Shark, Geese & Eel Selling
Biomimicry has long held fascination for me. How nature handles something which we can adapt for own our ends. A broad balancing betterment remixed for parochial yet potentially astoundingly loud ripples.
I remember over two decades back first spotting how 'sharklets' appeared on aeroplane wing tips everywhere almost overnight. Linkage with our selling can be grasped.
[As per this example post of mine from 2014, although as we are yet to see the long dorsal fin atop the fuselage a la eels, maybe not every mimic yields bio gold.]
Smoothing the transit of our deals, and the movements of our prospect-side proponents, struck me as I read about the latest such hatch.
An airline initiative born as fello’fly more formally termed Wake Energy Retrieval (WER), is now given the snappy branding backronym GEESE (Gain Environmental Efficiency by Saving Energy).
There's another in the mix too. Aeroshark. Where microscopic riblets are applied to the surface of the aircraft as taken from how shark skin helps the fish glide through waters.
The touted savings are not insignificant.
Tandem geese-like flying can free up 5-10pc.
Effortlessly shark-ing perhaps 1-4pc.
As with many such ideas, it is more evolution than revolution, naturally.
Counters of beans will be delighted with but one of these bearing fruit. Not to mention the eventual customer.
And in the case of the migrating formation buddy planes, you suspect the counter-intuition of a pair of planes flying together and swapping lead might be more aerodynamically efficient than simply an aircraft twice the size, as the industry rejection of the A380 superjumbo explains.
Plenty of parallels crop up in our skies.
More than one idea flying together to smooth arrival at an overall destination?
Knowing emphasis can switch between pitches to keep the journey time on track?
Having a 'skin' in which to wrap an element of the plan to let it slide through with less friction?
Normally, the teaching is to have a singular thrust, and stick to it. Yet selling life doesn't always fly that way. Maybe we too can adapt to make our path smoother.