Feasible or not?

[c0]

What sort of size drone would we be looking at and what amount of lift would it need to generate to lift a single standard steel shipping container?   A container ship carries more than a single container...

http://hackaday.com/2017/04/20/automate-the-freight-drones-across-the-sea/

http://www.natilus.co

I call bullshit on this.

[EEVblog]

But in this day and age of self-crashing cars and fears of drone shootdowns, what makes Natilus think they’ll be allowed to fly a drone the size of a Boeing 777 above population centers? Here’s the clever bit: they won’t. Natilus intends to fly their drones completely over the ocean. What’s more, the drones won’t even use airports; they’ll be seaplanes, and will land, unload, load, and take off at or near seaports. There’s obviously going to be an efficiency hit compared to container ships, since cargo will need to be handled more than once.

Understatement of the century.

But if Natilus figures out how to leverage the venerable 20-foot shipping container format, my guess is the loss of efficiency will be more than covered by a 2000% faster transit time.

No chance!
Even if it is 17 times faster than a cargo chip as claimed, a cargo ship would take more than 17x the capacity.

Their entire plan relies on their being a useful "middle ground" need for cost/time tradeoff:



Even if it worked there is zero proof that such a market exists.
Even their own best base marketing wank headline is half the cost of a 747. That's not significant enough IMO, and is unlikely to be realistic anyway given practicalities.

There is also the the change in port handling required for drones vs ships, and this could be a huge deal. It's a critical mass thing that almost ensures this will never get off the ground (no pun intended)

[Nusa]

Their whole argument starts from a false contention: that containerships can't travel more than around 15 knots. The reality is companies have chosen to slow-steam to save big on fuel costs, during this time of financial meltdowns in the shipping industry. Most ships are capable of running around 24 knots (or up to the hydrodynamic limits of the hull in question). At greater fuel consumption, but nowhere near the cost of moving the same cargo by air. The point is, actual shipping speeds can be nearly doubled overnight if the financial incentive to do so exists. If they can't find a way to justify doubling the speed by writing a check for transportation, they also can't justify turning heavy sea cargo into air-frieght with technology.

[tszaboo]

Probably they aim at the WIG effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle
"Given similar hull size and power, and depending on its specific design, the lower lift-induced drag of a ground effect craft, as compared to an aircraft of similar capacity, will improve its fuel efficiency, and up to a point, its speed. Ground effect craft also are much faster than surface vessels of similar power, because they avoid drag from the water."
Speed is not that important, so they probably go speeds than a 747.
It can still be total BS money grab.

[rstofer]

I don't know what to make of the initiative but as a very smart VP of Engineering once told me: "Never bet against technology!".

[rrinker]

 Not to mention the inefficiencies of getting the containers on and off the transport. It's easy with ships, the containers are right there, easily lifted off by crane and set on railcars for long distance moves or truck chassis for local deliveries. Now this thing is supposed to be a seaplane, so it lands in the water and then what, taxis to a dock where the containers have to be pulled out from inside the fuselage and only then are accessible by crane to move to the next stage of transport.

[cdev]

Last I heard, shipping companies were failing right and left because of a slump in worldwide shipping.

I would worry about rare and unpredictable  "rogue waves" which do exist.
How successful a ground effect freight service is depends on the frequency of and altitude necessary for GEV effect . I suspect it as perhaps being too low to avoid rogue waves. If the craft could briefly increase its altitude when rogue waves were more likely to occur..that might work.

winds tend to be higher over water than land and the risks of "total" loss of cargo or passengers seem higher over water than land..  Time will tell.

[Nusa]

Not to mention the inefficiencies of getting the containers on and off the transport. It's easy with ships, the containers are right there, easily lifted off by crane and set on railcars for long distance moves or truck chassis for local deliveries. Now this thing is supposed to be a seaplane, so it lands in the water and then what, taxis to a dock where the containers have to be pulled out from inside the fuselage and only then are accessible by crane to move to the next stage of transport.

All you need are largeish hatches(s) in the top of the vessel to interface with traditional cranes. Any necessary container movement inside the vessel can be designed in, I'm sure. The whole vessel would be new tech, so I don't see loading/unloaded as an obstacle. I see the cost/benefit ratio of fuel spent per ton moved as the primary obstacle. If it's not economical, it's not going to be used except in niche applications, where shipping is already very expensive or impossible. Areas that currently require icebreakers to access, for instance. Or traveling up rivers that are too shallow for large ships. Or even overland travel in unimproved areas that don't have major obstacles.

[MarkS]

I'm curious how they plan to guide this. Real time data connection via satellite? Automated GPS-based navigation? Star charts and a pocket watch? Any current tech is easily hacked. How do you secure this to ensure it arrives at port?

[CatalinaWOW]

The real biggest problem here is not technical.  If there is a market for this it involves direct delivery, bypassing existing ports.  Which then requires creating a whole new customs infrastructure.

[SeanB]

Well, if they are delivering to the US East coast they will have 2 choices, go through the Roaring forties around South America, or go around the Cape of Storms in South Africa. Either of these are well known for heavy weather, large waves, high winds and some of the most ferocious storms on all the oceans of the world. Flying a GEV there will mean a very high loss rate, simply because no GEV works well in what is a moving version of the Grand Canyon, where you will have 50m plus changes in sea level in very short intervals. Flying above around 50m is getting you out of ground effect, and more into regular flight, and flying below 50m there in most cases will result in your engines getting a good slug of water dumped into the inlets. Rolls Royce does not guarantee that a Trent engine will still be in one piece with ingesting 200l of water as a slug, though they do warranty that it will run with 200l a minute being ingested as rain, but your blade erosion rates will be incredibly high, and with running in sea spray your engine lifetime will be massively reduced, expect a rebuild of each engine every 1000 hours at a minimum, from the salt spray erosion.

[sleemanj]

I would rather see the return of dirigibles myself.

I've always thought it strange that even though the problems could be solved nobody has really done anything with passenger transport dirigibles again... we could have had cruise ships in the sky.

[SeanB]

Problem is cheap fast air travel killed it, and the mass penalty over a cruise ship did the rest, as there are very few who would want to go somewhere slowly, and where you could have a long detour due to weather, and have to wait around a few days before landing as well at times.

Niche applications do exist for it, but that is pretty much all short term air flight, all mostly wrapped up with cheap hot air balloons, and then an even smaller niche market of moving floating displays for events.

[rrinker]

 Everyone is in too much of a hurry these days. That's why no one takes the train in the US, either. Though you actually can get from Boston to Washington faster on the train (you don't have to get there ridiculously early just to get through the TSA check, and the train puts you right in the heart of DC). I took the train home from a business trip, it took about 24 hours compared to 6 hours by plane but it was infinitely more comfortable (even cheap coach seats on the train have the legroom of first class on a plane) plus I had a comfortable bed for the overnight portion, plenty of room to stand up and walk around, and some really nice scenery. And even with the bedroom and business class upgrade the train ticket was less than the flight.

[ajb]

How much are they expecting to spend on developing these large autonomous drones?  Presumably there's some savings in dev cost versus a comparable airliner by forgoing all of that life safety nonsense, and not needing to develop a bunch of variants for different fleet roles, but on the other hand that's a pretty unconventional airframe concept, and as a seaplane will encounter some additional challenges.  Being very optimistic, maybe a billion dollars, all of which will have to be amortized through their freight service?


(Source: https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/table_aircraftdevcosts.html)

[jeroen79]

The say they're competing with air transport but wouldn't they be air transport themselves?

And how would it be more efficient to keep a ton flying at a minimum speed than to have the same ton float at any speed?

How do they fit in the trend of aircraft going higher and higher to save fuel?