100X to 200X

 Ground-effect flight provides a path to attaining the significant decreases in energy intensity associated with an initial goal.  Battery powering of trains and aircraft faces obstacles with the high loads, especially the jetwash losses which can more than double the sum of all other loads and resistances (except fuel conversion to shaft work). 

Why Ground-Effect Flight?

(Ground Effect Flight Transit (GEFT))

GEFT’s cushion of air mitigates >95% of the mechanical/rolling losses versus trains and GEFT’s operation with passive stability next to the ground mitigates appendage losses, most pressure drag, and jetwash losses versus aircraft. Substantial reductions in resistance enable battery and direct-electric power, which eliminates engine losses. 

The ground-effect flight transit (GEFT) vehicle is a streamlined fuselage without appendages and without heavy chassis. A ducted fan has a primary purpose of mitigating boundary layer separation and inducing thrust, which have minimal jetwash losses. Additional propulsion may be wheel (at very low loadings and resistance) or linear motors.

The table identifies target performances for a >95% reduction in energy intensity versus the jet aircraft benchmark. With most of the lift from a cushion of air, the ability to seamlessly switch between railway and highway corridors at high speeds is attainable in short order.

In summary GEFT has advantages of:

1. Near-zero mechanical/rolling losses.
2. Jetwash mitigation by: a) using ducted fan to substantially reduce drag and b) supplement propulsion with wheels (or linear motors if infrastructure is modified).
3. Appendage elimination due to passive stability in close proximity to ground.
4. Battery-power to eliminate use of liquid fuels as enabled by reduced resistances.
5. Substantial reductions in pressure drag due to boundary layer mitigation using the upper-surface trailing-section ducted fan.
6. Substantially increased speeds by replacing 95% of wheel suspension with a cushion of air that enables aerodynamic navigation and faster transit times. This creates a massive payback for the next step of self-propelled multimodal vehicles which reduces transit times by more than 50% and, in some instances, more than 80%.
7. Trillion-Dollar Impact – Cutting transit times in half allows mass transit to replace automobile transit and mitigates traffic congestion where the world-wide money value of time for mitigation traffic congestion is about a trillion dollars per year.
8. Faster non-stop transit using multimodal vehicles with thousands of stations (all ports and metro/subway stations) without TSA lines and delays make GEFT faster than air transit for vast majority of intra-continental routes.
9. Transit on existing railway and highway corridors avoid traffic congestion in the skies and is ultimately faster. 

HS-Drone claims an improved understanding in both basic and strategic technologies which have enabled these advances. We openly discuss and publish this information and respect the rights of others to adhere to schools of thought. HS-Drone believes in full disclosure to our youth so they have the facts to decide for themselves; hence, we have an “Education Epicenter Initiative” to give our children and future generations information needed to make more-informed decisions.

HS-Drone’s 9-year path to this point included many errors associated with trying to apply the “theories of lift”. In late 2023, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) studies were initiated toward an improved basic understanding. Three years of advancing the understanding and optimizing digital prototypes has now (2026) plateaued on a methodology that bridges the gap between air and rail transit with the common element of the passenger fuselage. The following table provides increased details on how a 100-200X increase in energy intensity inflation occurs between what is possible and actual train and jet airliner performances.

An Evolutionary Path?

GEFT enables an environmentally-friendly path forward which substantially reduces transit times and eliminates the cash flow of oil revenues which finances wars and destruction. The following are possible in a path forward:

· Early market entry using existing infrastructure to travel faster.

· Elimination of traffic congestion using faster lower-cost mass transit on existing highway/railway infrastructure.

· >90% reduction in transit times with elimination of liquid fuels for transit.

· >50%, the >80%, reduction in transit times and costs.

· More scheduling options with minimal to zero penalties if you “miss your flight” and the bonus of not having to schedule 30-180 minute buffers in time due to traffic, connections, and queues.

· Synergy with solar power on tracks and vehicles to lessen environmental impact.

· Synergy with autonomy to further reduce costs and increase options

· Synergy with the “on-board-hotel” of large train units for overnight trans-continental trips with sleeper cars.

· A luxury option of lower-cost private railcars to faster more-private transit. These can be moving offices that allow quality work time on multi-hour trips.

· Improved societal options where downtown access is easy and fast even at distances of greater than 100 miles from downtown.

A Commitment

To The Next Generation, Elderly, and All – HS-Drone has full transparency of the technology and is willing to provide details and explanations to help all to better understand and make more-informed decisions. This includes a “be real” documentation of the resistances and that are encountered. Often times, those institutes and agencies the people rely on the most to provide a better path forward are the greatest obstacles due to ignorance, hubris, and conflicts of interest. HS-Drone will try to “be nice” when confronted with ignorance, hubris, and conflicts of interest; however, the practice of these vices have a high price for all. At the very least, they will be documented.

$Trillion Impact:

Vehicles that go faster, farther, and cheaper on existing infrastructure immediately increase the value of current infrastructure worldwide!

High Speed Buses - Yes!  Eventually remove busses, trucks, and speedsters from the main transit lanes.  Give them dedicated travel lanes at speeds of 80, 90, and over 100 mph!  If you want to be a speedster, get the driver's license upgrade and vehicle tracking to make it happen.

NOT FUTURISTIC - It is smart and could be made to happen in months.  Start with trucks.  Then have trucks pull passenger trailers, similar to trains.  It is the same technology.

High speed buses can increase the value of current infrastructure, BUT THERE IS MORE TO THIS!

• High Speed Buses
• High Speed Trucks
• Seamless Connectivity:  Highway-Railway-Subway
• High Speed Railcars
• A True Cooperation Between Highway, Railway, Airway, and Waterway transit.

And by the way, high efficiency enables electric powertrains to avoid greenhouse gas emissions.  It is a fast track to a solution.   How is this possible:  Vehicle technology with breakthrough energy efficiencies.

A focus on vehicle technology makes this happen faster and better.  Also, salvage those unfinished rail projects with a path of greater performance than previously thought possible.

New Ground-Effect Flight Transit (GEFT) is poised to be a world-transforming advance including the following aspects:

• No new infrastructure (only vehicles) is needed to reduce total transit times by more than half including the highest highspeed trains operating on rails not suitable for other highspeed vehicles,
• Incredible access to facilities uses existing railway and subway stations as well as very simple bus stops including widespread use of nonstop transit,
• Major advances in efficiency substantially expanding what is possible with electric vehicles/trucks and vehicle-based solar power.  
• GEFT is inherently multimodal allowing vehicles to seamlessly travel from railway to highway to waterway corridors offering a truly revolutionary advance in speed and efficiency for lake/bay/coastal/island communities, and
• The system is an open-ended technology which means greater and greater applications will evolve and manifest which are poised to dominate transit in the 5-2000 mile range.

What were considered unattainable in 2023, now have paths of short timelines to realize, including:   solar-powered trucks, solar-powered passenger aircraft, and trans-modal ground-effect vehicles cutting time and costs by 50% to  80%.  

The underlying problems of past explanations of aerodynamic lift are well known,  No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air.  The accurate science is now known, An Airfoil Science Including Causality.

Six refereed papers and six additional papers in preparation provide DETAILS!