This service could replace the ferries, or aeroplanes

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › This service could replace the ferries, or aeroplanes

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#2905761 23-Apr-2022 16:34

eracode:

"Well, we'll take your cue - and go Wellington to Blenheim".

Interesting because Blenheim is not actually a port. Just wondering how well thought-out this is.

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#2905762 23-Apr-2022 16:38

Jase2985:

vexxxboy:

15 metres or so on a good day, way to close for comfort

Ferrys get cancelled at 6m

I have been on a cook strait ferry in a 6 metre swell and it turned a 3 hour crossing into 5 hours. It wasn't fun for most people but i enjoyed it.

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#2905817 23-Apr-2022 17:06

Ive been thinking about this and aside from the fact that the guy promoting it seems a little bit shady and pie-in-the-sky thinking, someone has to do it.

A few points

- Like it or not, we need to switch away from burning jet fuel. That is going to mean our priorities need to change. You cant argue "what if the flying thing hits a boat?" when a priority change means "what if a boat hits the flying thing?". Should the boat really be there? What is the greater importance?

- These will operate on laneways with scheduled trips. Small fishing boats may just need to get used to staying out of the laneways at certain times of the day.

- The laneways can be 25kms off shore so there is heaps of space for the recreational fishing boats to play without getting in the way

- At 300km/h, the radar only needs to see 5kms ahead to give the pilot/captain a full 1 minute warning to divert his path around a boat.

- Coastguard radio repeaters operate all around the country and can broadcast the schedule and estimated passing times every hour so boats know the schedule.
"The ocean flyer will be passing through Cape Kidnappers area at 10am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm. It will be passing Kairakau at 10:20am, xxx, It will be passing Castle point at 10:50am, 12:50am,xxx"

- A boat listening to the schedule can estimate its location and see the buoys that mark the laneway so they know when not to cross

- An ocean flyer can broadcast a signal ahead of itself for very little equipment cost. Maritime NZ and RSM could allocate a VHF channel for high speed ocean craft. If you want to cross the laneway near a scheduled ocean flyer passing, you can switch your VHF radio to channel XX and listen for the broadcast. If you pick it up, then you know the ocean flyer is within 20kms or within 4 minutes of passing. Again just requires some priority changing to get off the jet fuel.

- Most people would be happy to pay less for a slightly longer flight time

- If the weather is bad, the ferries dont run. Same with the ocean flyers and aeroplanes i guess?

I see this being held back by too many What Ifs? and not enough changes to just force it through.

Remember, we once flooded a town for a hydro dam. We can do this with the right attitude.

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gzt

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#2905837 23-Apr-2022 18:18

What are the operating conditions max swell, wind, etc for these vehicles?

eracode

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#2905886 23-Apr-2022 22:15

raytaylor:

- These will operate on laneways with scheduled trips. Small fishing boats may just need to get used to staying out of the laneways at certain times of the day.

- The laneways can be 25kms off shore so there is heaps of space for the recreational fishing boats to play without getting in the way

- At 300km/h, the radar only needs to see 5kms ahead to give the pilot/captain a full 1 minute warning to divert his path around a boat.

- Coastguard radio repeaters operate all around the country and can broadcast the schedule and estimated passing times every hour so boats know the schedule.
"The ocean flyer will be passing through Cape Kidnappers area at 10am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm. It will be passing Kairakau at 10:20am, xxx, It will be passing Castle point at 10:50am, 12:50am,xxx"

- A boat listening to the schedule can estimate its location and see the buoys that mark the laneway so they know when not to cross

- An ocean flyer can broadcast a signal ahead of itself for very little equipment cost. Maritime NZ and RSM could allocate a VHF channel for high speed ocean craft. If you want to cross the laneway near a scheduled ocean flyer passing, you can switch your VHF radio to channel XX and listen for the broadcast. If you pick it up, then you know the ocean flyer is within 20kms or within 4 minutes of passing. Again just requires some priority changing to get off the jet fuel.

… and all this is going to apply on their first two routes: Auckland-Waiheke and Wellington-‘Blenheim’? Neither of those routes could have “laneways 25kms off shore” and good luck with expecting or requiring recreational boaties (and kayakers) in the narrow confines of the Motuihe Channel and Queen Charlotte Sound to be glued to radios to track these things.

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#2905894 23-Apr-2022 22:37

Fundamentally, the biggest issue I see with this is that it's not going to help reduce fuel usage in the first place.

Jets fly high to reduce air resistance and thus lower fuel consumption. This thing wants to move at aircraft speeds, at water level. It's going to use as much thrust as a jet, probably more.

Switching to electric means that your fuel is still scarce and expensive, it's just in the form of heavier batteries. Yes, ground effect means there's less of a weight penalty for carrying the batteries, but you still need a lot of thrust.

Per Wikipedia, the Soviet Ekranoplan had 8x A320-class jet engines for a craft that cruised at 450km/h at a height of 2.5-5m, weighing 280t. Raise the speed or the altitude and you will need a lot more power. That mass is about what you'd expect for a small passenger-configured electric craft.

Running at a lower altitude will not reduce fuel usage or make switching to batteries easier.

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#2905938 24-Apr-2022 08:36

I know I have mentioned it in other threads, but I read a book called Where’s My Flying Car? A Memoir of Future Past by J. Storrs Hall.

In it he concentrates mainly on why we don’t have the flying cars we were promised by now, but also why other technologies have branched and stalled in a lot of cases. That includes nanotechnology, which is his area of expertise.

A look back over the past 70 years of Scientific American (before it ‘went woke’) shows pages littered with fantastical technologies that haven’t quite got there.

This WIGE vessel smacks of someone cashing in on the ‘Green Wave’ by pulling up technology, slapping electric motors on it and spruiking it as an environmental saviour.

At least it’s not trying to solve todays problem, using yesterday’s technology, tomorrow (like a short length of light rail).

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#2906676 26-Apr-2022 09:09

SomeoneSomewhere:

Fundamentally, the biggest issue I see with this is that it's not going to help reduce fuel usage in the first place.

Jets fly high to reduce air resistance and thus lower fuel consumption. This thing wants to move at aircraft speeds, at water level. It's going to use as much thrust as a jet, probably more.

Switching to electric means that your fuel is still scarce and expensive, it's just in the form of heavier batteries. Yes, ground effect means there's less of a weight penalty for carrying the batteries, but you still need a lot of thrust.

Per Wikipedia, the Soviet Ekranoplan had 8x A320-class jet engines for a craft that cruised at 450km/h at a height of 2.5-5m, weighing 280t. Raise the speed or the altitude and you will need a lot more power. That mass is about what you'd expect for a small passenger-configured electric craft.

Running at a lower altitude will not reduce fuel usage or make switching to batteries easier.

OTOH, flying in ground effect increases the efficiency of the wing. Using the Caspian monster as an example, it carried 280t on 8 engines, whereas an A320 carries 77t in 2. So it's within 10% of the efficiency of an A320, albeit at 5/8 of the speed. The Caspian monster was designed in 1975, and there have been improvements in materials (fibreglass and carbon fibre and kevlar) and aerodynamics since then, and perhaps electric power offers improvements over jet engines. So you would expect a modern ekranoplane to be somewhat better than the Caspian monster, although it's hard to get past the battery size and weight at the moment.

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#2906710 26-Apr-2022 10:16

kotuku4:

Agree Blenheim is not considered a port. Though it does have history of Blenheim to Wellington shipping on a small scale. The Scow Echo did sail over the Wairau Bar and up the Opaoa (Opawa) River to Eckford Wharf at Leeds Quay Blenheim. Some warehouses still exist.

Yep, lots of history of coastal shipping, although I imagine the rivers are less navigable now. But, I doubt one of the proposed regent seagliders would get up the Opawa.

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#2906991 26-Apr-2022 15:38

As long I haven’t seen the zero emission prototype at regentcraft in operation TODAY (claiming EIS in 2025) and without the much more important relevant OPS and MAINT infrastructure, I personally consider this project just as a money collecting marketing campaign. :-)

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#2907145 27-Apr-2022 08:48

kotuku4:

Agree Blenheim is not considered a port. Though it does have history of Blenheim to Wellington shipping on a small scale. The Scow Echo did sail over the Wairau Bar and up the Opaoa (Opawa) River to Eckford Wharf at Leeds Quay Blenheim. Some warehouses still exist.

So conceivably a sea glider could fly over the Wairau Bar and alight on the river near the wharf, assuming the wharf still exists, there's no high bridges, and there's sufficient open water of adequate depth there.

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#2907157 27-Apr-2022 09:13

frankv:

kotuku4:

Agree Blenheim is not considered a port. Though it does have history of Blenheim to Wellington shipping on a small scale. The Scow Echo did sail over the Wairau Bar and up the Opaoa (Opawa) River to Eckford Wharf at Leeds Quay Blenheim. Some warehouses still exist.

So conceivably a sea glider could fly over the Wairau Bar and alight on the river near the wharf, assuming the wharf still exists, there's no high bridges, and there's sufficient open water of adequate depth there.

Sounds great and makes perfect sense. I'm sure Shah Aslam and Ocean Flyer have rigorously checked the navigability of the Opaoa River, the depth of water up there and and so on - and satisfied themselves on the feasibility of flying their fast craft into the heart of Blenheim. Otherwise why would they have selected Wellington-Blenheim as one of their first two routes?

They might have to use one of their 15 12-seaters though - rather than one of their 10 100-seaters. But that's OK - size isn't everything.

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#2907257 27-Apr-2022 11:50

frankv:

So conceivably a sea glider could fly over the Wairau Bar and alight on the river near the wharf, assuming the wharf still exists, there's no high bridges, and there's sufficient open water of adequate depth there.

I wonder about the possibility of getting resource consent for that. Bird habitat, importance to Rangitane etc.

I've paddled the river from SH6 to the Wairau Bar boat ramp a few times and the only wharf I've ever noticed is the little floating pontoon at the boat ramp (20 minute drive to Blenheim). After the 1850s earthquake, that deepened the Wairau Estuary, The old coastal vessels scows used to come right into Blenheim and berth at what is now, which shows how inefficient land transport was back in the day.

I'd be interested to know how a sea-glider would go when the river is in flood. I avoid launching the boat at the Wairau Bar when the river is up and it's a very physically robust vessel.

Mike

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#2907313 27-Apr-2022 12:12

I imagine flying over a flooded river is no problem, but alighting on it would be fraught with danger from floating debris. And then taxying on it would also be extremely challenging. So I'd say that no operations would be possible when the river was in flood.

If the wharf is 20 minutes from Blenheim I don't see an advantage over going to Picton.

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#2907320 27-Apr-2022 12:33

It ain't gong to happen not in 2025 not ever in my opinion, unless there is a significant enabler that is discovered/invented.

If "seagliders' were a thing they would already be in use with turbine engines. While electric propulsion might conceivably add aerodynamic efficiencies with distributed propulsion with multiple engine/props providing a blown wing, the battery weight alone will more than outweigh any gains. Electrifying such a craft is not an enabler.

Then there are all the operational limitations, e.g. mixing with other seaborne traffic, large manoeuvring areas required to turn it, energy required to get it on the step and into ground effect, structural requirements of the craft to withstand choppy sea conditions while transitioning to ground effect while keeping structural weight to a minimum and infrastructure requirements at each port etc.

Another bunch of dreamer's I'm afraid either that or snake oil salesmen looking to fleece unsuspecting "investors".

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