3 ms·

If you had 18 such engines it would get you precisely 18x the performance, at precisely 18x the weight.

• aidenn0 4y ago
  And precisely 1/18 the MTBF
  • pas 4y ago
    but it fails gracefully, right? (only one engine fails at a time) it's like RAID, great until the RAID card itself fails
    • aidenn0 4y ago
      It's probably most like losing power in a single cylinder; the effects vary from engine to engine.
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        They tend to seize and when they do and you gang them they'll likely break stuff in the other ones unless you add a freewheel or some other luxury like that.
  • 93po 4y ago
    In a way, sure. Often when a car engine fails people just replace it. If you were to replace all 18 when the first one failed, the same way you would with a regular car engine, it's not 1/18 the MTBF. And if it was just 1 failing prematurely and you replaced only that one, you also see that same dynamic with car engines when a single component of it fails that's worth fixing.
• Retric 4y ago
  No, because you would need to add structural elements, some way of combining power output, and cooling if you’re aiming for a similar form factor.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• seabird 4y ago
  That's why there's all sorts of widely produced performance vehicles with multiple independent engines!