Ground Effect Flight Transit (GEFT) – Towards Trans-Modal Sustainability

Low aspect ratio design in ground-effect flight is the critical feature to enable the combination of ground effect flight and free flight for the non-stop transition from flight engaging railway, subway, highway, and waterway corridors. Efficient ground effect flight allows for novel applications of existing railway infrastructure for improved transportation. The non-stop transition from these corridors enables new approaches to reduce the costs of transit congestion and infrastructure. A new ground effect flight transit platform (GEFT) uses a hovercraft-type cavity having aspect ratios less than 1.0 to achieve energy efficiencies more than 200% the efficiencies of contemporary automobiles and aircraft. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides insight and performance trends to match vehicle specifications with corridors and applications. Applications range from commuter to trans-continental transit.