5 ms·
You're right that powered lift is inefficient, however the whole point of this configuration is that you transition to forward flight/aerodynamic lift once alof
by asteli 9y ago
You're right that powered lift is inefficient, however the whole point of this configuration is that you transition to forward flight/aerodynamic lift once aloft.
- m12k 9y agoYeah, I assume the airfoil of the wings gets it closer (anyone know how close?) to a car in efficiency once it's gotten moving, but I also imagine the energy overhead of the VTOL part of the flight is quite a significant chunk of the total if the range is only 62 miles. Improvements in battery weight could help here, but then again, they'd improve the efficiency of electric cars too, so it'd still be an unfavorable comparison. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that this is being innovated on, but I don't see this being a feasible replacement for Lyft/Uber for most people until the energy math starts looking very different than it does today.
- asteli 9y agoI don't see it being a point to point transportation option for most of it's potential use cases either. One thing that often gets neglected when talking about aircraft range is the fuel requirements - you need to have enough fuel to get to your destination airport, decide not to land there, go to the next best airport, and potentially sit in a hold for a while before actually landing. This is especially hard on electric aircraft since they're already energy-strapped. I'm guessing that the 62 mile figure includes destination+alternate+reserve fuel.
- Grue3 9y agoIn a mountainous area like NZ, a car might have to take some sort of serpentine road to reach the destination while this thing would fly in a straight line, thus saving energy even if it's less efficient. However such scenarios are certainly unusual.