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I'm a sailplane, powerplane and a paraglider pilot and experimental airplane owner, with two decades of soaring flight behind. I have a micro-scale meteorology
by dchichkov 8y ago
I'm a sailplane, powerplane and a paraglider pilot and experimental airplane owner, with two decades of soaring flight behind. I have a micro-scale meteorology and atmosphere modeling as a hobby. I work as an engineer and computer vision researcher, on autonomous vehicle project.
My expert opinion - for limited delivery applications sailplanes could work. You need to do it right - sample and model atmosphere from the vehicle and ground, use gravity to accelerate and decelerate to flying speed, complete automation to remove the pilot. It's not easy. But it is not impossible.
(Incidentally, if someone is willing to drop me ~500k in an attempt to build a prototype - I might consider investing the time required.)
- quacked 8y agoI agree with you for "limited delivery applications", by if we're talking about limited delivery applications, why wouldn't we just use low-cost powered flight? Much safer and more controllable.
- dchichkov 8y agoLow cost eVTOL flight? It has high external costs of noise pollution. Also the eVTOL is nessesarily a complicated machine. The cost of that complexity is high. By talking sailplanes, I didn't mean unpowered flight. Of course you need power, to counteract drag . I was primarily referring to a form-factor (clean, efficient and and silent like a sailplane) and to a mode of takeoff and landing (convert speed to altitude with a wing, instead of eVTOL).