Sky Yacht

The Model ML866 by Aeroscraft is an interesting hybrid aircraft which looks like it will make a great yacht for the air. Not fast, but luxurious.

The plans is after the Model ML866, to make a bigger one ... a flying cruise ship if you will. Given the prevailing west-to-east winds, I wonder if it is more economic to fly (in the US) from California to D.C., then up the coast to NYC and Boston and then follow the coast up past Newfoundland, then over to Alaska for the shortest possible* east-to-west within reach of civilization, and then down the West coast to start over. If we had a smaller, more geographically and politically homogeneous planet, having a small fleet in a kind of relay of 1000-2000 mile hops constantly cruising East around the globe would make sense.

Top speed is 138mph, which sounds great, but given the wind-facing cross-section, I'd bet on a cruise speed of 100mph or less. Given a easterly wind of 45 kts at 10,000', which is pretty common, your time for flying east is significantly faster, and more importantly, west is slow, really slow.

First, let's figure a trip from Chicago (ORD) to D.C. (DCA). Let's say no wind, so you're cruising at around 100mph. It's 612mi, so takes 6 hours and 12 minutes. That's a lot slower than a commercial jet, but also a lot more comfortable.

Next, how about the eastery 45 kt wind (51 mph). Same flight, but you have a 50 mph tail wind. Now that same 612 mi trip takes 4h 05m -- a lot better!

Finally, let's turn it around, and go from the Capitol to the Windy City. This time, we have a 50mph head wind. It's still the same 612 miles, but time in the air is over 12 hours! You can drive a car faster than this.

One possibility is to do these westerly trips at lower altitudes where the winds aren't as fast over very scenic countryside. The longer trips will give tourists and photographers more time to take in the view. This may well actually meet the contest requirements for the NASA initative for 200 mile, 100mph average, flight that gets more than 200 passenger miles per gallon of fuel. And do it for commercial transportation instead of just for some wacky experimental contraption.

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* - Look at a globe, not a flat map. The distortion of flat map projections becomes severe near the poles.