We've been travelling to the Continent by train for a few years now. There are a lot of sleeper services that make longer journeys even easier (I did Paris to Hamburg last month overnight and we did Paris to Collioure last year – and will be doing so again – that way).

It's a lot easier than, I suspect, people realise.

Rock God X wrote:A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. ... Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is http://www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Screenshot of planes over N. America

Rock God X wrote:A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. ... Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is http://www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Screenshot of planes over N. America

I definitely would. With planes there is far less going on to worry about. If they can perfect driverless cars, with pedestrians, cars, bikes, motorbikes, different road conditions, different temperatures etc, I can see flight being an absolute doddle. In terms of the programming involved, it seems relatively simple, flying between waypoints and lining up for landing is probably something a computer could do better than a human anyway.

The only problem I guess would be the computer crashing. I can imagine the blue screen of death coming up on the inflight TVs would send the cargo into panic.

Flights for me would be better if they were fully automated. You get into a bed, get put to sleep with soothing gas, get sardined into the cargo hold (more capacity, no need for in flight expenses and cabin crew), plane flies you to the destination, and you wake up once it's hit terrafirma.

I would certainly trust auto-piloted planes over computer controlled cars and most definitely over teleportation, which is surely man's last remaining big invention.

Famous last words "WTF was that bang?"

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is http://www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Yep, love that site too, whenever the daughters are flying anywhere this saddo dad is tracking their every minute, the only problem is that occasionally the details disappear for a few minutes - when your flight has literally dropped off the radar or you right click it and it says "no data" then it does bring a gasp. Last year I was following the eldest's flight home from Ibiza when one of our customers Egpyt Air rang on a support issue and as it was a long call I left the flight tracker open on the laptop, while we were waiting for one of their PC's to reboot the daughters flight was crossing over the channel and I got to clicking a few of the ones approaching Heathrow and found an Egypt Air flight so I told this dispatcher guy on the phone that his flight number "xxxx" was about ten minutes out - he asked me how the hell I had that sort of information to hand and so I told him - he had no idea that all of their flight information was available live on the internet to plebs like me

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:Only if people stop needing or wanting to go anywhere. In fact, the number of planes in the air at any given time is truly astonishing, and it would be impossible to replace those journeys with anything else. One of my absolute favourite sites is http://www.flightradar24.com/ where you can see, live, pretty much every commercial plane in the air, click on one, get full ID, and even click "cockpit" to get a software view from the pilots' cabin. You can scroll out and in, and drag to anywhere in the world. One fun thing (well, for saddos like me) is on a clearish day, have a look at what plane is heading to fly over Bradford, and then point it out to people like "Oh, that's a Boeing 747 from London to San Francisco". If you are reading this live, watch it now come in from the south and disappear north. Try it, and tell me whether there's any chance all that commerce is going to end any time soon. It couldn't. Yep, love that site too, whenever the daughters are flying anywhere this saddo dad is tracking their every minute, the only problem is that occasionally the details disappear for a few minutes - when your flight has literally dropped off the radar or you right click it and it says "no data" then it does bring a gasp. Last year I was following the eldest's flight home from Ibiza when one of our customers Egpyt Air rang on a support issue and as it was a long call I left the flight tracker open on the laptop, while we were waiting for one of their PC's to reboot the daughters flight was crossing over the channel and I got to clicking a few of the ones approaching Heathrow and found an Egypt Air flight so I told this dispatcher guy on the phone that his flight number "xxxx" was about ten minutes out - he asked me how the hell I had that sort of information to hand and so I told him - he had no idea that all of their flight information was available live on the internet to plebs like me

Perhaps my use of the subjective term 'soon' could have been clearer. I was meaning within 50 years or so. It ought to happen much sooner, but I really can't see it given our governments' record of inaction on the matter thus far.

I accept that a certain amount of flying has become essential in our evermore globalised world, but there's a huge amount of it that isn't. For example, how many of the international flights that take place for people to conduct business meetings could be saved if those meetings were conducted remotely via Skype and such? What percentage of aviation is recreational? Do people really need to fly away on holiday once or twice a year?

It's all very well to say, "we've come too far and there's nowt we can do", but eventually, we're going to have to look for ways to seriously reduce harmful emissions. If it's not too late already.

I'm hardly an international jetsetter but I refuse to believe that if Skype etc. meetings were any substitute for the real thing then so many corporations around the globe would spend so much money jetting executives around. I think you know this too. It's just not the same (yet) as being there. Even the climate change conferences - surely THE prime candidate for a televisual link, if ever there was one - realise that to do business at all, they actually need to meet face to face.


It isn't, and anyway who has said any such thing? What I do confidently predict is that well within your 50 years the aviation industry will have developed alternative fuel technology that will be both sustainable and also environmentally better, they know they must, and they are throwing a lot of effort at the problem, as are independent research labs who of course are keen to invent and breed a golden goose.

So I don't know what it will be (although I think research into algae and bacteria based fuels is promising, as well as growing oil-producing crops that will grow on land where nothing else does. But I know somebody will crack it. And of course in a century or so cold fusion or something will have solved all such problems anyway.

I'm not saying it's the same as being there, I'm saying it's a viable alternative in many instances. And not actually Skype, obviously, but something better than that.



I was paraphrasing.





Hmm. Not sure they're throwing that much effort at the problem, and neither will they until it becomes unprofitable for them to use oil-based fuels. I'm not sure 50 years is a realistic timescale, either. I'm not aware of an alternative fuel source that's even powered a single flight yet, so to have that fuel developed, tested and into worldwide use in 50 years seems to be pushing it. Hell, they can't even manage it for cars yet.

And even if they could achieve this remarkable goal, if aviation emissions continue rising as they have over the past 20 years or so, 50 years will be too late.



If we carry on increasing our carbon emissions (or fail to reduce them significantly) for another 100 years, cold fusion will be useless anyway. We'll all have killed each other fighting over the few viable resources we had left. Probably.

The answer to sustainable power for aviation was provided some years ago in a Hanna-Barbera film called "The Man Called Flintstone" in which Fred Flintstone flew to europe in a canvas and wood Boeing 707 powered by eight Pterodactyl's tied to the wings.

All we need is some Pterodactyl DNA from some of that Amber jewellery you can buy in Whitby.

It could work.

Rock God X wrote:I'm not saying it's the same as being there, I'm saying it's a viable alternative in many instances. So in those instances why don't folk do it? They just like spending a lot of time and loads of money unnecessarily? Rock God X wrote:Hmm. Not sure they're throwing that much effort at the problem, and neither will they until it becomes unprofitable for them to use oil-based fuels. I'm not sure 50 years is a realistic timescale, either. I'm not aware of an alternative fuel source that's even powered a single flight yet But all that is because you're posting without having bothered to look into it. Eg: http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=894 Rock God X wrote:Hell, they can't even manage it for cars yet. Nonsense, production alternative fuel cars are already in global service. Just one site for a flavour: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/01/31/7-alternative-fuels-and-alternative-fuel-powered-vehicles/ Rock God X wrote:And even if they could achieve this remarkable goal, if aviation emissions continue rising as they have over the past 20 years or so, 50 years will be too late. .... but achieving the goals in my first link would clearly not. Rock God X wrote:If we carry on increasing our carbon emissions (or fail to reduce them significantly) for another 100 years, cold fusion will be useless anyway. We'll all have killed each other fighting over the few viable resources we had left. Probably. Fair comment, but killing all the cows won't be popular either.

Rock God X wrote:I'm not saying it's the same as being there, I'm saying it's a viable alternative in many instances. So in those instances why don't folk do it? They just like spending a lot of time and loads of money unnecessarily? Rock God X wrote:Hmm. Not sure they're throwing that much effort at the problem, and neither will they until it becomes unprofitable for them to use oil-based fuels. I'm not sure 50 years is a realistic timescale, either. I'm not aware of an alternative fuel source that's even powered a single flight yet But all that is because you're posting without having bothered to look into it. Eg: http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=894 Rock God X wrote:Hell, they can't even manage it for cars yet. Nonsense, production alternative fuel cars are already in global service. Just one site for a flavour: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/01/31/7-alternative-fuels-and-alternative-fuel-powered-vehicles/ Rock God X wrote:And even if they could achieve this remarkable goal, if aviation emissions continue rising as they have over the past 20 years or so, 50 years will be too late. .... but achieving the goals in my first link would clearly not. Rock God X wrote:If we carry on increasing our carbon emissions (or fail to reduce them significantly) for another 100 years, cold fusion will be useless anyway. We'll all have killed each other fighting over the few viable resources we had left. Probably. Fair comment, but killing all the cows won't be popular either.