Advanced seaplanes may help ease pressure on airports

A British research team has proposed a concept design of advanced seaplane which is bigger, faster, and more efficient than conventional passenger aircraft, and may help ease the pressure on major airports around the world, according to a press release published Tuesday by the Imperial College London.

Researchers from Imperial College London's Department of Aeronautics have developed a design concept for a medium to long-range seaplane, which they say may reduce the pressure on inland airports.

The design takes its inspiration from the flying boat aeroplanes of the 1940s, but has a 'blended wing body' configuration, giving it the advantage of reducing air resistance when it is in the air, which could make it more fuel efficient, researchers said.

They also said the largest concept seaplane design would have the capacity to carry up to 2,000 passengers at a time. This is compared to the world's largest passenger airliner currently in operation, the Airbus A380, which can hold only to 800 passengers in a trip.

The colossal size of the seaplane design also enables it to use environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, which has no harmful emissions, according to the researchers.

Hydrogen fuel takes up four times the amount of space of traditional kerosene fuel and is currently impractical for conventional aircraft to store.

Dr Errikos Levis, from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial, said: "we wanted to show a radical approach to the constraints on land-cased airports, and look at how advanced seaplanes, using today's technology, could once again become an alternative mode of travel for long-haul flights."