We may live in a digitised world where distance doesn't matter, but moving objects from one continent to another still requires a lot of effort.
Then again, certain things are just too hard to move around using conventional methods. Take Boeing, the American aerospace firm. In 2003, it announced that the fuselage of its new passenger jet, the 787 Dreamliner, would be constructed from several one-piece, barrel-shaped sections - up to 31 metres long - rather than by metal slabs bolted together. Read more: Replacing the Invincibles: inside the Royal Navy's controversial £6.2 billion warships
That makes the craft lighter, but it also makes it much harder to transport the plane's components from where they were manufactured - Italy, Japan, Kansas and South Carolina - to Washington State, for final assembly.
"We started looking at every method to move these sections around the world," says David Beck, an engineer from Boeing. "We looked at the possibility of sea shipping, but the sections were too big for ships, and ocean routes were not dependable or fast enough." Eventually, Boeing resolved to build its own solution to the problem. The company bought four of its 747 jets from Chinese and Malaysian airlines, and transformed them into a new kind of plane that was capable of airlifting the Dreamliner's parts. Initially known as Large Cargo Freighters, the planes were later christened the Boeing 747 Dreamlifters.
"We took a saw and cut the whole fuselage off. Then we took off the tail and added a three-metre section at the top, so that the 787's sections could fit," Beck says.
On leaving the hangar at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, where it was built in August 2006, the first Dreamlifter made for an awkward sight - but at 1,840 cubic metres, it has the largest cargo hold in the world.
The craft's tail is linked to the rest of the fuselage by hinges, so that it can swing open when cargo operations start. Dreamlifter components then slide through the plane's open rear on a system of tracks, before the jet takes off and flies to its next stop. The Dreamlifter has cut shipping times of 787 parts from one month to a day. "It's just an incredible tool," he says.
The Dreamlifter may look like a bizarre piece of work, but it's not the only aircraft that opens at unusual angles. Since the late 60s, the US armed forces has relied on Lockheed Martin's strategic airlift C-5 Galaxy - a mean-looking, 75-metre craft that is able to flip up its nose and tail to let in cargo. It can even kneel on its landing gear when needed, to stoop at a lower height.
The plane has been a fixture of US military missions from Vietnam to Iraq. It can load about 880 cubic metres of freight - including tanks, ammunition and Apache helicopters. It can also carry up to 75 troops. David Hale, a manager at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, explains that, although the C-5 Galaxy is one of the largest military aircrafts in the world, that does not mean it is cumbersome. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"Everything, from its 68-metre wings that give it a huge lift to its engines and 28-wheel landing gear, is designed for quicker take-offs," he explains. "The plane can take off from runways as short as 1,500 metres. That is significantly shorter than airstrips used by smaller passenger jets [which are around 1,800 metres]."
Indeed, Lockheed Martin is working to do away with airstrips altogether. Over the past 20 years, researchers at the company's Skunk Works - Lockheed's experimental lab - have been reinventing a mode of transport that many thought was dead in the water: the airship. Unlike the disaster-prone, hydrogen-filled blimps of bygone days, though, Lockheed Martin's next-generation airships are filled with helium. And they only partly rely on the gas for flying, because they generate additional lift from their aerodynamic shape. This makes the craft simpler to control through its propulsion systems.
The Skunk Works' first prototype, the P-791, completed its first test flight in 2006, convincing the lab of the technology's potential. Airships could have the capability to float over a location for weeks without refuelling, making them a good option for surveillance operations. But Lockheed Martin's researchers are much more keen on large-cargo shipping. "When we started researching airships," recalls Craig Johnston, Skunk Works' director of business strategy and development, "we thought: 'How can we drive down the cost of delivering cargo to areas with no infrastructure, roads or waterways?'"
The Skunk Works' latest helium creation is LMH-1, a 91-metre airship that can carry 20 tonnes of goods - or 19 passengers - and float where planes, helicopters and ships dare not land. The LMH-1, like the P-791, is equipped with a landing system borrowed from hovercraft technology. The system blows air beneath the airship, creating a buffer that helps it touch down regardless of the surface's conditions. "This makes it possible for the plane to land everywhere," Johnston says. "Water, ice or sand: the airship can manoeuvre on all those surfaces. It does not need an airstrip."
The airship, which will debut in 2019, has already attracted commercial interest: UK-based company Straightline Aviation has ordered 12 airships in a $480 million (£389m) deal. **
It plans to lease the craft to mining companies to transport ore, machinery and personnel. Straightline has also partnered with charity RAD-AID to transform an airship into an itinerant flying clinic.
These crafts are currently off limits to civilians, but in the future they could once again have civilian uses. "We have had queries by business operatives who think this could be a nice platform for tourism. For instance, by creating safari airships," Johnston explains. "Then again, we have also had queries from people who were looking to buy their own, personal air-yacht."
Gian Volpicelli is a London-based freelance writer. He wrote about Brent Hoberman's startup empire, Founders Factory, in 04.17
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
