Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) is not easy to apply for airliners, the type of aircraft Airbus and Boeing are manufacturing. The effect to lift a large vehicle with a large payload vertically is significantly larger, compared to the case when the lift is produced by wings, wherein only the D-component of the L/D must be produced by the propulsion units. The Lift/Drag ratio of an airliner is around 20 (in cruising, let us say half of that when the aircraft leaves the tarmac, at 200-300 km/h). This ratio indicates how much more L must be provided for vertical takeoff. To lift MTOW 150-560 tons vertically (L=MTOW, Max-Take-Off-Weight), the engines must produce thrust=MTOW, compared to conventional takeoff: thrust=D, wherein D is only a fraction of L=MTOW. The extreme noise should also be mentioned when the total effect of the propulsion units is extremely high; when extreme amount of air must be pushed down vertically to push the airframe up, in the opposite direction.

Not even a very light sailplane (L/D~50) can defeat gravitation on its own. But sailplanes giv us a hint how to design STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) aircraft. The key to high L/D is high AR (Aspect Ratio): long and slim wings with still large wing area to produce enough lift at low-velocity takeoff. Obstacles are the structural difficulties to build such a long and slim wing as well as airport restrictions (max 80m span, rather

Commercial runways will need to remain long incase there are issues with it and you have to land without the system functioning properly. Further, it requires enormous amounts of fuel. The thrust required to lift a commercial aircraft might even break apart concrete or blacktop that was not in top structural shape.

They both do. Airbus built the Vahana prototype and their new eVTOL, the CityAirbus recently made the first untethered flight. Besides that, Airbus is one of the world biggest helicopter manufacturer.

Boeing built an electric Passenger Air Vehicle (PAV) together with Aurora Flight Sciences. They also produce a lot of helicopters, like the CH-47 Chinook, the V-22 Osprey and the new SB>1 Defiant.

They do, as do a very large number of other manufacturers, federal agencies, research labs, universities, the department of defense, and standards development organizations. VTOL poses complex technical, regulatory, and infrastructural problems, all being actively worked by engineers, scientists, and regulators.

Not only they invest in VTOL research but they have already a live product: Boeing/Bell Osprey V-22. Its is used only in military applications, for it must be financial and economically not feasible for commercial uses. The future of electrical VTOL crafts is blooming, and we will most certainly see them flying commercially.

Take off & landing is nothing to do with long waiting passengers at lounge or bigger airport. It is more on safety, aircraft load & weather. If aircraft is full load, it need more speed before take off. This is commercial aircraft. Fighter aircraft taking short time during take off.

Furthermore during emergency, it is really appropriate for long runway. It have an ample time for pilot to break or stop the aircraft. And it also depends on what type of aircraft. B777 & B737 are different types of aircraft during take off & landing.

Thank you all for your valuable input )Andras Hernadi , Eric Hendrickson , Kimberly S. Wasson , Jorge Eduardo Leal Medeiros , Nur Azlan Abdul Rahim .

I mean, developing and utilizing Fusion Power for commercial airplanes. Yes, I understand that this requires long time of research and large funding, but this is typical for high impact technologies development. Fusion provides tremendous power that potentially more than enough for this purpose.

Interesting article about using fusion for fighter jets is:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/lockheed-martin-nuclear-fusion-jet-fighter

Most of people (at least myself) hate air travel because of the required long time. I always drive if the trip is within 8 hours driving. I think that something has to be done to shorten the time of taking air trip.

An interesting 5 years old news "

How to fly cross-country without using airports":

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/vertical-take-off-landing-commercial-airplanes-feat/index.html

Because the vertical take off requires tipycally 10 times more power than the use of a wing to obtain the lift, So, if you want to design and manufacture a VTOL aircraft for more than 100 persons, you will need to generate a lift of more than 50 tons. For a 100 seaters aircraft, the installed turbifans have to generate a thrust of about 18 tons, much less than the 50 tons discussed above. In addition, just think at the additional weight of the engines delivering 50 tons of thrust.

As conclusion: at present state of the art it is possible to produce commercial aircraft capable of VTOL, but it is not economic. Just think that the flight hour of a standard helicopter is abot 8 times higher than the FH cost of an aircraft transporting the same number of passengers.

Dear Claudio Peretti ,

Thank you for your valuable input.

Dear Zeashan H. Khan

Thank you for your participation in this discussion.

Now all major aviation companies are investing in R & D of VTOL/ eVTOL Aircraft.

Almost all aviation major companies are investing heavily and collaborating in meaningful Research and Development of such vehicles. Uber has collaborated with AT & T, Joby Aviation and Hyundai; Toyota is also investing in Joby Aviation, Boeing has collaborated with Kitty Hawk and Porsche; Airbus worked on Vahana and is now working on Citybus, and German company Volocopter has collaborated with London based startup Skyports.

The helicopters have not been able to find many takers in air taxi segment because they are costly, noisy, maintenance intensive and potentially dangerous machines. This new class of flying vehicle in this VTOL segment which could overcome these issues has been a dream of both - the Car makers as well as the aircraft manufacturers. These are being called Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles. eVTOLs are light commercial aircraft that can take off and land vertically like helicopters and fly forward like airplanes. Unlike helicopters, they use batteries instead of Aviation Turbine Fuel for propulsion and are more maneuverable, less complex, and more efficient than helicopters. They are designed to fly at a lower altitude than commercial aircraft and will be either piloted or autonomous. The advancements in technology both hardware and software is making this possible. The progress in weight reduction, carbon fiber composites, denser and higher energy density batteries which improve the power to weight, Smaller, lighter electric motors, more powerful micro motors for distributed electronic propulsion are the reasons for this advancement.

What is the question?