3 ms·

Easy, the battery bank is a separate drone ship that can be detached at any time. In fact, you could have booster electric aircraft to help the planes reach cru

• ginko 5y ago
  That doesn't sound easy at all.
  • guntars 5y ago
    You're right, I should have said "solvable" instead. Maybe some people wouldn't react so poorly to the comment. The point was that dumping the combustion products into the atmosphere and as a result reducing the total mass of the plane as it flies isn't some unsolvable advantage of jet fueled planes compared to the electric ones. 1) Detaching heavy objects while in-flight is a tried and tested technology. We've been doing it ever since flight was invented. 2) UAVs are not making the news anymore and fully autonomous landing has been commercially available since the mid-60s, granted, for very different type of aircraft, but it's becoming more common for light aircraft too. Dropping UAVs from airplanes is of course a whole different ball game, but wouldn't you say it's.. doable? Ultimately whether the added complexity is worth it depends on the proportion of energy used during taxi, takeoff and climbing compared to the total which varies wildly depending on distance and other factors, but tends to be highest for very short (but also very long) flights which is where electric aircraft currently stand a chance.