Two TEU Container Aircraft as a Complementation of Intermodal Fast Sea Transport

This paper presents the new concept of a transport aircraft, specialized in transport of standard ISO 1A container or two 1C containers. The number of containers transported worldwide and its annual growth shows, that the specialized container aircraft can supplement the fast sea intermodal transport of containerized goods. Since last twenty years, three new classes of heavy container ships appeared, accelerating the transport growth. New container aircraft must fulfill both sea transport and aviation requirements, which are briefly described in this article. Existing concepts focus rather on heavy aircrafts, carrying several containers, while presented concept assumes carrying one standard container only. The main advantage of the new concept is that the structure is adapted to carry heavy but relatively small loads while maintaining low weight of empty aircraft. In order to estimate the size and weight of a new aircraft, the author gives the properties of existing aircraft with similar load capacity, as the new aircraft differs from the existing ones only by its structural design.