61–70 of 387 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really, a prototype airplane, the first of this size ever built with this novel propulsion system, had engineers involved in the design?
You've missed the point. The engineers went too far optimizing for weight, to the point of sacrificing usability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gotta be Germany and the Autobahn. The questions really are: What car are you driving? How are you not dead?
I live in Germany. 500 miles is more than essentially all domestic flights in Germany. Two hours driving by car from Berlin gets you nowhere all that interesting. You'd probably spend close to an hour just getting out of the city. Two hours might get you as far as Magdeburg or Dresden when traffic is mild. Good luck with that on a busy weekday. Dresden would be about 200km. Magdeburg is a bit closer to 160km. And muc…
...Which would mean you're driving at 250mph.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally all the weight of the fusaage has to go through the wings anyway so it is structurally more efficient to put weight on the wings in the first place.
And they do that with fuel?! Neat!
On a 737 they can put about 8k pounds per wing.
Even little planes like Cessnas have wing tanks.
Cool stuff regardless!
I'm not sure I get the 'appreciating asset' point he makes in the video. How will the plane perform better in 10 years? Cool stuff regardless!
The interior of the plane is clearly designed by an engineer. They stripped everything down to save weight, passenger comfort be dammed. The seats don't even look comfortable. They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.
related : many flight demonstrators in the past for large passenger planes have had no interior at all aside from the cockpit and ballast kits.
Heart Aerospace (YC W19) just flew the largest electric airplane ever flown — a 100-foot wingspan, a takeoff weight of 25,000 pounds, and $5 of electricity to get it off the ground.
Still an incredible feat, but no idea where the $5 comes from. Maybe that’s just the power they use to get from the threshold of the runway to wheels up.
To be clear, this is a hybrid aircraft, but it's still an awesome step forward!
the concept of electric motors with ultimate "any" fuel flexibility for generators is definitely the future then we are not tied to global fuel politics and maybe airports will become far less toxic with leaded fuel finally being completely eliminated (and there is a Ycombinator video channel? never knew)
Agreed, however only fuel for piston engine aircraft is leaded. Not many of them at a large commercial airport. More of a GA issue.
Things seem to go in the right direction, with an unleaded alternative in the process of being certified. But aviation, especially general aviation moves at a glacial pace, usually for good reasons, maturity is important, but not poisoning people is important too.