Current Status of SkyTran

Great! I'm convinced. I love it!
Show our Governor your working MagLev SkyTran System and I'll help vote it in!
Aaaarrrrgghh! Ain't no such animal - yet. It is still just a concept that makes a lot of theoretical sense. It needs money to tear into it properly - a lot.

Why it hasn't happened yet is mostly my fault. I detest paperwork and details. I can't see myself applying for any government energy or innovation grants because of all the bureaucratic crap that I would be stuck with. If they supplied paperwork bozos along with the grants to take care of their required paperwork, it might be more appealing. I guess I also don't want to deal with all their other silly rules either. If I want to hire all black engineers (and I know a bunch of dam good practical ones), to the exclusion of Hispanics, Women, Polaks, etc. the government won't let me. I start reading the grant application forms and rules and never finish - because I toss it all in the garbage first in disgust. Basically, I'm selfish. I prefer to think and create. I have plenty of other non-hassle projects I can be involved in to feed my brain endorphins or whatever. I am definitely not the right kind of personality to carry this project to fruition in the real world!

The alternative is my usual private financing sources. It is all I know how to do! So far, everyone of those smart, practical, money people realize what a political nightmare getting something like this going could be. They don't want to spend their money and end up dinking around for 10 years with politicians, whether or not the technology is dumb or great. It would really be a shame if some foreign country decides to tear into it and ends up exporting it to the USA 10 or 15 years downstream. Poof - goes that deficit again!

Maybe my hope is the World Wide Web? I suspect a few young bright boys and girls will read this stuff on the web and grow up and become a state Governor or some such. They will know what to do!

In the meantime, young 30 year old, Peter Wokwicz, from Chicago, Illinois has become the standard bearer of the project (even my SkyTran co-patentee, Frank Baker, has pretty much dropped by the wayside for less frustrating pursuits). Peter is a very unusual young man. He has a degree in Physics AND a degree in Finance! Thus, he totally comprehends the awesome technical implications of the SkyTran concept and understands the reality of money needed for something of this magnitude. Peter EMailed me after spending three months of research on transportation systems. The SkyTran System concept, to him, was the answer.

Young Wokwicz found the basic info on THE WEB (Hah, I told you) on University of Washington's Professor Jerry Schneider's huge site on all kinds of Advanced Transportation Projects . Jerry has a whole section on PRT - Personal Rapid Transit (none of which is "rapid" at all. The PRT name comes from concepts that go back to the 70's when cruising at 35 MPH was considered quite "rapid" compared to existing 3 MPH People Movers). The little bit of old stuff Jerry has on our concept is at People Pods .

FINAL REVIEW

THE NEED FOR A PURE SOLID STATE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
By now you can see we are absolutely insistent on a solid state transportation system. This close to the new millennium, we feel it is foolish to pursue anything with gears, wheels and tires that continuously wear out and require never ending money for replacement, especially when the proper MagLev technology seems within our grasp.

THE NEED FOR HIGH VOLUME MASS PRODUCTION
Our system will require many, many small light vehicles. This means huge economies of scale in manufacturing mass production can eventually be realized. The MagLev levitation; the forward propulsion; the braking; the dynamic stability and damping; and exit lane and merging lane control must be entirely within the capability of each vehicle since they will be running around all over the grid independently just like private automobiles.

COSTS DICTATE THE NEED FOR PASSIVE TRACK WITH ACTIVE VEHICLES
We don’t feel we can use a powered track in conjunction with a passive vehicle because:

1. the cost of miles and miles of such track would greatly exceed our objectives and destroy the potential economic benefits; and
2. the multiplicity of vehicles going all over the future grid of monorail track might be impossible to individually accelerate/decelerate at will. Simply put, a working demo wherein the full length of the track is loaded with computer controlled coils would immediately result in skeptical treatment of our cost saving claims.