Link & Fly – Speeding up the Turnaround

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Link & Fly could speed up airport ground operations and make more flights per day possible.  AKKA Technologies, a French consulting and design firm, links two of its areas of expertise, railways and aircraft, in an airborne equivalent of linking an available flight vehicle to a railroad passenger “car.”  First shown at this year’s Paris Air Show, the aircraft, “Addresses multiple passenger, aircraft, and infrastructure operational challenges through innovative technologies.” Today, AKKA announced the successful test flight of a 1:13 turbine jet drone near Toulouse, France, which the company lauded as, “An exciting moment for AKKA and a major step in the Link & Fly project.”    AKKA adds, “This is the minimum scale model required to adequately reproduce flying conditions and validate the flight physics of the full-sized aircraft.” Roughly equivalent to a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320, Link & Fly has a 40-foot longer wingspan to carry a roughly equivalent load as the Airbus and Boeing, giving is a …