- Some notes by DS on Dec. 6, 2012
SourceMessageHere
Airborne Cable Transportation (ACT) already exists in modest
versions. An ancient trick is to let a "messenger" sail ride up a kite
line. Modern toy messengers cycle back and forth by a folding-sail
flip-flop mechanism; a "passive control" AWES cycle. Kite hobbyists have
worked out elaborate line-carriage affairs for photography and "candy
drops." It is a fairly easy DIY technology that continues to
develop. KiteLab Ilwaco has done dozens of small ACT experiments
to refine methods. Helicopters have well-validated airborne winch-based
airborne lifting in diverse pick-and-place roles.
The cost-performance success of fixed cableways suggest the potential
for ACT to do incredible applications at reasonable cost. This page is a
good survey point of fixed cable transport:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_transport
Airborne cableways will be generally more dynamic and often less able to
maintain stable tension compared to fixed versions. Our "string rails"
will commonly operate in swinging low-tension modes. The dynamic nature
of tethered flight offers new opportunities with the challenges.
Megascale AWES need ACT as the " freight elevator" to carry
maintenance workers and parts up and down the vast arrays (see shipwreck
rescue schemes with kites). Long distance high speed ACT is more
speculative, but quite easy compared to the most extreme ACT concept to
be taken seriously--the
Space Elevator.
Mothrapolis will have a "string rail" link, as a flying
dumbwaiter.
Major ACT architectures include fixed line, moving loop, and
combinations of fixed and moving. Carriages are fixed or detachable in
endless combinations. Some will be winged aircraft. Some will operate
from shock-absorbing stand-off tethers from a long catenary-series
line-path.
Free-Flight levopters will also apply many of these methods in the most
dynamic cases of all. Is cool to imagine free-flight flocks of levopter
ships freely trading payloads. Navies have suggestive cableway systems
to exchange cargos between ships underway.
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AirborneWindEnergy/message/8138 and following posts
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