Future airports to launch planes with a "slingshot"  Posted by
Beth Buczynski, EarthTechling   Not only does flying come a long
with a hefty footprint, flying also allows us to travel more,
and to more distant places. This flexibility may be great for
our tans, but it's creating a massive amount of climate-change
accelerating greenhouse gas emissions.  Future airports to
launch planes with a "slingshot"  In an effort to make flying a
more eco-friendly option, aviation company Airbus recently
announced its vision for airports, and planes, of the future.
  By the year 2050, the company predicts that airplanes of the
future will "be catapulted into the sky, fly in formation like
birds along "express skyways" and glide into airports with their
engines turned off."  It's all part of Airbus' "Smarter Skies"
initiative, an ongoing project that "looks beyond aircraft
design to how the aircraft is operated both on the ground and in
the air in order to meet the expected growth in air travel in a
sustainable way."   The