"V for victory" as the article is titled. Airlines are now attempting to find new ways to cut fuel consumption of planes. Leading companies such as Boeing and Airbus have made airplanes lighter, and thus consuming less fuel. However, a group of researchers at Stanford University are advocating another approach to greener flying. Birds, when naturally flying in a group, naturally form a V formation. This V formation, though it looks pretty neat, is actually advanced physics in the sense that flying in a V formation eases flying for mostly all of the birds in the formation. The Stanford researchers reasoned that if birds can use physics to their advantage, planes could too. In a test, three passenger jets that flew in a V formation conserved 15% of its overall fuel. Even the armed forces are now considering a V formation program to investigate and calculate exactly how to get an efficient V formation without compromising safety.
I think it is definitely awesome that we are learning from nature... but shouldn't this have been though up sometime earlier? The article says that a report from 1914 confirmed the efficiency of the V formation, yet almost a century later no one has really considered using it for commercial aeronautics. I especially like the coincidence of how nature is helping us help it, in the sense that nature is helping us become more green.
Monday, December 7, 2009
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12 comments:
Thats really interesting! Nature's way of doing things is often times the most efficient, so it is good that people are finally starting to take advantage of the natural examples we are provided with.
Think about what you're proposing.. COMMERCIAL Airlines flying in V formation. A couple things with V Formation is that planes would have to travel TOGETHER. I doubt there are 7 planes leaving the exact same airport to the exact same destination at the exact same time. Also, birds fly in V formation because the draft the lead bird is passed on to the remaining birds and when the first gets tired, they trade out and another becomes the guinea pig to punch through the air. Also, the military already flies in V formation... It's a why not question when they can all take off at the same time and from the same place and go to the same destination...
I agree (sort of) with Franklin. We learned this in Physics! But what I'm confused about is if commercial airplanes are going to be flying in a V formation.. because as Franklin pointed out that's a bit difficult. I've seen the military planes flying in the V formation, and it just now occurred to me that they might fly that way because of physics. Is this really the case? I get how flying in the v formation saves fuel because of the draft, but is this even feasible for commercial airplanes? MAYBE if the airplanes were smaller and carried less passengers (so they're lighter and consume less fuel) so there can be more of them that fly to the same destination then they can use the V formation plan.. but does it even make sense to do that? It seems like that might waste more fuel.. so nevermind. But my point was that I'm not sure how much sense it makes for commercial airplanes to fly in a V formation. Unless.. this whole article wasn't even talking about commercial airplanes.
I don't think it's difficult, I think it's entirely impossible simply by nature of commercial flights. And I might have been unclear, it is because of physics, because the first plane take the force of breaking through the air while the trailing planes are able to mooch off the draft. And, it looks cool. Never doubt the military when it comes to presentation. Also, Britney, addressing your last point about smaller planes, it's possible, but if you think about it, a larger plane is more efficient in carrying x number of passengers where 3 planes would carry a total of x number of passengers simply because there would be one larger fuselage (that is not bigger by a factor of 3, but rather noticeably less) versus 3 smaller fuselages, plus extra wing weight and the energy used to produce the planes in the first place. To bring it out of the engineering perspective, it's like how when you buy things in bulk at Costco, you may be paying more upfront, but the cost per unit is cheaper.
What Franklin is saying makes sense. When you do the math, having one big plane costs less to produce and fly than three smaller planes. Also, you'll need to find enough people going to the same place at the same time in order to get enough planes to fly in this formation. Seeing as during normal times, planes usually aren't filled, this formation concept would only come in handy during the holiday seasons.
I think the reason why peoplen ever considered using the V formation for commercial airplane use until now is because there were A LOT of airplane accidents back then when the technology was still rather primitive. The V formation may increase chances of accidents, and if they had that increase with the already high amounts of plane accidents, it would be horrible. I think it was only pretty recently (like a couple decades I'm guessing) that flight became the safest type of transportation. So I think it is rather appropriate for the idea to be put in use now.
And I have to agree that even though it is a cool idea, the way commercial flight is done nowadays, the V formation is probably not possible for commercial use. I mean, are there really going to be multiple planes flying from the same spot to the same spot? And when they get there, is the landing strip even big enough to land all of these planes at once?
I think it is pretty cool that we are learning from nature...I think we should do that in other aspects of life. Off of the top of my head, I can't really think of any, but I'm sure if we did some research we could learn a lot from nature and use that to our advantage in things such as this!
This is very interesting. This would most likely be very hard to achieve. Airplanes also cannot fly too close for that could be a safety issue. It is very hard to coordinate flights to stay in this V formation. There are always questions like what if there are high winds, would it blow a plane too close to another? If one malfunctions and all of a sudden swerves, you would not want the other to be close at all. This is a great idea though.
Yuzo, did you not read any of the posts above yours..?
Noelle, one application I can think of is the way swimmers race in the Olympics, for example and the way bikers race in the Tour de France. Sure, those aren't the only races, but you get the point. To think of it in a more consumer based application, well, it's hard to say simply because most consumer uses are bound by the same limitations planes have in using this. People just aren't leaving the same place for the same destination at the same time.
Chris, it's not too difficult, birds do not fly in compact V's and neither do planes. There will be enough space between two craft that the pilot will have enough reaction time. It takes a ton of force to move a plane fast enough to the point that a pilot won't be able to react. Also, it's a V, so a plane being blown would be blown, essentially, out of formation but not in to another plane. It would just move directly behind the plane in front of it or just out of the formation entirely.
If there are any NASCAR fans out there, I would like to point out that using the same concept (not the V formation per say), this is how one driver is able to shoot past another driver. By driving directly behind one vehicle, the aerodynamics allows the second to travel with less resistance, and in turn, can drive faster. A skilled driver, such as NASCAR pro's, use this to their advantage to gain enough speed to quickly steer out from behind the leading vehicle and shoot out in front.
Yay for physics and going green!! Not only is it better for the environment and economy (for conserving fuel), but I think it'd be pretty entertaining to watch other airplanes fly together!
Even though it is nice to study the way nature performs, and how we can incorporate that into our technology, it just sounds a little dangerous to have multiple planes fly in V formations at once.
However, if that could be accomplished one day, it sounds like it would be better off for the sake of the environment. Hopefully this study will have satisfying results for the future.
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