Proof by induction In the future, airliners could be catapulted
into the sky by electric motors READERS of a certain age may
remember “Fireball XL5”, a children’s television programme
devised by Gerry Anderson about a spacecraft of that name.
Instead of taking off vertically, as real spacecraft do,
Fireball XL5 sat on a rocket-propelled trolley that accelerated
it horizontally to launch speed. And that, in effect, is what
engineers at Airbus, Europe’s largest civil-aviation company,
are proposing in their latest bout of blue-sky thinking. Apart
from the fact that the trolley would be powered by linear-
induction motors (specialised electric motors currently employed
in high-speed trains like the one that runs to and from
Shanghai’s airport) rather than rockets, they are suggesting
that the fantasy of 1962 might become the reality of 2050.
Mindful that many passengers are already nervous about the whole
process of getting a plane airborne, the engineers prefer to
call their proposal “Eco-climb”. But the idea is