Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Propellers are coming back!

Ever fantasize about the days when propeller planes reigned supreme? Well, they're coming back in a big way:

With oil prices hovering at close to $110 a barrel, many are betting that new technologies — biofuels, hydrogen cells and solar power among them — will solve the world's energy crisis. A large part of the airline industry, however, is looking back to basics: planes with propellers.

In the market for passenger planes with fewer than 70 seats, turboprop aircraft, once condemned for the relatively noisy and bumpy ride passengers endure, are now outselling the equivalent regional jets by two-to-one, according to industry estimates.

"Propeller-driven craft enjoy massive fuel benefits on shorter journeys," Kapil Kaul, the chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, said.

For a journey of less than about 600 nautical miles, or about 90 minutes' flying time, a turboprob may use as much as 70 per cent less fuel than a similar-sized jet, he added.

Via itulip.com. The only turboprop I ever rode in was a Dash 8 between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, back in 1990. They are indeed a lot noisier and slower than jets, but with fuel savings like this, expect to ride on them a lot more often in the future. Fortunately the reliability of their engines is more like that of jets than that of piston engines, though.

Incidentally, I have ridden in piston-powered light planes a few times. By far the most interesting flight I took was in 1991 in Australia, with this outfit. Back then, the whole aerobatic flight deal was something like $115, so I jumped at it. And there is most definitely something cool about sitting in an open cockpit aircraft while it's in a spin, steeply banked so that you can watch the city and the ocean rotate below you. Notably, the price has more or less tripled since then.

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