So YC is getting into defense contracting now?
Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
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Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#22Do you have any ethical concerns about the use of your technology for surveillance of civilian populations? That’s the obvious use case for this technology, right? Cheaper and more easily retargetable than satellites. Longer duration, quieter, and more resilient than manned aircraft, but not fast or maneuverable enough to survive in contested airspace. So that leaves large area, long term surveillance in uncontested…
Excellent question, this sounds like an enabling technology for mass surveillance on a much larger scale. Creepy.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#23This is fantastic, congratulations! There are many use cases for a technology like this, even with a small and light payload (if I were at one of my previous jobs I would be sending you emails already about planning some tests). Do you envision being able to provide some power, however small, to a payload?
Definitely - in most cases we expect our payloads will draw some power. The power available depends whether you’re looking for continuous or periodic/peak power draws.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#24Why go with heavier than air?
I'd guess because it's less prone to get interfered with by wind, more easily controllable, and can stay up longer if battery power lasts overnight.
I too would like to see more autonomous hydrogen balloons flying. Even on tethers to get height cheaper than a tower.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#25Wow, 10cm live view for complete situational awareness of forest fires feels like it should be a game changer. Can we make sure someone (if not you guys) fully builds this service on your flights for the fire service?
The standard story arc for something like this is that it is pitched as a humanitarian/environmental technology, but it is the military that provide the money and that where it gets used. I'm not being overly judgemental - the good guys (e.g. Ukraine) need good military tech. But lets not kid ourselves.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#26Nice. Who are you looking to hire?
We’ll be hiring in the near future. Early engineering hires will likely be controls/RF/EE focused, and we might bring on some biz dev support.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#27Was the 24 hour test at 20km? Doesn't it take a lot of battery power to climb to that height? >we then spent 6 years working together on delivery drones at Amazon Prime Air Was that ever a serious endeavour or just a publicity stunt?
The 24 hour test was with a sub-scale prototype at low altitudes. It turns out that testing a small aircraft in the thicker air at these altitudes matches some important physics of the larger aircraft (Reynolds number). Perhaps unexpectedly, climbing to 20km altitude isn’t too large a problem from an energy perspective. In a typical energy cycle, the aircraft has low battery in the morning, so if we launch with a ful…
>The 24 hour test was with a sub-scale prototype at low altitudes.
That's fine, but I think you need to make that clear or some people might think you aren't being straight.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#28Why go with heavier than air?
Probably for control reasons. You can send balloons up to that altitude, but they'll go where the wind takes them.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#29Just wanted to comment to wish you guys luck. There are some bizarre comments here about use of the aircraft for defense purposes (as if that's a bad thing) or the "ethics" of surveillance, which applies equally to any surveillance technology, there's no reason to single out this platform.
I do wonder about the payload capacity, it seems like it might be quite small given the batteries and the limited performance available from the altitude.
Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft
#30Why go with heavier than air?
Each has merits, but in our evaluation, if you are able to overcome the aircraft design challenges, fixed-wing offers a far more capable platform. The stratosphere has winds that can exceed 100km/h. With balloons, station-keeping is an enormous challenge. We spoke to a lot of people in the Google Loon project, and ultimately this became a defining problem for them. Airships/dirigibles help a bit, but still have to drift in strong winds - beyond that, they also become extremely large and expensive to work with.