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Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#161

Post by 1024core »

jthomaslm wrote: post #57
pj_mukh wrote: post #10

Wow, 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?

Wildland forest fires were actually the inspiration for this technology! A year ago Seattle had the worst air quality in the world for a few days, which piqued my interest in the area. Speaking to people in the USFS we learned about the challenges of getting real-time high-resolution data, and realized that an ultra long endurance drone would be a great way to get this.

You know what would be really helpful in such a use case? Thermal imaging. Now I'll admit I know nothing about Thermal Imaging, but I imagine if it was possible to get a live high resolution thermal image of an area, you could identify hotspots quickly. Heck, even for SAR missions, being able to thermal image a large area and look for warm bodies may be very useful.

Of course I have no idea if this is feasible or not, but I assume someone here will correct me if I'm pipe-dreaming.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#162

Post by fakedang »

Okay, this might be a bit tangential, but how is joining YC helping you apart from the funding? Assuming you have a working concept, you don't really need the funding for scaling up, and the network is barely adjacent at best. I'm just curious about the benefits that I don't see.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#163

Post by razeh »

creyes12345 wrote: post #18

I was peripherally involved with a similar project a few years ago. They got bought out by Facebook. This was before Aquila. There’s a good reason why most airplanes look and behave alike: because it works. Technology choices like flying wings (not used here) or twisting wings (used here) are a “code smell” to my computer programmer nose. To me, nothing is sexier than good reliable technology that works. Smart invest…

What are the alternatives to batteries if you want to fly through the night?

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#164

Post by nine_k »

hermitcrab wrote: post #25
pj_mukh wrote: post #10

Wow, 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.

Basically any technology that makes any difference will have a military value, and will be used by the military.

One of the few things that are not obviously, if in any way at all, usable for any military purposes is targeted advertising. Whether it's used by the good guys more is an interesting topic.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#165

Post by nine_k »

someuser54541 wrote: post #35

How does the aircraft get to 70k feet? Is it launched from a separate vehicle?

I suppose an aircraft like this can climb like gliders do, using the streams of air that move upwards. This requires some planning, and likely a skilled glider pilot to help choose the course.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#166

Post by gusgordon »

Stopping by to say this is super cool! I've been pretty obsessed with this idea for a while — here's an analysis I did a few years back: https://github.com/gusgordon/atmospheric_satellite

I got a minimum wingspan of around 8m for self-sustaining flight on the winter solstice with a small payload — pretty close to what you all built.

The biggest problem I ran into when creating this analysis was accurately estimating solar irradiance at different altitudes. Here's the module I built for estimating that, in case you find it useful: https://github.com/gusgordon/airmass

Congrats and good luck!

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#167

Post by nojvek »

hef19898 wrote: post #34
philipkglass wrote: post #11

Very interesting! This sounds a lot like the more recent iterations of the Airbus Zephyr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Zephyr I don't know how much you can share, but I'm curious about the solar and battery system. Are you using silicon cells, multi-junction cells, or something else? What sort of battery chemistry do you use? It seems like deep battery cycling is a must to keep weight under control, but batte…

You beat me to it! Competition is good, but so far none of the various start-ups trying to build aircraft have anything to show (boom, all eVtol companies...). Edit: Funny, they didn't mention Airbus anywhere. But they do have the perfect founder background, Amazon Air and delivery drones. Sells good with VCs, but so far they have to get real aircraft in the air.

Their YouTube demo shows a full 24hour flight.

They’re the perfect scrappy startup with fast iteration cycles.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#168

Post by SonicScrub »

jthomaslm wrote: post #26
sethgoodluck wrote: post #7

Nice. 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.

Any need of someone with a background in aeronautics/flight-simulation ;)

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#170

Post by jthomaslm »

gusgordon wrote: post #166

Stopping by to say this is super cool! I've been pretty obsessed with this idea for a while — here's an analysis I did a few years back: https://github.com/gusgordon/atmospheric_satellite I got a minimum wingspan of around 8m for self-sustaining flight on the winter solstice with a small payload — pretty close to what you all built. The biggest problem I ran into when creating this analysis was accurately estimating…

Thanks for sharing. Estimating air mass and solar irradiance are definitely interesting topics - I'll take a look at what you've put together!
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