Aircraft design is behind the times

There have been several air accidents over the last few months.    Air accidents tend to be newsworthy because when they crash there is usually considerable loss of life.   Near misses also make good news because there is nearly a lot of lives lost.   Either way it’s bad for the air companies, manufacturers and carriers as well as for us, the general public who actually fly in them.

So I was reading Jeremy Clarkson’s column where he discusses air crashes, he had a friend on the recent Air France flight, and in his inimitable way he suggests parachutes for every passenger.    He admits they would be practically no use but the intent would be to keep passengers busy on the flight down.   Commenter’s pointed out some of the issues with parachutes.  One commenter said that the plane should have one big parachute that deployed and lowered the plane in an accident.

That brought back a memory of a time when I used to design my own aircraft.   Well, OK.  Model aircraft only.    Anyway, why do aircraft still come in the cigar tube style with all the passengers in rows?    Why can’t aircraft be set up as little pods with maybe 15 to 25 passengers in which allowed the pods to be ejected from the airframe and deploy parachutes in an emergency.

That brings back memories of  Gerry Anderson doesn’t it.    On those shows planes etc always looked cool, had some add ons that made them do different things like VTOL, however they always exploded on contact unless they landed exactly right.   This was compensated by ejector seats or something that saved the day. (Except at the start of the show where everyone melted.    Well they were puppets)

Anyway, why don’t we have new aircraft designes that are more modular?   I would envisage that they would be safer in many ways, for one explosive decompression would be limited to one pod.   That means a impact or explosion wouldn’t compromise the whole aircraft.   In the event of a mid air collision or a crash scenario the pods could be ejected and allowed to parachute down.  They would even float with some aids.   Those that were compromised by ground impact or in flight may have to be abandoned but could still be used as float aids or shelter whilst the beacons output their locations.

I could even envisage a time when the planes landed, the pods deployed and drove the passengers to the terminal or the hotel several miles away whilst different pods already loaded with passengers, fuel and baggage were attached to the airframe and got ready to take off.

Makes you wonder why aircraft designers stick to the boring old metal tube design while aircraft get bigger and bigger.  It seems so, well, archaic.    Cars have changed, bikes have changed, trains have changed even space ships have changed.  Even the Sci-Fi spaceships have changed.

So, why are aircraft still single bodies?  Even in SciFi films the only changes are usually the removal of wings because of anti gravity drives.

All you aircraft manufacturers out there.  I still have my original crayon drawings if you are interested.