Sort of. Yes yes development costs. They are claiming the plane is also cheaper to fly dramatically, and having a similar airspeed to modern jets. That's not

Sort of. Yes yes development costs. They are claiming the plane is also cheaper to fly dramatically, and having a similar airspeed to modern jets. That's not easy. Modern jetliners use "turbo-fans" which are just jets powering giant fans. This allows them to be -incredibly- efficient. The complexity of the piston based engine is in the superchargers and how they get air into the engine at high speeds. You can read about it from the highly famous WWII engine the Rolls-Royce Merlin _- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharge...