Future jetliners could provide door-to-door taxi service

by Steven Mostyn - Oct 26 2011, 07:10

We here at Tech Herald Towers enjoy a good farfetched pipedream as much as the next tech site, so it’s with some delight that we bring you news of the commercial jetliner taxi.

Sound bizarre? Well, according to a report by the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers, we could all soon enjoy air travel that results in us being dropped directly at our desired destinations as opposed to a chaotic central hub—or airport, if you prefer.

Interesting stuff, and the prospect of not having to drag luggage around Arrivals, onto a cramped train into the city, and then in and out of a stinking Black Cab certainly seems like a traveler’s dream come true.

It’s worth noting, however, that the forward-thinking engineering report doesn’t exactly detail how passengers will be delivered to their destinations.

While we hope that ‘being dropped’ at your door isn’t interpreted literally, worry creeps in upon learning that the report suggests aircraft could perhaps carry individual pod units that detach and float down to a passenger’s preferred destination.

Somewhat more realistically, the report also outlines plans for a commercial hypersonic ‘scramjet’ capable of traveling five times quicker than current jetliners, and also dramatically improved efficiency thanks to flights traveling in airflow-friendly ‘V-shaped’ formations.

We should expect to experience the wonder of one-hour scramjet flights between New York and London by around 2075. We suspect the door-to-door aircraft service will remain a sci-fi fantasy for some time.

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