We sponsored a student for a Masters by Research at Cranfield University last year, to do some work on using AI for improving content match for advertisers. I keep an eye open for what Cranfield gets involved in and ended up taking part in a competition on their recent Open Day showing how they contribute to energy saving technologies. I came second, throwing a paper plane that I’d designed based on thinking about arrows, and after throwing a tightly bundled piece of paper to see just how far something dense with low air friction would go. When it came to the competitive part, throwing the tie-breaker launch into a side wall didn’t do much for the distance :)
Quite interesting to see their designs for a lower energy long haul passenger aircraft. Flies at 90% the speed of current long haul planes, uses composites to reduce weight and they are reworking engine mounting systems to provide the best compromise between noise reduction, drag, and safety. I don’t mind taking an hour longer to reach LAX - going from a 10 to 11 hour flight to a 11 to 12 hour flight isn’t that big a deal. Besides, the last time I flew there, it took over three hours from starting the checkin queue to boarding, and three hours from disembarking to get past immigration, so if there were serious concerns about delays, there’s a lot of other parts of the journey where time could be shaved!
I was a little concerned about composites - having read some New Scientist articles over the years about delaminating composites and the difficulty of detecting delamination. One of the lecturers told me about new techniques that prevent or slow the spread of delamination, basically little pegs that cross the layers.
