Creative Workshop Ideas

As part of the CREATE-project WP2, a Creative Workshop was organised in Duxford (UK) on 22 - 23 June 2009.
The main objectives of the workshop was to generate new ideas as input for WP3 (Ideas Merging) and subsequently for WP5 (Assessment).

A list of 138 ideas was generated which is given below.

Idea #	Short Title	Expansion Notes
1	Funnel Airports	The concept has funnel shaped airports for VTOL aircraft to use and by shielding the external noise envelope from the high noise within makes for a more acceptable social situation near the airport.
2	Spiral Drone Launcher	Cargo drones are launched by accelerating them up and along a spiral trajectory thus saving space for their airport systems. [The drones may be mounted on slave carriers or be accelerated on their own wheels.]
3	Multi Hub Airport	The airside hub has a functionality limited to the provision of its essential role of transferring people from a rail system to the air vehicle. This allows the hubs to be divided and separated being served by an underground rail system.
4	Torus Fuel Airship	Envisages a stationary torus shaped Air-to-Air refuelling airship
5	Air Crane Launcher	This envisages a lighter than air crane or lifting system that replaces conventional take off and climb for low pwered or sailing aircraft
6	Banked Runways	Envisages banked and circular runways for capacity optimisation
7	Vectored Thrust Airliners	Engines would be fitted with a limited angle thrust vectoring system to allow the engine to be used to enable STOL and for control purposes on civil airliners
8	Superconducting Engines	Envisages engines based on the superconducting principle for propulsion with electricity supplied by fuel cells
9	Flapping Wings	Envisages having wings that can morph between a fixed configuration and a flapping one to optimise their functions of both lift and control.
10	Vibrating Boundary Layer	Boundary layer control could be controlled using new technologies such as high frequency vibrations
11	Hovering Airports	The concept imagines hovering airport platforms combined with high speed lifts to raise and lower passengers.
12	Artificial Islands for boarding	Artificial "islands" hubs in combination with efficient high speed transit systems would allow off-shore facilities to be used.
13	Modular Passenger container	The passenger module would be designed to allow seamless connectin between road-rail- air transport.
14	Vaccuum Transit system	A vaccuum would be created in a tube system that permitted electrical propulsion with much less air resistance. Could be combined with a Maglev system for even higher efficiency.
15	Separating Passengers from their luggage	Create designs suitable for passengers without luggage (which would be carried separately). This would allow greater optimisation of the aircraft and a different fuselage shape. This could be combined with check in at local offices e.g. post offices.
16	Scramjets assisted by LTA initial lift	Combines the efficient lifting properties of the airship with the high speed capability of the scramjet. An airship device would be used to lift the air vehicle to altitudes where the scramjet could be initiated. Very high intercontinental speeds could thus be obtained at acceptable efficiency.
17	Energy Beam Refuelling	Photovoltaic powerplants would be placed in orbit and/or energy transferred to the air vehicles by ground based EM beams
18	Passenger Protection devices - 1	Specially formulated foams could be devised that expanded upon impact and protected passengers from impact stresses and movement.
19	Passenger Protection Devices - 2	Passengers could be seated in modules that were able to be jettisoned or ejected and these might be combined with parachutes or safety rafts/vessels.
20	Heated/Drained Landing surfaces.	These would, in combination or separately, reduce the chances of skidding and loss of control. Drainage could be incorporated into the pavement design without reducing traffic use.
21	Zeppelin Fuel Depot	The fuel "mother-ship" would be a large capacity airship able to refuel intermediate tanker UAVs that would then autonomously dock with the airliner to transfer fuel. The idea could be used for alternative fuels for either or both the UAVs and or the airliners.
22	Enveloping Entertainment System	The passenger entertainment system is a total experience achieved by some combination of techniques that permitted the seat or headrest to connect directly to the passengers' brain as a virtual headrest and thereby open possibilities of sleep inducing, message transmission and increased comfort sensations.
23	Pilot Monitoring System	To allow single pilot opration the system would monitor the health of the pilot and in set circumstances would signal decreasing control or collapse and permit ground control of the aircraft.
24	Pax Pack	Envisages the end of overhead luggage lockers with luggage being stored in passenger loadable bins or areas near the entry door to provide benefits of speed, safety and convenience.
25	Virtual Travel	Aspirant "travellers" would enter an immersive virtual reality world via a suit or other means that would allow the experience of travel, sightseeing etc without actually flying.
26	Virtual Windows	The windows of airliners would be replaced by screens linked to cameras to represent a view from the aircraft, or a different choice of effective eye position. A variant is to provide a telescopic view of either land masses or stars.
27	Glass Floor	The floor of an airliner could be made actually transparent or apparently so by making it a screen for a look-down camera.
28	Horizontal Passenger spaces.	Borrows the Japanese system of small horizontal compartments that provide extra comfort in a small space well provided with media inputs and allowing many to be stacked in a high density configuration.
29	No Landing Gear system	The aircraft would be launched to take-off by catapault and land on ski-type devices that may be combined with magnetic braking and cushioning devices thus reducing weight and complexity and saving fuel.
30	On-Board Foot Masseuse	As an aid to greater passenger comfort and well being a foot masseuse would be provided
31	E-Brochures	To replace hard copy brochures in seat pockets the information would be displayed on the seat back monitor.
32	Picnic Buffet Food	Passengers would be invited to select their in-flight food from a buffet style selection some items of which could be microwaved afterwards.
33	Turbulence Management	Seats would be sprung and damped and might be connected to turbulence sensing radar and also or alternatively to a partially rotating inner cabin that maintained stability in rough flight conditions.
34	Per kilo passenger pricing	Airline fares would be calculated in part by the weight of the passenger plus luggage. This would mean that passengers with more luggage or with high body weight paid more.
35	Reduced Noise system	Anti-noise vibrations in combination with sound absorbing foams would enable the perceived cabin noise to be cut down.
36	Catapault assisted VTO	Aircraft would be designed to enable vertical take-off in conjunction with a catapault system to reduce the fuel cost of the take-off phase.
37	Integrated Airport System	Capacity management would be integrated through a system of regional airports, with short take-off and landing aircraft and separation of passenger handling and luggage handling.
38	Super efficient wing for small aircraft	For small commuting aircraft wing efficiency could be improved to allow low and slow flight with high economy.
39	Free Energy	The concept envisages [?] the use of freely accessible energy for electrical systems and propulsion. [derivation obscure]
40	Covered Runway	To allow all weather operation the runway would be wholly or largely covered with landing and take-off access preserved with the result that all-weather operations would be possible.
41	Holographic ATC	The ATC operators would be presented with a 3D holographic presentation of the airspace in their control zones and give a more intuitive control for airspace management.
42	Airport Solar Panels	The space on hangars and terminals would be used to fit solar panels (and certain parts of the airfield too perhaps?) for the generation of electricity.
43	Two-level Airport	Aircraft land on the upper level and take off at the lower level. The height difference is used to accelerate the aircraft down a ramp or incline thus saving the amount of on-board fuel needed to paower the take-off phase.
44	Sky Lift	Aircraft are hoisted by ground power up a tall tower to a launching point and are then launched to permit the exchange of potential into kinetic energy saving on-board fuel needs.
45	VTOL Civil Airport	The land area of city airports would be more efficiently used by the use of VTOL or thrust vectoring engines to reduce take-off and landing space.
46	Whirling Take-off	Aircraft are accelerated by acquiring angular momentum around a fixed "pole" and released at a point that matches direction, position and velocity for take-off.
47	End-plate launcher	Taking-off aircraft are secured to "truck" devices that run along walls with rail systems incorporated. The walls reduce the onset of wake vortices and their lateral dispersion and the trucks can be powered by ground power thus profviding reduced fuel at take off and less separation between flights. Could be combined with a lifting profile to the take-off installation.
48	Vortex Posts	As aircraft land or take off posts pop up sequentially from the runway sides behind the aircraft and strong jets of high pressure air blast up and across the runway disrupting the vortices that otherwise form in the wake of the aircraft. This would allow shorter separation between flights and greater efficiency.
49	Vortex Control Materials	Aspects of the aircraft are designed from shape memory alloys that permit deformation to reduce vortex formation and return to another shape for normal flight.
50	Passenger Pods	Passengers are seated in a range of pods that are designed to be compatible with standard trains, buses and with aircraft that use an integrated transport system. At cross-transfer points that include the airport the pods are transferred complete with passengers.
51	The Non-Airport	Envisages an airport of the future that functions only as a transfer station from high speed train to aircraft. Baggage is handled separately via "Luggage Express" system (see idea). Passengers check in/park/shop at a shopping centre and travel to the air station on the high speed link.
52	Luggage Express	A distributed system of collection and distribution is operated down to hotel or neighbourhood level. Baggage is checked-in at the base level and is moved by a specialist carrier who delivers to the destination base level whislt passengers travel without baggage.
53	Maintenance Renewed	Combined action to reduce parts, increased use of new materials (eg: SMAs), integrated health monitoring sytems, design for long-term maintenance, opern architectures for software, introduce pay-per-mile flight time for maintenance charges.
54	Sea-Port air station	An offshore air-station would provide essential airport facilities free of some environmental and space constraints and allow larger aircraft to be used with higher efficiency.
55	Morphing sea-plane	The boat chined shape of the hull needed for sea landings and T/O would be made to change to an essentially round cross section after T/O creating greater flying efficiency.
56	Symbiotic Flying	A/C are designed to be able to fly in close formation or to attach themselves to the swarm for increases in fuel efficiency
57	Rapid Manufacturing	Aircraft are redesigned to be able to be made more quickly and cheaply with flexible tooling and to be subject to faster replacement to increase the average fleet level of systems and technology.
58	Clean configuration control	The configuration of the aircraft is arranged to merge presently separated functions into combined systems that might include "flapping" or moveable wings.
59	Seat number luggage store	Luggage is stored with its position fixed by a relationship code to link to the seat number. This makes baggage retrieval easier and also baggage extraction.
60	Automated Landing/TO	The concept provides for automated systems that take control of the a/c during landing and T/O
61	Real time health monitoring of A/C	Provides for a major extension in the amount of system and structural health monitoring fitted so that safety and maintenance can be managed more effectively.
62	High altitude solar powered A/C	Envisages a high altitude a/c at 15-20 km with solar arrays to be used for telecommunications purposes
63	Pure Freighter	A purpose designed pure freight aircraft with design features (e.g. box wing) for easy engine installation, rapid loading etc.
64	Broad Delta wing a/c	No detail given
66	Flight refuelling vehicle	No detail given
67	Personal Jet a/c	A personal transportation system PST with variable sweep wings and capable of supersonic speeds. It might have two engines: a propeller system for T/O and a jet for supersonic flight.
68	Elastic Pressure Cabin	The pressure hull and aerodynamic shape are sufficiently separated by making the pressure cabin elastic in nature.
69	Personal seat baggage space	Each airliner seat has a dedicated persional bag compartment close to the seat.
70	Hydrogen tanks at wing tips	The concept envisaged is a BWB - hydrogen powered - with tanks in the wing extremities.
71	Towing of small aircraft.	It is proposed to have a large a/c capable of towing small aircraft for T/O and/or flight.
72	Fast freighter	A hypersonic freighter transport
73	Freight Net	A network of freight depots and airports, especially across 3rd world countries, that would be integrated into a world-wide supply net.
74	Flight refuelling for airliners	Envisages flight refueling for airliners to allow light weight T/O and mid-air refueling prior to the cruise phase
75	Separate luggage handling	A system is devised to allow passengers to give up their luggage at the earliest time and travel independently.
76	GEV with underwater propulsion	A Ground Effect vehicle is envisaged with pylons extending to beneath the water surface and carrying propulsion units.
77	Airbag Landing Gear	The concept aims to protect the aircraft by inflatable landing airbags which could substitute for the main landing gear or be used only in emergency
78	Virtual transport	An extension of the existing video conference is envisaged with greater facilities for creating the sensation of being present with the people at the distant place.
79	Sub-orbital transport	A system of sub-orbital transporters would be established with essentially vertical T/O and high speed transport to any place on the globe.
80	Beamed energy	Aircraft are fitted with energy receiving devices or panels and may collect energy from beams originating from the ground, or from high altitude vehicles that collect energy from the sun.
81	RFID Tags	A purpose made RFID tag is provided for each passenger and used to identify, security check and locate each traveler It may be that the tag is attached or swallowed.
82	Ground Powered T/O	Ground prower is supplied to assist the aircraft T/O
83	PTS Cruiser Mix	An air system is envisaged that has Personal Transport Systems working in conjunction with or separately from large cruiser aircraft for long distances.
84	Vortex Energy recovery	Vortex energy is recovered by turbines or other devices. The losses from vortices are also reduced by engines fitted to the wing tips.
85	Braking Energy recovery	Braking energy is recovered and stored via batteries for re-use.
86	Ring Wing Concept	One or several ring wing configurations are used in conjunction to provide greater efficiency.
87	Coanda Effect PTS	An engine is mounted on top of a PTS vehicle with shaped ducts to create a coanda effect and provide lift .
88	Circular Airport	An airport is constructed in a circular shape with one or both of the inner terminal ring road and/or the airport rotating to provide a central service area and a better arrival and departure efficiency.
89	Plasma Airplane	Use plasma aerodynamics to change the composition of the air in front of the airplane to reduce drag
90	Spiralling launch rails	Aircraft will be accellerated trough a spiralling launch rail at T/O
91	Modular airplanes/ transport	Airplanes will have a modular construction: the part related to passenger seating and luggage storage can dbe detatched from the airplane and used in other transport modes to create full multi modality
92	Dedicated airports for specific destinations	Airports will be dedicated for travel to specific destinations to reduce the burden on HUBS
93	Opposite seating to speed up boarding	Seating arrangement will be changed in the aircraft so that passengeres will face eachother in opposite seats. This will speed up the boarding and reduce the deplaning time and help to shorten the turn around time
94	Passenger protection via cocoon	Passengers will be seated in (inflatable) cooon like seats that will provide maximum protection in case of a crash
95	Anti-noise integrated in headset	Rather than use passive or active noise devices in the cabin, the headsets of the passengers could be equipped with anti noise devices that wouls eleminate the cabin noise
96	Magnetic Brakes	To shorten the roll out at landeng new brake systems could be developed like magnetic brakes thatwould be more powerful than regular brakes and eleminate the need for thrust reversers and ths lower cost
97	On-board sauna/pool/bar	To make the stay onboaord as pleasant as possible during long flights, passengers would be able to use sauna and pool facilities in luxury airliners
98	Luggage handling via Post Office	To facilitate the separate flows of passengers and luggage, baggae drop facilities could be wide spread fpr example by using post offices. These would be connected to a system of dedicated luggage transport modes.
99	Movable landing strip in water	To rduce the pressures on HUB airports, landing strips in the sea could be created. These could be movable and turned into the wind to create maximum capacity. These structures could be multi funcional and provide (wind, solar, hydrogen etc.) energy as well.
100	Sound radiation in front of ac to discourage bird strike	To reduce bird strikes sund waves could be emitted in front of the aircraft that would scare birds away. Investigations should show the possibility to use ultra sound waves that would create this effect without effects on the human ear.
101	Eagle-like UAV to scare birds off	To scare birds away near the runways to avoid birdstrikes, UAV flying machines could be developed that look like eagles and that would scare the birds
102	Recover water/heat/co2 from engines.	Develop devices that recoup water, CO2 and heat from the engines and reuse these in the aircraft or store (CO2) in the aircraft to reduce the environmental impact
103	Electrical Engines with high density batteries	Novel powerplants are needed in case the energy generated in the aircraft is electrical only. Electrical engines may provide the answer. These could be coupled with batteris to provide hybrid power.
104	Anti-noise on the ground	To reduce the impact of aircraft noise near airports, novel anti noise devices could eleminate the noise of aircraft approaching the airports on final approach
105	Steep TO and CDA landings	To reduce the souns of departing and approaching aircraft steep take off procedures and CDA landings would be possible thanks to novel high lift devices
106	Pick up passengers via recovery system	Passengers would be picked up at their door and recovered in the aircraft
107	Pay more for long or heavy passengers	Long or heavy passengers would need to pay more for their seats. This could be arranged if their seating arrangement is adapted and more flexibilty in seating classes are introduced.
108	Super-cooled conductors to reduce gravity	In order to reduce the gravity on earth, super cooled conductors could be used to facilitate take off
109	Use autogyro	Autogyro devices could be used to provide personal transport
110	Boxed wing	Boxed wing (Prandtl) could be used to create extra lift and to reduce the effect of wing vortexes substantially This would reduce the separation of aircraft and increase the capacity of airways and airports
111	Inject ground based jet power to decay vortices.	In order to reduce the effect of vortexes over the runway and to increase runway capacity, jet powered devices could be installed along the runway to decay the vortexes quickly
112	Clip on devices for outer skin	Devices could be mounted on the outer skin of the aircraft. These could be extra fuel tanks, hydrogen fuel tanks etc. To speed up turn around times these could also be prepacked luggage containers and passenger modules.
113	Destination specific airports	Using a number of smaller airports these could be devoted to favour particular intercity pairs - it would also break into the hub-hub network and allow point to point flights.
114	Increased night flights	In combination with with moving freight traffic to more rural areas
115	New approach prcedures	Alternating steep and shallow approaches would allow shorter separation distances to be achieved on average.
116	Hybrid Gliders	Slower aircraft with high capacity normally land as gliders without using engines but have the means to power-up engines rapidly in emergency.
117	Twin Fuselage ac	Would allow faster loading and unloading of pax
118	No Landing Gear system	A system that employs a trolley or moving belt to connect with landing aircraft allows the weight of the landing gear to be saved.
119	Flywheel energy store	A flywheel system allows energy to be stored for use at high power demand times
120	Static energy recovery	Static electricity build up is transferred to a stroarge medium for power.
121	Lighter, Simpler ac	Lighter simpler ac would allow common parts to be used and would save fuel
122	Thermal lift	Transport ac are configured to be able to use thermals for lift and hence fuel economy.
123	Disposable Materials	Use of organic materials to produce fibrous components would allow disposal task to be reduced.
124	WiFi ac	Use WiFi to replace wired connections
125	Continuous route review	Routes are subject to constant analysis and dynamic review taking into account the total air position, traffic, weather, airport congestion, allowing a more nearly optimised total solution.
126	Braking Fins	Use of the fin structure as brake surfaces.
127	Shark skin ac	Shark skin surface design allow lower air resistance
128	RFID Tags	RFID tag is integrated into luggage allows additional baggage processing (e.g. delivery to hotel etc)
129	Cabin Airbags	Airbags deploy to protect pax in crash situation
130	Flying Saucers	Saucer shaped ac would allow use of magnus effect to generate propulsion
131	Disc Landing system	AC land on a rotating(?) disc and slowly progress to the centre of the disc
132	Sideways facing seating	Seats facing the sides of the aircraft would allow a higher density of seating.
133	Scalable engines	Power units are retraxcted during periods out of use.
134	Modular ac	A large ac flies long distances and then separates into smaller ac for local solutions/destinations. Another variant has separate pax modules that are dropped off as a unit at city destinations.
135	Rotating Cylinder wings	Allows the magnus effect to be employed for lift.
136	Disrupting Beams	A beam is transmitted from the ac and disturbs/disrupts bird flocks
137	Oblique BWB	An assymetric design with the wing oblique to the centre line.
138	Telescopic wing	Allows the charactersitic of the wing to be changed dynamically.