On the CV-440 fast meal service the F/O went back and did the set up's. Bar-b-cue chicken, always, always.

 

You're kidding, right?



US pop per sq KM= 32 people
Japan per sq KM - 332 people

 

Politicians promote this idea because it has high appeal to a certain voter demographic (which conveniently tends to have no technical insight).

Trains make sense for short routes in high-density population areas...like Japan and some parts of Europe and China.

But for longer routes, and less population (ie customer base) the fundamental problems with trains compared to airplanes is that air in the flight-levels is free and infinitely flexible...but with trains you have to build (and maintain) the road, and then you're stuck with it's location.

To make matters worse, fast trains need pretty straight tracks....Here in the US (unlike say China) you have to fight for every inch of land that you're going to seize for the train tracks, and you don't have the flexibility to just go around that historic neighborhood or park...fast trains don't like sharp turns. Then all the neighbors who are worried that fast trains stir up electromagnetic waves and cause cancer will sue you for billions. I can't imagine a worse public works project to try and get through all the environmental and NIMBY wickets.

Additionally from an investor perspective...anyone who pays close attention to commercial aviation knows that some very quite and very fuel-efficient planes are coming soon, and they'll certainly be here before HS trains. An 80% reduction in noise, 50% reduction in fuel burn, and maybe 70% reduction in carbon will take away most of the political leverage trains enjoy. The newest planes today are already very quite, hardly louder than a car driving by.

And no, you won't get to skip TSA by taking the train. Airplanes make such great terror targets because the terrorist can leverage the airplane's own kinetic/potential energy to do the damage, ie a little bomb creates enough disruption that the plane tears itself apart. HS trains have all kinds of available kinetic energy... In fact, TSA would expand into a veritable army needed to patrol thousands of miles of HS train tracks...all of which would need security barriers, sensors, land mines, etc, etc. These requirements would be a vast windfall for Big Government $$$$. Of course they probably won't tell you that up front...much easier to sell that part after AQ knocks a few trains off the rails at 600mph.

There's a reason the government is doing this, and not private industry

 

Yes. While they could always put the lav in the cockpit (or just make the pilot seat a camping potty), any single-pilot airplane would essentially have to meet ALL of the requirements of a no-pilot airplane since the occasional pilot incapacitation is inevitable.

My guess is that cost of single-pilot airplane technology will never be low enough to justify getting rid of the lower-paid FO. Single-pilot planes will be skipped until the technology is ready for no-pilot airplanes...although the first no-pilot airplanes will likely have a single pilot onboard as a backup until they get most of the bugs worked out.

It's going to take a very long time for the technology, at the appropriate level of reliability, to become cheap enough. That part about reliability is the real kicker...anyone familiar with military UAS reliability knows what I'm talking about. The military was perfectly willing to crash a bunch of big RC airplanes in order to get more cameras on target for longer. While airline management would probably feel the same way, the traveling public won't...

 

LOL yeah I'm sure they'll get right on this amazing tech and rulemaking process to eliminate one FA.

 

Great insight, rickair. And on the matter of trains, why the heck do we keep subsidizing Amtrak so much with billions every year? Not a rhetorical question...

 

Just another tentacle of "The American System" old school Whig party facism. Nothing new or unique about it. Power corrupts, and the more power the more corruption.

 

It's not billions. More in the neighborhood of $300m - $400m per year. The answer is difficult, but largely political.

Amtrak is without a doubt perennially losing money, and lots of it. They make a profit on the heavily travelled northeast corridor but lose much more on almost every long distance route. Many of these routes serve small towns with no other connection to major cities (except roads, but no bus service). In that way, it is similar to essential air service. Many of these towns lobby for continued service, and since the government is subsidizing Amtrak they are more likely to continue to do so; they lose incentive to turn a profit. The town wins, Amtrak sorta wins, most taxpayers lose. Very similar story played out all the time in govt.

 

That doesn't answer anything.

 

This is the entire story right here.

You'll only see high speed trains in the US in high density areas, just like you already do.