Launch HN: H3X (YC W21) – High power density electric aircraft motors

Since air density is proportional to the square of the elevation this can lead to significant efficiency gains. Believe it or not, partly as a result of this, the SR-71 had it’s best mpg at peak speeds.

Those things you mention are skillsets: software, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, etc. Sometimes you find them all in the same person, sometimes you have separate bodies doing each one, but at the end of the day it's a staffing issue.

I'd say it's less that it's "hard" and more that iterations are slower and costly and the less capability you have in-house, the slower it is. If you have a full machine shop and a Stratasys 3D printer onsite, a lot of things can happen faster. If you're doing garden-variety industrial automation, there's far less risk than designing state of the art humanoid robots.

There is a spectrum of difficulty, like everything. In my case, I was doing this stuff freelance, in my spare bedroom at age 25, so it's not that hard.

- Harder: Longer and more expensive iteration cycles, MVP can be expensive, manufacturing and production required to scale, expensive certification

- Easier: Raising money (sometimes) especially if you are a moonshot with a big vision. Good example is Boom Supersonic.

Good news is there has never been a better time to start a hardware company than today. Iteration cycles are becoming shorter due to advances in rapid prototyping and there is a lot of capital available, especially in electric vehicles and sustainable tech.

Peter Thiel talks a lot about this in Zero to One, but much of the innovation that’s been done in the past decades has been in the digital space. We have so many problems that require innovative hardware solutions and I think now we are just beginning to scratch the surface.

2. We all met through Formula SAE in college. This is a great place to meet super talented engineers and is why Tesla, SpaceX, and the other top companies in the world recruit heavily from these programs. It teaches you both the hard skills and the soft skills. If you are still in college, I would recommend getting involved in teams like this.

3. I haven't really read anything hardware-startup specific, but I love Zero to One and find myself rereading it all the time.

Would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this as well. Good questions

Probably not just drop them, maybe a controlled glider or similar, plus what are the posibilities for an in the air charge by tether to another plane?

Final super radical idea, have some iflatable high chord wings for take off at low speed high drag and lift, then ditch them somehow once at altitude and can do a anouever with stored height to get speed. (Or a lift blimp).

As you say, the take off is where the problem is.