section of people.
Technology would automate many of the pilot's functions.
This Small Aircraft Transportation System (Sats) would divert pressure
away from the "hub-and-spoke" model of air travel.
Hub-and-spoke refers to the typically US model of passengers being
processed through large "hub" airports and then on to secondary flights to
"spoke" airports near their final
destination.
(Agencies) |
由于高速公路上的交通堵塞情況越來越嚴重，一種能夠載人穿梭在“空中高速路”上的新一代“飛車”將成為需要。
這就是美國國家航空航天局和一些航空公司的工程師們的意見，他們預(yù)測未來人類將會乘坐“飛車”旅行。
這些車可能會和圖片中見到的波音公司研發(fā)中心設(shè)計的概念飛車很相像。
然而，這樣的交通工具可能需要25年左右的時間才能投放市場。
人類在過去制造飛車的努力一直都不是很成功。
這樣的交通工具汽車耗資不菲，而且要求駕駛者具備像訓(xùn)練有素的飛行員一樣的駕駛技巧；不僅如此，在研制過程中還面臨工程學(xué)方面的嚴峻挑戰(zhàn)。
馬克·摩爾是美國國家航空航天局蘭利研究中心（位于漢普頓）汽車系統(tǒng)項目組“個人空中交通工具（PAV）”小組的負責(zé)人，他說：“當你試圖將各個方面組合起來時，得到的是一輛最糟糕的車：非常笨重，速度又慢，價格還高，總之駕駛起來很不方便。”
但波音公司同時也在考慮，在上千輛“飛車”進入空中的情況下如何對空中通道進行管理，防止交通陷入徹底的混亂。
波音公司研發(fā)部門“幻影工程隊”的副總裁迪克·保羅說：“最關(guān)鍵和最精彩的是設(shè)計出這種交通工具本身，但是我們也在全力考慮當這樣一支車隊投入運行后可能出現(xiàn)的所有情況。”
關(guān)于如何解決這個問題，以往就有一些建議，包括使用人工智能系統(tǒng)來防止空中交通工具之間發(fā)生碰撞。
美國國家航空航天局正致力于飛行交通工具的開發(fā)，其初步目標是對小型飛機的旅行方式進行改革。
小型飛機通常都很昂貴，噪音也大，駕駛這種飛機還需要數(shù)月的訓(xùn)練和不少資金，這一切都使得“飛去上班”成為大多數(shù)人不切實際的幻想。
不過，美國國家航空航天局的研究人員希望在今后的五年內(nèi)能夠開發(fā)出一種技術(shù)，使小型飛機不受地區(qū)機場的限制，花費不到10萬美元，而且噪音與汽車相當，操縱起來也和開汽車一樣簡單。
盡管這種交通工具將不具備在馬路上行駛的功能，但它能使更多的人可以享受這種新的旅行方式。（這種新的）技術(shù)將使許多飛行員的操作步驟實現(xiàn)自動化。
這種“小型飛機運輸系統(tǒng)（Sats）”將可以為中心輻射型（Hub-and-spoke）的空中旅行模式分擔(dān)壓力。
中心輻射（Hub-and-spoke）表示一種典型的美國空中客運模式：乘客在大型的中心機場（hub）之間被運送，然后再轉(zhuǎn)機前往靠近目的地的支線機場。
（中國日報網(wǎng)站譯） |
Updated: 2004-10-08 08:53