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Personal Aircraft --
Status and Issues
NASA 109174 Dec 1994
notes by Henry Lahore
Feb. 1995.
added 06/02/01
Part
of NASA multi-year $63 million effort “To increase the utility of
general aviation and create a demand among a larger group of people who are now
put off by the complexity and cost of flying”
pg 11
APA = Advanced Personal
Aircraft should have capability for
short distance ground travel
4 passengers 100 to 800 miles
faster and more fuel efficient on medium distance trip than
car-aircraft-car
help alleviate ground transportation congestion
driving on 3-dimensional highways in the sky in non-destination areas
To
become a reality the total cost must be low enough to create a mass market
appeal yet profitable enough to encourage private investor participation.
pg 14
“The
vehicle should be safe to a fault. The term “idiot-proof” may not be strong enough to describe the desired
operational characteristics of the APA (Advanced Personal Aircraft).”
pg 14
There
are currently close to 70 patents
granted for roadable aircraft or flying automobiles. pg 21.
No market yet due to shortfalls in safety, acoustics, ride quality,
piloting requirements, complexity, propulsion requirements, cost and
environmental impact.
Rider
acceptance requires acceptable levels of acoustics, vibration, ride quality,
reliability/safety, and operator requirements.
pg 23
Threshold
issues and technologies for converticars include those for general aviation:
1) Substantial improvements in reliability, maintainability, and
servicing,
2) Substantial reduction in noise and vibration,
3) Improved ride quality,
4) Integrated pictorial instrument and navigation displays.
5) On-board collision avoidance system,
6) Simplified power management
Stratified
charge combustion permits operation with lean mixtures
- thus lowering fuel consumption and emissions. pg 53
Stratified
charge combustion will burn about any mixture of fuel and air
- running equally well on avgas, jet fuel, diesel fuel or autogas. pg 54
Secondary
air injection reduces HC and CO by afterreaction. pg 54
Today
pilots operate aircraft using the practice of “See and Be Seen”.
In reality, this practice is a myth,
with very few airborne aircraft being visible to each other for traffic safety.
“ pg 95
Authors
believe that “communication systems should also have to be as reliable as the
computers” pg 97
Not
so if they are basically autonomous.
People
not as annoyed by vehicle noise if the vehicle is important to all people
(not just a subset of the population) pg
102
Helicopter
noise - Blade-vortex-interaction (BVI) is the loudest during descent.
pg 103
Liability
vulnerability dealt with by:
1) Prohibit the selling of the vehicle in the US
2) Use car manufacturers principal defense
that
cited danger is open and obvious to most consumers
pg 119