A new CGI video details how the AI-piloted Sky Cruise plans to remain airborne for months at a time, while also docking to take on new passengers, or to drop off anyone board.
The futuristic hybrid between a plane and hotel – which has 20 engines powered by nuclear fusion – is designed never to land.
The greatly detailed video also promises restaurants, a gigantic shopping mall, a gym, theatre and even a swimming pool – all in the sky.
The concept of an immense "flying platform" still fascinates us. In the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a 2004 movie directed by Kerry Conran and starring Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, the intrepid Sky Captain runs out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, a huge flying platform commanded by his friend Franky (played by Angelina Jolie) was in the area.
(Movie-style flying aircraft carrier with plane in foreground)
Just look at the imagination of Ed Earl Repp writing in Air Wonder Stories in 1929; behold the air-freighter cargo plane from The Invisible Raiders!
What Colonel Brigham saw on the screen of his private television instrument caused his blood to leap. In
formation, swiftly approaching the huge air-freighter
Jupiter with its valuable cargo of ingot gold, silver and
platinum shipped east from the western mining regions,
were twenty small triple-motored ships of the fast pursuit type. With twin screws spinning at high velocity,
they swung downward gradually. Like sparrows attacking an eagle, the ships, which would have been invisible
to the naked eye, hovered for an instant over the broad
aerofoils of the unsuspecting freighter. Suddenly as
one, a number of them settled on the Jupiter’s expansive wings!
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