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> The current systems also have millions/billions of hours of proven flight time, as well as the knowledge gleaned from thousands of crash investigations. I'd r
by doikor 10y ago
> The current systems also have millions/billions of hours of proven flight time, as well as the knowledge gleaned from thousands of crash investigations. I'd rather fly on a current system. Also, a plasma aircraft could certainly have a fly-by-wire control also.
That same reasoning could have been (was?) used against fly-by-wire systems. Why add this additional complexity of a system that does not have the millions of flight hours of the old system.
Just like most aviation tech it probably will first be used by the military for something crazy and then slowly come down to civilian usage. (I imagine the air force commanders would like to have their tanker/radar/non stealth planes have 25% longer flight time/range)
- stcredzero 10y agoPerhaps the system could be used to enable the manufacture of very agile but very cheap weaponized drones. Then future battlefields might look like an arcade game, with purple plasma streaks zooming in crazy paths towards their targets.
- digler999 10y agoJust guessing, but the industry likely migrated to fly-by-wire because of some quantifiable benefit, either from software-aided stability correction, or reduced risk of a mechanical failure. Maybe they proved that its less likely for FBW to fail than it is for a cable to snap ? I'm not against using plasma, btw. I'm just saying if one were built today, I'd prefer to trust existing designs until they have a decade or more of testing done.