Fluxjet, the “plane without wings” that stands up to Elon Musk’s Hyperloop: it will travel at 1,200 km / h

Much was said at the beginning of the Hyperloop or what is the same, the ultra-fast trains that seek to unseat aviation in speed without contributing to climate change. But projects like Elon Musk’s or their peers in Spain they no longer give so much to talk about, which does not mean that there are no advances or new projects such as this Canadian “wingless plane” completely powered by renewable energy.

The TransPod company celebrates in its latest announcement the construction of a tube train that will fly at high speed from Calgary to Edmonton (Canada) in just 45 minutes. This is a distance of 299 kilometers and the passengers will travel three times faster than today’s high-speed train. It is a new proposal for this futuristic mode of transport that does not give up joking with devouring the competition.

The train named FluxJet has been designed to be faster and cleaner than planes, as they ensure that it will only use renewable energy to transport goods and passengers without creating a carbon footprint. The project and its illustrations show a fast and luxurious journey, but there is still a very long way to go to achieve it. Other companies with a similar purpose are still immersed in prototype testing and mired in endless regulatory hurdles.

[Así es el nuevo tren chino que levita suspendido de vías imantadas y sin consumir energía]

Travel by FluxJet

Companies like SpaceX’s Hyperloop, the best known, propose trips as fast as the ones announcing TransPod. In this case, the model train is larger than those being built by Elon Musk’s company, an approach Canadians joke about on social media. Fifty passengers will travel in luxury cars with an air similar to that of current long-distance trains, except for substantial differences.

One of the comforts that the company highlights is the ease and speed of charging that the FluxJet and its stations have. “every 80 secondsa capsule can leave the station and travel to new destinations”. In this way, the current waiting times that passengers suffer when boarding trains or planes are reduced. The system would be more similar to that of the subway, but for long distances.

Passengers board the car at the ends, first passing through the barrier that protects the encapsulated track. When everyone is assembled, the access doors from the platform are closed and the ramps that allow reaching the wagon are retracted, the wagon doors are also hermetically closed to start the journey.

The same would happen with the transport of goods, it would be fast and efficient, both in the journey and in the assembly. In each train or capsule there is a 54 passenger capacity maximum, with space for 2 wheelchairs and four luggage racks. Depending on the type of trip, the interior space can be adapted with more seats or more tables and allow work during the journey.

How does it fly?

The FluxJet it can travel on the road at more than 1,000 km/h, being faster than an airplane and three times faster than a current high-speed train. Although the company does not give many clues about the innovative technologies that it intends to use, it is based, like the rest of the trains, on the impulse by means of a magnetic flotation system through a network of low pressure tubes.

TransPod also uses the magnetic levitation technology to eliminate rolling resistance, but they have decided to apply it when the train is already out of town and decides to reach very high speeds. Between urban stations, this means of transport will have to settle for more prudent speeds.

That is, the landing gear of this “wingless plane” will not retract until the capsule reaches at least 300 km/h, at which point it will be ready to accelerate to 1,000 km/h, with its maximum speed being 1,200 km/h

The system also appears to be based on what they describe as a new branch of physics, the veillance flux. something that in other studies relate to a way of measuring the detection capacity of cameras and sensors. It could be referring to the vision positioning system that scans the tube ahead and adjusts the position of the capsule in the tube accordingly. In the demonstration videos, it can be seen how in the front part, the capsule has a scanner system that analyzes what is in front of the car.

The capsules will include backup batteries on board. However, at the time of reaching the maximum speed, a unit is extended to capturing energy without contact from the tube you are ‘flying’ through. The plasma is part of the system, an acceleration mechanism similar to that produced in CERN in Switzerland, but on a more basic scale to move a train. All this energy would come from renewable sources, although not yet determined.

Will it come to fruition?

“TransPod differentiates itself from other vacuum tube train systems by its low infrastructure and maintenance costs.” This is one of the company’s promises, even though no train has yet been built. To function, it requires its own infrastructure, the so-called TransPod Line: a network of tracks with stations in key cities.

Using it between the two Canadian cities would cut almost a third of the freeway traffic that currently links them, according to TransPod, and each passenger will save so much carbon from their green energy that the effect will be like planting a tree. So they wait reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 636,000 tons per year.

It is early to applaud the progress of this mode of transport, especially if one takes into account the rest of the high-speed projects that have not yet fulfilled a good part of their promises. Virgin Hyperloop has changed course this year towards freight, according to TheVerge, due to security and regulatory problems to carry passengers. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s company made in 2020 the first test with passengersalthough without reaching the impressive speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour that had been set since its inception.

Aside from developing the technology, another missing step is unify the parameters before starting to build unequal networks in each country. For this, the JTC committee was formed in Europe in 2020, made up of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the companies that are trying to promote this mode of transport in each country: Hardt Hyperloop (from the Netherlands), Hyper Poland (from Poland), TransPod (from Canada, with offices in Italy and France) and Zeleros Hyperloop (from Spain).

The bet is firm and the investments, very high. TransPod says that has raised $550 million in funding. The company is offering to build the connection between the two Canadian cities for US$18 billion, which would work out to US$60 million per kilometer. The road is drawn long until you can see these trains flying at breakneck speeds to communicate cities.

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