I'm curious how StarLink is handling the mod and certification aspects of this.
It's not quite as easy as just slamming an antenna on the roof of an airplane.
Starlink Aviation
361–370 of 526 posts
Re: Starlink Aviation
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I was an airline considering this, I'd want to see $/km fuel costs from the extra air resistance in the sales brochure...
It will be a lot less than the percentage a radio antenna increases the fuel consumption of a car. Modern planes like the 787 are made to a big degree from composites and the antenna can be installed inside the fuselage - leading to 0% increase in air resistance.
This is not accurate. I don't know of a single installation within a fuselage, because the composite has enough metal in or around it to cause interference.
The fuel concern is a significant one, as well as performance. Enough fuel or performance impacts and you can restrict the airports flown with these antennas. It's not as big a problem on widebodies, but it's the reason you haven't seen WiFi on small regional or the smallest narrow bodies until recently.
Re: Starlink Aviation
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Highest demand for normal starlink is in cities. ?? cities have fiber, who wants starlink in a city?
A friend lives in a city with a lot of startups, a lot of technology companies and a research university that's been on the internet since before the DNS. He's on the waiting list for Starlink because the fastest residential connection he can get is 3Mbps. There's much fiber there, but also many streets where no fiber is available. AFAICT that kind of spottiness is the most common case and few cities have uniformly g…
Why not just use a 100Mbs (4G) unlimited mobile service?
Re: Starlink Aviation
#364Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.
What Musk should have done is create a company that is owned 50% by Tesla, 50% by SpaceX and they should be developing a electric airplane. If you are willing to do the necessary investment, I think there is huge potential to build an airplane that goes significantly further then planes like the Aviation Alice or what Heart Aerospace ES-30 is doing.
Tesla is already half solving this problem indirectly through their batter research, buuut the biggest issue with electric aircraft is the energy density of batteries isn't, and isn't projected, to get anywhere near what it needs to be to handle long range flying.
Many industry experts believe we're going to see an electrification but in tiers. Pure electric in the regional space, with more regional options than now on smaller planes, followed by hydrogen or alternative fuels powering the mid-range. Long range may go to hydrogen or alternatives, but the density is still such that jet fuel will rein on the longest flights for the next 10-15 years minimum.
Re: Starlink Aviation
#365Once upon a time, all plane transmissions were pretty much air to ground. As inconsequential as it may seem, the positioning of antennas above the plane are a bit metaphoric for flipping things up side down. Looking out into space instead of back to earth. Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Pretty much dogfooding…
> Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space.
Like sending Ukraine "free" base stations and charging them $4,500 a month for service.
Re: Starlink Aviation
#366Slightly off-topic. I hate that internet is becoming more common on flights. One of my favorite things about flying is that it's a good chunk of time where you disconnect and don't worry about emails or messages. Just sit back and watch a movie or listen to music. Or catch up on sleep.
I see this take a lot, and I don't really understand it.
I'm sure you know that you always have the option to just not use the in-flight wifi. Is it that the availability of the wifi will tempt you to use it, therefore removing the feeling of disconnect?
Re: Starlink Aviation
#367This would be excellent as part of a hybrid solution. Dynamically switching between standard ground to air and satellite to accommodate availability and bandwidth constraints.
Re: Starlink Aviation
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe this. A city full of startups can't be stuck w/ maximum 3Mbps Internet. Can it?
The city has much better options in some areas, but not in his street. It's in North Carolina, US, he lives closish to the UNC campus (if UNC has several campuses, then close to the one that was on the internet 40+ years ago).
No 5G home internet available? In most cases it’s a better alternative to StarLink if you have good coverage. Also surprised there’s no Spectrum cable, I thought they were available almost everywhere in the Triangle (assuming you mean UNC Chapel Hill).
Re: Starlink Aviation
#369They really missed an opportunity to cash in and call it Skynet.
Re: Starlink Aviation
#370Slightly off-topic. I hate that internet is becoming more common on flights. One of my favorite things about flying is that it's a good chunk of time where you disconnect and don't worry about emails or messages. Just sit back and watch a movie or listen to music. Or catch up on sleep.
I see this take a lot, and I don't really understand it. I'm sure you know that you always have the option to just not use the in-flight wifi. Is it that the availability of the wifi will tempt you to use it, therefore removing the feeling of disconnect?
For me it's more the _expectation_ that you can be reached that is the difference. Even if others might not really expect this from you, the possibility being there changes the situation.