Commentary by Roger Martin Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a Web zine. Contact Martin at rmartin@kucr.ku.edu or (785) 864-7239. Martin also can be heard on KANU 91.5 FM public radio Archives More articles by Roger Martin Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Futuristic flight may not be far off

by Roger Martin

Sometimes when I'm asleep, I know I'm dreaming. Then I look around for a cliff or rooftop to leap from. If I jump from high places in my dreams, I don't fall. I fly.

According to Greek legend, Icarus flew on wings his father made for him. Later on, Leonardo da Vinci drew pictures of people-powered planes with movable wings that were too heavy to flap.

The flying dream -- and the dream of flying -- just won't go away. This year we mark the 100th anniversary of the short, happy flight of Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Airplanes have grown gigantic since then. The wingspan of the biggest commercial planes exceeds in length Orville's first flight.

But the dream of moments aloft -- and alone -- in space continue.

Since the Wright brothers, there've been fantasies of flying cars and one-person flying platforms. In the 1950s, True magazine foresaw the dawning of an "age of skycycles."

Current dreams of intimate flight center on air taxis that carry a handful of passengers. In his book "Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel," James Fallows says that people could be flagging down such craft at the local airport within a few years.

For that to happen, though, small airports will need the electronic capabilities of the big commercial hubs -- at a lower price. That's why Dave Downing, University of Kansas professor of aerospace engineering, is researching ways to make autopiloted landings economical and safe at small airports.

NASA is driving the small-airport, small-plane research. Today's large airport system is almost saturated, yet the Federal Aviation Administration expects air traffic to double by the year 2010.

"Currently, we have about 500 airports that all the airlines go to," says Downing. "Ten times that number are not being used for scheduled flights because the airlines can't guarantee you'll be able to arrive." One reason is that many small airports are ill-equipped for landings in bad weather.

Downing's group is addressing the issue by harnessing off-the-shelf hardware and custom-designed software to make guidance equipment both for ground installations and cockpits.

The technology would enable planes that are approaching small airports in bad weather to find their way to what Downing calls "highways in the sky." Once a plane is on a "highway," the pilot will let the technology take over until the runway comes into view.

Downing estimates that if his guidance equipment works, the runways at a small airport could be outfitted for less than $300,000. That's good news for a state like Kansas, which has about 140 airports.

Today, it costs about $1.5 million to instrument just one runway. Are any of the old pipe dreams -- the flying cars or skycycles -- still knocking around? Yep. Downing says some people still talk about short hop flights between cul de sacs.

Meanwhile, the dream of a direct experience of altitude, air and sunlight gets played out in odd ways.

Some years ago, truck driver Larry Walters tied 42 helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and floated to 16,000 feet. Airline pilots reported his hovering presence to control towers.

Eventually, Walters shot some of the balloons with a pellet gun he'd brought along to facilitate his descent.

Poet Robert Frost wrote, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Gravity is an invisible wall that humans obviously don't love.

Like Larry Walters, we yearn to rise above it all.