Personally I think that the plasma engine should leave everything else in the dust, even V12s. But let’s forget that and move to the topic at hand. Futuristic ways to fly.
An argument for ‘airship’ style balloons.
[spoiler=Vacuum Airships]In the future, airships may go one better than gasses like hydrogen and helium, by literally using nothing: a vacuum. Using cavities ‘filled’ with vacuum, a vessel could obtain the maximum possible static lift airship technology would be capable of.
Using the same materials and configuration, a vacuum airship would only get about 18% more lift than an identical vehicle using helium. However, with helium relatively expensive and worldwide supplies of it thought to be limited, vacuum airships would offer a more efficient alternative.
A number of technical hurdles remain before vacuum airships could be made practical, such as coming up with materials and a design with a strong enough weight to mass ratio to keep the lifting chamber from collapsing from external pressure. With the near-future development of stronger advanced composites and carbon nanotube materials, however, a practical vacuum airship design should be possible.
Vacuum airships would probably look and handle very similarly to modern and near-future advanced airships already discussed; an outer fabric skin would still be necessary for a practical aerodynamic shape, solar cells over the top would still prove useful for power generation, and so on.
The inner lifting chambers would have a different character, either reinforced cylinders or tetrahedral or geodesic spheres for optimized strength. These may be anchored at multiple points to the craft’s main skeleton, for extra structural reinforcement. Whereas gas bladders on earlier types of airships were designed to keep the gas pressure in, here the emphasis would be on keeping the atmospheric pressure out.
Mobile airtight partitions on their interiors may allow outside air to be filled in or be pushed back out as needed, altering the lifting volume and allowing a dynamic buoyancy system very similar to that discussed for other airships. Since there’s no lifting gas to compress or re-inflate, the operations of a vacuum-based buoyancy system may be considerably faster.
It should also be noted that if a major mishap were to occur to one of the lifting chambers, instead of bursting into flames like the Hindenburg, a vacuum airship would instead implode violently. Also, where minor piercings in the gas envelope on an earlier airship might result in a slow but easily repairable leak, a minor hole in a vacuum chamber could implode the entire thing. Even if it survives without collapsing, the violent influx of air into the chamber could skew the airship’s maneuvering with the unexpected thrust, and would of course negate a significant portion of the vessel’s buoyancy very quickly.
Vacuum airships would likely be significantly more expensive than gas-using airships to construct, but since the vacuum in their lifting chambers would never have to be replenished, their operating costs over a long period may be considerably less.
Vacuum airships were mentioned in the novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.[/spoiler]
Essentially these Vacuum Ballasts would draw off of a vehicle’s battery systems during takeoff ((To “fill” themselves with vacuum)) but consume nothing else during the flight, needing to likewise empty themselves for landings. The trade off here is that:
1) This does not lend itself for speedy escapes or landings, as both landing and take-off would be lengthy procedures.
2) If we do decide to go with a lift vs thrust system it would require additional propulsion, due to having nothing but lift.
Either way they would be a cool addition and key structural components in floating military assets ((stratostaions or airborne aircraft carriers anyone?))
Also, in regards to solar power and aircraft: I do have to concede the fact that they wouldn’t be able to generate the power needed to keep a heavy, non-dirigible craft in flight. Several ways to tackle that though.
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You don’t fly for extended periods. You fill up an array of storage batteries to provide your craft with enough juice to “leap frog” itself across the cataclysm. Take-off. Short Flight. Land. Recharge. Repeat.
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You attach wind turbines to your craft–which would be much more efficient at high altitudes–to help combat power loss.
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Follow in the footsteps of real life gliders and just build an aircraft that can function like a kite for extended periods of time for when you run low on solar power.
