The Tachyon Aerospace Vision
The Jet Engine
In just a brief decade, the jet engine has conquered the skies. According to statistics, a jet engine takes off every 2 seconds around the world, every minute of every day. It has proven to have facilitated the safest form of travel, today. Even though it has established itself as a driver of industry and society, it’s birth was a battle of innovation, bravery and ingenuity.
Growth, innovation and operational excellence have long been the business outcomes that Jet Engine manufacturers seek to achieve. Over time these initiatives haven’t been compromised, but the means to attain them are evolving significantly.
In the Aerospace Manufacturing Industry today, technological advancements combined with external market & cultural impacts the present and new consumer, increasing influence of emerging Aerospace companies, a growing demand in alternative fuels-advance propulsion design and development, complex regulations governing both information and practices, and more—have propelled the Aerospace industry into a new era, where the path to profitability and sustainability is shifting.
In this new era of technological advancements, Aerospace Manufacturers need to explore new innovative solutions to sustain development. New capabilities providing means to transform current business models. Powered flight when introduced, provided the Aerospace Industry opportunities to grow, adapt and evolve to address the changing needs of an emerging market and captured the new business potentials. The ability of Powered Flight accelerated the path into an industrial transformation. An Emerging Market of the time has now grown into an ever so Expanding Market, dominating global industries with its Market Presence and Cultural Societal Impacts.
Powered Flight
In 1903 the Wright brothers pioneered Powered Flight. It harnesses propellers to drive a plane forward by pushing air backwards. Even though it was a pioneering breakthrough with the propellers, the technology came to its limits by the 1920s. Due to the technological development of the time, the propellers just couldn’t be spun any faster. By 1920 the propellers limited the planes flying faster than 360 mph.
Powered Flight needed to take a whole new approach to overcome this barrier. The solution to this challenge came not from an Aeronautical engineer but a British Pilot, Frank Whittle in 1929. Mr. Whittle made the most significant contribution to aviation since the Wright brothers. His vision of propulsion for planes was through developing a Gas Turbine Engine.
The Gas Turbine Engine
The Gas Turbine engine followed the same principals as a Steam Powered Engine. The engines use the flow of “hot high-pressured air” to do the mechanical work. Which made some engineers determine it to be a preferable alternative to a Piston Engine for powering a plane.
From an innovative design stand-point the Gas Turbine engine was a major breakthrough because of its abilities in its design. Unlike the Piston Engines which had hundreds of moving parts that require constant synchronicity, the Gas Turbine Engine had a limited amount of moving parts. The main challenge with the Turbine Engine was to make it work for an aeroplane.
Building a Gas Turbine Engine brought on challenges associated with the specialty alloys needed to withstand the excess heat being produced by a gas turbine. After multiple years of daring experimentation with specialty materials, Frank Whittle achieved a breakthrough in developing a Gas-Powered Turbine Engine, both powerful and lite enough to fly an aeroplane. Whittle’s refined design was a marvel of Design and Material Science which has affectively changed the world and impacted everything from Travel/Transport, Trade and has become a major driver of Industry.
The Jet Age Has Begun
The flight of the world’s first Jet Engine indicated the dawning of a new age that has propelled Powered Flight to new heights and speeds. This first flight was a major moment in aviation history and also our world history. This instance had the same momentous consequence which the Wright brothers had in 1903 with their 12 seconds of flight.
Just five days after this monumental flight, World War II was declared and it guided the course of the industrial development of this Technology. Both sides were in a race to exploit the abilities that were to be realized through these new engines. Soon more efficiency was required to conquer the battle skies. The British and Germans both were now in the works to pioneer a new more efficient engine design.
The new engine design would force the air along the axis of the engine to compress and heat it rather than throwing it outwards, known as “Axial Flow.” It has the potential to be more powerful than the original “Centrifugal Design.”
The Axial Flow Engine was simplicity in terms of overall design but a challenge to actually get it to work. In terms of designing the compressor, the turbine and moving the air flow through the engine was a much broader challenge.
By May of 1941, Frank Whittle had completed his engine named the W.1 and was ready for its maiden flight. This flight opened up the way to very high speed and very high-altitude flights.
By the end of the war, the developments of these new Jet Engines weren’t able to control or influence the outcome of the war but the war changed the Jet Engines, and society would never be the same again after being introduced to such an “impact” technology. Particularly Passenger Aviation.
Passenger Aviation
Due to the success with the Jet Engines in the war and an urgent need to recuperate from the debt collected through the war, Brittan developed the world’s first Passenger Jet Airliner called “The Comet” It had a top speed of 490 mph and cut travel times around the world in half. It put Brittan in a position to lead the world in fast air travel. The commercial Passenger aircraft transformed the experience of flying.
Passenger and commercial flight opened up the door to new possibilities globally by shrinking distances. Access to flight has provided:
Economic Benefits
· Direct, Indirect and Induced Impacts
· Tourism Support
· Driver of Global Trade and E-commerce
Social Benefits
· Safely Connecting People and Businesses
· Health & Humanitarian Aid
· Educational Opportunities
· Improved Quality of Life
Need for innovation
Throughout the last 200 – 300 years of industrial history on our planet, every idea and innovation has had a requisite behind its development. During the age of Jet Engines, the incentive grew from more than pioneering a new engine design for flight to be winning the War.
Today’s aerospace and aircraft manufacturing industry needs to produce more efficient Engine and Aircraft designs, to safely accommodate the increasing demand. Modern aircraft produced today are about 80 per cent more fuel efficient per passenger kilometer than in the 1960s, and each new generation of aircraft continues this downward trend.
Not just Efficiency, Speed and Travel guide the requisite for alternative technology solutions-but also the Market Trends and Growth Projections play a major role in its development and integration. From a long-term historical perspective, air transport has doubled in size every fifteen years and has experienced greater growth than most other industries. Since 1960, increasing demand for passenger and freight services, technological progress and associated investment have combined to multiply the output of the Aerospace Manufacturing Industry. With an uninterrupted growth, brings along a timely progression of innovation which gives access to new frontiers of Speed, Flight and Efficiency.
A New Frontier
Speed, Flight and Efficiency are the distinctive attributes to the flight system designed by Tachyon Aerospace. The abilities which are capable with the flight system present a paradigm shift in Aviation, attributing to the legacy already established by early pioneers through-out the history of aviation.
As much as the economies of the world industrialized with the assistance of the Jet Engine, it created interconnectivity within the people of the world. Distances were shrunk and our global culture was redefined. The convenience of travel had the most dominant impact on business and society until the age of the internet. With the internet distances shrunk even further and access to the web revolutionized society as we know it. This analysis allows us to understand, the impact disruptive innovation has had in our worlds and what it would mean for business and society to discover new distances.
The Engines designed by Tachyon Aerospace have the potential to completely transform how we currently access powered flight, whilst further boosting and transforming the prospering Aerospace and flight design sectors. By exploring this breakthrough technology Tachyon Aerospace Ltd is Committed to complete its vision of introducing the TAV 1 and all its integrated Systems.