The Hawai’i Seaglider Initiative: A new approach to travel between the islands
hawaiiseaglider.org
hawaiiseaglider.org
The current plane's wingspan is 65 feet, which probably means it flies about 32 feet (half a wingspan) off the water. Rogue waves can easily be that high in mild weather, and hitting even a small amount of water at 200 mph (claimed cruise speed) is bad.
Lots of sea birds too, presumably, at that altitude.
It's small compared to regular flight, but it's far more efficient than a regular boat hull pushing the water. A lot of that efficiency is achieved in hydrofoil mode, but lifting into ground effect mode should be even more efficient than hydrofoil (albeit as you say at some loss of stability).
There are already several electric hydrofoil pleasure boats available that have remarkable range, i.e. Navier and Candela.
the certification of the craft as a ship instead of a plane. I think it'd be very easy to build today a flying boat like the ones from 30s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper), yet certification cost of it makes it unfeasible as a business endeavor.
In general, if I remember correctly, the cheap inter-island transportation isn't really wanted there as it is expected to bring homeless/etc. to the otherwise affluent islands.
There’s already dirt cheap inter-island transport, it’s just slow. A homeless guy doesn’t care if the ferry takes 2 hours instead of 30 minutes when the ticket is $40.
>There’s already dirt cheap inter-island transport
that is the point that there is no such transport.
This feels like something that an automated system could pretty easily detect, up to the range of visibility, and raise the seaplane up if this happens.
Further, this is an inter-island route. Adding dedicated monitoring seems imminently doable.
Yes, this is a concern. No, it's not hard to deal with.
You're probably right. But it also makes me think this might be a fantastically unlikely problem. I wonder where we'd get data on the likeliness of rogue waves of what size around Hawaii. It also stirs wondermemt about wavelength/periodicity of wave systems.
Not necessarily, especially around costal islands in the ocean
The confluence of wind and tide around islands causes unpredictable ant violent sea conditions
Costal sailors know this
The current Regent ekranoplan, not yet shipping, is a 12 passenger model. That seems small for an inter-island ferry. It would be faster than a ferry, but since the existing inter-island ferry routes only run about an hour, more speed may not be worth the trouble.
Probably just a tourist attraction.
Something that could take a few shipping containers, automobiles, passengers etc. however, you'd think there would be a greater demand for something like that.
Ekranoplan is a class of vehicles; the "Caspian Sea Monster" was an individual experimental ekranoplan (the Lun-class was a later large combat ekranoplan, with a short career.)
> For these kind of endeavours you'd really want to go big or home
I don't know, I think for commercial ventures without bottomless military funding backing, starting small makes sense, there's lots of places small tourist ekranoplans could find a market.
Yes and no. One the one hand, absolutely a tourist attraction. Its projected to be cheaper than flying, and hopes to be a lot less hassle. (Expect pushback from the airlines. )
However small capacity, cheap, accessible transport is a boon for islanders living in archipelago. For starters you're not bound to islands big enough for an airport.
Given that the vehicle is electric, and hawaii has abundant solar energy, it could end up being very cost effective.
So what starts small, and touristy, might end up being mainstream and useful in lots of similar (ie island) contexts.
On the environmental front I expect the usual "complain about anything new" crowd, coupled with push-back from existing operators. But it's hard to see how this does more environmental harm than planes or boats.
The competition for that space is seaplanes, including both floatplanes and flying boats, which have been around for a century. Electric versions of those exist, like https://harbourair.com/corporate-responsibility/goingelectri... , and https://el-fly.no/ wants to build an electric amphibious flying boat.
Yes, a ground-effect vehicle has better wing efficiency than an aircraft. However, it has disadvantages, like how it handles waves. A flying boat, for example, only needs to worry about the waves at the departure and arrival locations, which may be in a protected harbor or channel, while a GEV must deal with larger waves between the islands.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle#Advantag... for additional comparisons.
> So what starts small, and touristy
I flew on a seaplane between the US and the Bahamas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk%27s_International_Airlin... . It was a fun touristy thing, but not touristy enough to maintain a commercial seaplane service.
> On the environmental front I expect the usual "complain about anything new" crowd
Thing is, this isn't new. Ground effect vehicles have been around for decades, the technology is pretty mature, and the problems also pretty well known. If someone cracks that nut - great! - but a lot of people have tried and failed to extend its use outside of some niche areas. That history of failure tends to dampen enthusiasm.
> But it's hard to see how this does more environmental harm than planes or boats.
That calculation is not easy. If you want to minimize environmental harm the most, switch to sailboat. Cook used no fossil fuels to travel to and around Hawaii, and neither did the Polynesians who discovered the place.
If you want to minimize CO2 emissions, ban all inter-island flights and switch to ferries - https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint says ferries emit about 1/7th of the CO2 as short-haul flights.
And there are electric ferries these days, like https://www.electrive.com/2021/03/02/worlds-largest-electric... , though that's not ocean going. See https://electrek.co/2023/01/17/worlds-largest-electric-ferry... for one in the works.
Airplanes operate in a hostel environment where the penalty for failure is severe. The translates into a lot of (good) regulation which makes planes expensive to make, and expensive to maintain.
Ground effect vehicles are more in the car/boat space when it comes to mechanical failure. Sure I'm not saying it can be made of some wire and duct tape, but the necessary mechanical standard is a -lot- lower (ie cheaper.)
>> . If you want to minimize environmental harm
Sure. Or stay home. There's always something better. But that wasn't the hypothesis. The statement was that its better than planes or (motor) boats.
Frankly, if an electric craft is charged from solar or wind, its already as good as a sailboat.
Understood. Though as the comparison link mentions, there's another important cost - "limited utility has kept production levels low enough that it has been impossible to amortize development costs sufficiently to make GEVs competitive with conventional aircraft".
I don't pretend to have more than a surface knowledge about topic, but when the idea has been around decades, developed and promoted for decades, and is still only a niche mode of travel (along with hovercraft, hydrofoil, and flying boats), that tells me the doubts aren't simply from those who "complain about anything new".
> The statement was that its better than planes or (motor) boats.
Sure. My comment was to point out how complicated the full calculation was, because it should include the electric ferries that becoming available, and not limit itself to motor boats.
Not quite. This thing depends on dynamic stability. If a wingtip touches the water at speed, it will probably flip. It has to turn without banking. So it has many of the stability and control problems of an aircraft at landing, plus some of the wave problems of a seaplane. It's not like a big, wide hovercraft, where, if you lose power, you just settle down into boat mode.
Chalks suffered a tragic structural failure, likely caused by corrosion, which mostly ended the company.
Certainly claiming these could be in service next year is a tad over optimistic.
No, this is a combination ekranoplan and hydrofoil. I think whether it's classified as the "world's first" is going to depend on what counts as operational, but it's certainly much less common than ekranoplans.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3heh9swH2Zw&list=PLXvxJNOIXB...
The one in the link actually looks fairly sane, it's smaller and powered by only 1 turboprop by the looks of it (edit: nope it has 2 turbofans in the nose too). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-90_Orlyonok
Edit: oops I see it was already mentioned sorry. I was reading on mobile.
What inter-island ferry routes? There aren’t any, and when there were many of the routes were muuuuuch longer than an hour. The I harbored portion of the island chain is almost 300 miles long - a trip from Hilo to Honolulu would be ~240 miles.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920
* https://old.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/175un38/why_does...
> Ferry operations were suspended in March 2009 after the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a state law allowing the Superferry to operate without a second complete environmental impact statement was unconstitutional.[2] The company went bankrupt as a result of these actions preventing service in Hawaii.[3] On July 2, 2009 a Delaware Bankruptcy Court granted the company's motion to abandon both the ships Alakai and Huakai, ending all possibilities that the company might return to Hawaii;[4] the ships were bought by the US Maritime Administration in 2010.[5] The United States Navy eventually purchased the craft for a total of $35M, a small fraction of their original $180M cost.[6]
But I'm not seeing why it would be bad for a local ferry. The sailors operating the ferry are going to be living on the islands, so requiring them to be legal permanent residents doesn't seem too onerous. And these don't have enough range to be traveling to foreign islands so that complication doesn't apply.
So no Chinese investors, or Korean ships. So less competition.
You are right that the requirement for the crews to be local is less of an issue for a local ferry.
Don’t know about giving grants though. They should be able to drum up enough business to make it work if it’s going to be viable long term. Lot of inter-island hopping in Hawaii.
The competitor to this is a boat, traditional airplane (including electric).
Hawaii airlines is the “traditional way” to get between the islands: the main airline taking people between islands for a long time now. Southwest is also now a pretty formidable competitor to them. So really, any service just needs to compete with them, because that’s what everybody takes. I guess there is also Mokulele, Makani Kai and Lanai too for the four seasons crowd and I think there is a boat to Lanai from Maui too.
I know people sometimes jump helicopters for way out. That’s expensive but there are a lot of places that are super hard to get to otherwise. I think there’s a real use case for a vtol taxi service.
You’ll know this company is getting serious if after starting up (presuming they do) they start a rewards program with someone like Costco. That’s the best way to get local people using your service. Free points trips compensated by Costco purchases will put asses in seats in the islands for sure. Busiest Costco in the world is in Oahu.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE...
https://beatofhawaii.com/hawaii-seaglider-flies-forward-with...
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128397643/transport-revolut...
"Ocean Flyer’s seagliders would be able to fly people between Wellington and Lyttelton in an hour for $60 a seat, or between Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour and Whangarei in 30 minutes for $30, Aslam forecast."
Feels pretty speculative
It's too far to use the Harbour infrastructure at either end. You would have to build a pier on the southern side of Wellington (say Island Bay) and then use New Brighton pier. That works out to about 295 km.
With only 300km range, it's hard to find good routes in NZ.
From what I can tell, the design is still in development. The 300km number is probably more of a conservative estimate than an actual range. The Ocean Flyer team might be gambling on the real-world range being long enough for the Christchurch-Wellington route.
That said, given how much the current ferry has issues - maybe this is just as safe.
Here's a contemporaneous report about the lava rocks from an independent journalist: http://www.islandbreath.org/2007Year/09-access&transport/070...
The rocks weren't the direct cause of the Superferry shutting down, but in my recollection they sure charted the course that way: people who might have seemed to some like they were just fighting change to fight change suddenly had irrefutable evidence to confirm their fears. There were of course other legal challenges that actually led to the shutdown, bankruptcy, and subsequent abandonment of the vessels. But at the time, on the neighbor islands, it sure crystalized the opposition.
> The Hawaii Superferry started service in 2007 but only lasted until 2009 after the state Supreme Court ruled that a law allowing it to operate without a second complete environmental study was unconstitutional.
A lot of the outer island folks loved it. I did. I lived on Maui at the time.
Also since its effectively float-able by design it has the potential to be very safe even if its propulsion breaks during the trip. you could just send another plane to take the passengers off then take the broken plane home pulled by a ship. This capability should be designed in.
The limited trip length might even lend itself to concepts that are fully or partially battery powered.
one downside is that the plane might not be able to be used in rougher weather.
To be clear, what I read about the ferry service being shut down made it sound like Hawaii has some dysfunction preventing good and normal things from happening, just sounds like this would be less feasible
This thing is electric and flies over the water. So it uses way less power per mile than if it was a boat in the water. And likewise because it flies in ground effect, it has an advantage over electrical planes as well. Hydrofoils might be close enough but still use more power and are probably also a lot slower.
The cost of the electricity is less of a concern here since electricity is cheap. The main efficiency related concern is the impact it has on range as batteries are expensive and heavy. Distances in Hawaii are not enormous but long enough that you'd have to worry about this. So, given that this thing has the needed range, it should be quite attractive as an alternative to planes. Cheaper and cleaner to operate (presumably) and quick enough that the difference doesn't matter. And a lot faster than ferries or hydrofoils.
It better be able to fly out of ground effect as well, or service would have to be suspended whenever the sea state doesn't allow it.
Currently, the only way to travel between the islands is by actual airplanes, through airports, with all the annoyances that comes with that, TSA, security, bag checks, prohibited items, and a gazillion other rules. That's what this thing will compete against, and it's pretty much a slam dunk.
Unless it will be lobbied to death like the predecessors.
There were also a lot of environmental protests against the Superferry that I doubt can all be chalked up to car rental and airline lobbying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry
If they're keeping TSA for intrastate flightd it's just as a fed funded voluntary jobs program for low IQ undereducated people to not have to rely on state welfare .
I have done an inter-island flight from smaller small prop plane terminal in Kona adjacent to the main (but still small) terminal and I'm guessing I didn't have a security screening in that case.
The fact that you could bring your car to another island was epic. These planes cannot do that.
>A preliminary survey of Hawai‘i residents showed they are concerned that seagliders will only be affordable to the affluent ...
So the fares might be too high.
[...]
>Others expressed their concern about how seagliders can potentially impact communities through an increase in visitors.
So the fares might be too low.
I suspect efficiency in what looks more like traditional air travel will be the way to go.
I wonder what new battery technology they plan to use that they think will provide a 250% range increase. The 180mph top speed is impressive, but you're not going to be able to operate at that speed around other sea traffic.
You need just the right situation for this thing - docks not too far apart, but far enough apart that an ordinary ferry is too slow. An area with so little sea traffic that it can go full speed. Long Beach to Catalina Island is out; you can't zip these things across a major shipping lane full of container ships. Wall Street to the Hamptons has the same problem. Not sure about inter-island in Hawaii. Probably more useful in areas with lots of small populated islands. East Asia, maybe.
This thing is certainly buildable, but it seems to be more in the private jet category than a major transportation system.
JAL: https://press.jal.co.jp/en/items/uploads/7bd1bf3e9623f0ade78...
Mesa: https://www.mesa-air.com/regent
Mokulele (owned by Southern) links to news report about it on their home page: https://mokuleleairlines.com
The investments are real, but at least some of them might be more about the optics of investing in zero emissions planes rather than actually expecting these to enter service
> you can't zip these things across a major shipping lane full of container ships.
Why not? At the speed this thing is flying the container ships are almost stationary. If we take the Long Beach to Catalina Island example the flight time would be on the order of 10 minutes. If you take the full speed of a container ship they can travel around 5 miles under that. If you plot a course which avoids them by that much they can't jump in front of the plane even if they try.
The big thing here now is Right Whales ships bash their heads in since they seem to always be in the way of ships. Cruise ships, cargo ships, fishing all have to slow down to a crawl if whales are spotted.
Flying would be far faster than ferry some take 8 hours others 1 hour. Although flights here are ridiculously expensive $800 to $1,000 one-way to go 150km.
Also it seems like it's not very bike / cycling friendly either:
* https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/07/keona-blanks-when-it-comes...
Most of the small town/cities/resort communities are quite walkable once you get there. Everything else is extremely spread out--rural for the most part by any reasonable measure. Also often difficult terrain.
Rather than try to build and maintain difficult overland transport at land-speed, we could seaglider between coastal villages.
so all the concerns are accurate and nothing will be done to create a different reality. understandable. cant wait to visit!
Sea animals collide with motor boats occasionally but this Seaglider would be even more likely to do so because:
- It doesn't produce as much underwater noise as a motor which would normally serve to alarm sea animals.
- It goes a lot faster, giving sea animals less time to react.
Then there is the concern about what a collision would cause to the Seaglider itself if the hydrofoil broke off or worse, didn't break off and caused the Seaglider to plunge, nose first, into the ocean.
The other thing to be concerned about are sub-surface rocks. If a boat goes over a rock that's hidden just below the surface, it can badly damage the boat and motor and can cause death, but again, the faster you go, the more damage can be done.
Also rocks are only a concern in a small area of ocean around the takeoff and landing areas, which will presumably be fairly well surveyed.
Fun.