SkyTran - The Beginning
Maybe so, Rory, because it was now 2015 and commuting at a mere 65 mph wasn't satisfying any more. People wanted their personal mobility with even more speed. We would never encourage breaking the speed limit laws, so had to ponder other alternatives. At the same time, we also had to admit that the TCUPs, in spite of their bulletproof solid-state electronics, were a bit of a maintenance pain. Those teeny, super sticky tires were almost bald after just 2,000 miles of high acceleration, hard cornering, and high braking. The super high RPM gearboxes we manufactured to get those tires up to 65 mph were also a minor wear problem.In other words grandfather, you were still stuck in the wheeled vehicle paradigm of the 19th century. When did you finally break out of that horse-drawn mentality?
Well John, in one of our brainstorming sessions, our Wind Tunnel Manager, Mark Page asked if we should possibly look at magnetically levitating the mini car.
Ha! That would be one way to solve tire wear problems - no tires!
That's right Michelle, but Mark also suggested that maybe personal commuting speeds could then be bumped up to 250 mph! (Mark obviously was still infatuated with his ride last year on the popular Orlando, Florida Airport MagLev to Disney World, which went operational in 2012.) Too bad all the MagLev systems in the world were running on special tracks - expensive tracks - on the order of $70 to $100 million per mile.
Wasn't there any way to use the earth itself, grandfather, as an inherent MagLev track in a manner similar to airplanes "using" three-dimensional air to go anyplace they desired? I mean, other than paved runways at departure and arrival locations, airplanes required no paved roads or tracks. Wouldn't it have been sort of an IVHS with the additional third dimension to control and worry about?
Exactly right John. Granted it sounded bizarre to us at the time, but we looked into it anyway. Two weeks later, however, we'd come to the conclusion that unfortunately you definitely need tracks for MagLev. Yeah, and they need permanent magnets or electromagnets down the entire length. Expensive, expensive!
In History class last week, we learned that the Japanese were using passive aluminum tracks at that time, which only cost about $250,000 of aluminum per mile, in conjunction with on-board superconducting magnets.
That's true, but are you kidding me? Continually having to mess with liquid nitrogen. What a pain! I don't care if it was as cheap as beer. We decided to wait until MIT's new room temperature superconductors had come down to something a lot less than $790 per foot and when you could at the same time cut the aluminum cost by replacing it with dirt! We swerved on that one kids.
Two weeks later though, Mark Page and Harry Staubs found some obscure 1980's, 1990's era electromagnetic coil gun patents that didn't use superconductivity. It was just another form of Magnetic Levitation that used three-phase electricity going into a stack of repeating phased air-cored coils to provide propulsion, levitation and stability inside the gun tube. It was MagLev all right, they just didn't call it a "train" on a "track". Also, we were all dummies.
You're not a dummy grandpa.
Well, maybe not honey, but back then this stuff was brand new, and it took us a while to realize that we didn't need a $250,000 strip of aluminum per mile because we weren't in the least bit interested in moving 100,000-pound vehicles full of people. We only wanted to move one commuting human in an absolute minimum personal vehicle and as a result, only needed about $1,500 of aluminum per mile. Same thing happened with the track cost. A $100 million per mile track structure was needed to support a 100,000-pound monorail MagLev vehicle. That came down to $.5 million per mile to support the 500-pound gross weight vehicles we were designing.
And, it got more interesting. If we kept commute speeds down to a still fast 100 mph instead of Mark's 250 mph, the aerodynamic drag would be one sixth and the power one fifteenth. In other words, if we created a minimum drag aerodynamic shape for our single-person commuter, then we would have a machine that got an equivalent of 400 miles per gallon - while cruising along at a steady 100 mph!
Wow gramps, a solid state vehicle that was also super energy efficient. No more tires or gears to wear out!
Exactly my boy, and that was how SkyTran was born. Gene Langworthy said he would pay for the first prototype, but only if it was 28 miles long and set up directly between his home in Irvine, California and his factory in Fullerton. The problem now was how to get a special overhead track allowed by the various city politicians. We soon found out that in the late 1990's the County was considering an elevated light rail route between those same two cities with 24 stations to hopefully serve 60,000 people per day. It died because of the $1.8 billion projected cost. They told us that if we could redesign our system to carry at least 15,000 people per day along this same 28-mile route with 24 stations, they would be able to appropriate $100 million from their budget to offset part of the construction costs.
Just a moment grandfather. How could you ever carry that many people per day, just one at a time? That sounds impossible.
At first we thought so too, John. In an attempt to meet the county's capacity demands with our little one-seat vehicles, our aerodynamic wizard, Mark Page suggested a compromise that would cost more for vehicle and track materials and would consume somewhat more energy at cruise speed, but would surely improve capacity. He suggested we redesign the vehicles to carry two people instead of one. The weight increase would not be enough to effect the structural safety available from the existing mass-produced steel utility poles.
By the way, that was another way SkyTran returned some of its first profits to its investors. You see, the county people didn't fully appreciate how small we were talking. We didn't need to tear up any homes, stores or schools to make room for our track. We just needed access to an occasional one-foot diameter spot on existing public sidewalks. Standard tapered steel light poles worked just fine to support both the track and the miniscule weight of the vehicles with plenty of structural safety to factor in 9.0 Richter earthquakes and/or 140 mph winds. Heck, those things were so over designed and cost effective that the windmill manufacturing companies didn't even try to design their own support poles.
Anyway, if we placed the people side by side, yes, the aerodynamic frontal area and energy requirements would double, but if we placed the passengers in tandem, the vehicle would only grow in length, not frontal area. In fact, the fineness ratio would be improved and the aero drag component of power consumption would actually be down a bit. With the proposed single seater the amount of power consumed by air resistance represents 78% of all power required for a 100 mph cruise. So even though the MagLev energy would almost double to support almost double the weight, it is not that significant in the total power picture.
We calculated the stretched tandem two seater would only use 18% more total power than the single rider vehicle while cruising along at 100 mph with a couple of 250 pound passengers. Surprisingly, when ridden solo, power would just go up a couple percent more than for the single rider vehicle. Yes, of course, acceleration power to get from zero to 100 mph could occasionally be about double, but would still depend largely on how many passengers were on board, not whether it was the single or two seat vehicle design. And, yes, in order to be capable of occasionally carrying almost double the weight the MagLev guideway track portion itself would go up 75% in materials and cost. This would mean $40 million total for the 28 miles of track instead of the original $30 million. Also, adding the extra track to get to the specific 24 station locations the county wanted and the stations themselves would end up costing a total of some $55 million. We finally had a design that was starting to make sense!
Fig. 5a. Early 2018 MagLev SkyTran Personal/Mass Transportation vehicle.
These small, lightweight, streamlined, pollution free SkyTran vehicles were designed to safely take people between home and work at 100 MPH (USA Patent #5,108,052 and new patents applied for). (Artwork courtesy of Brad T. Bowman©1999)
Fig. 5b. From the beginning SkyTran vehicles (patents applied for) were designed to be much easier to get in and out of than an automobile. First of all, when boarding at a station, the SkyTran seat height is ergonomically positioned to be exactly at standard chair height above the ground. Thus, one would not have to lower themselves over a ridge and down into the seat as required in the typical automobile. And unlike a car, the hinged door would not be partially blocking the entryway as a person placed his legs inside to sit down (or swung them out to stand up). (Artwork courtesy of Brad T. Bowman)
Well, Gene would have nothing to do with it. He insisted the only reason he was willing to invest $30 million was if he could get on at home and go non-stop to his plant in Fullerton at 100 mph. He didn't want to waste his time stopping at every one of the 24 stations the County wanted to put along the track. He would rather stick with his old TCUP and at least average 65 mph on the freeways.
