Travel by an eco-friendly flying saucer?
Earlier today we mentioned that Dr. Paul Moller might finally be offering a vehicle to the public. His vehicle is sort of a hovercraft, although much different in execution to the standard hovercraft, and looks very much like a small flying saucer. Well, how about we upsize that flying saucer design and put lots of people on it? There is a team from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands which is working on just such a machine. Well, not really working on it yet, but theorizing on it anyway. They are calling it the "Cleanera Project". They should be starting to post information about their plans on their new blog. To quote their blog site, "The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology has embarked on a four-year project to develop 'the ultra-eco-friendly plane'. The Team members will post here regularly."
Nothing is actually posted yet about the project, but Treehugger has some information about the team and their thoughts on the design of eco-friendly aircraft. They mention that "propellers, composite materials, ergonomics and biofuels" are all under consideration for this project. We'll all have to take a wait and see attitude on this one since there is nothing but theories which will need extensive research and testing before anything materializes.
[Source: Delft University via Treehugger]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
murray 7:58PM (7/25/2007)
Seems like every year or two we hear about a detailed design for a new low-noise/low-fuel aircraft... but nobody ever builds them.
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