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Aircraft weight turns directly into fuel cost via induced-drag. If electric energy is wildly inexpensive, you can afford very heavy airframes. See https://en.
by etwigg 10y ago
Aircraft weight turns directly into fuel cost via induced-drag. If electric energy is wildly inexpensive, you can afford very heavy airframes.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft
- nickff 10y agoThere are two major problems with very heavy airframes: 1) Aircraft cost is proportional to empty weight. 2) Range is proportional to total stored energy / drag and drag is proportional to weight. If you have low specific energy, you cannot go far.
- coredog64 10y agoOne more to add. Current commercial aircraft can jettison fuel to reduce the landing weight and minimize risk if the structure is compromised. Hard to see how this design would.
- WalterBright 10y agoJets also constantly lose weight while burning fuel. This results in airliners flying higher and more efficiently as the flight progresses. With batteries, you're kinda stuck with the weight. And it's true that airliners take off with more weight than they are speced to land with. They have to dump fuel if landing before burning it off.
- cmdrfred 10y agoNo reason I can think of why you can't drop empty batteries in an emergency situation. In fact, you probably want swapable batteries to begin with, don't want to waste time on the tarmac charging up.
- WiseWeasel 10y agoOne reason would be if they're built into the wing surfaces, as this article proposes. You probably don't want to jettison your wings.