stevecv

So many problems with electrification...How do I know the batteries will always be able to hold 100% of their capacity? What about the fact that airplanes get significantly lighter as the burn fuel en-route? What about all the electricity airports would need to charge the batteries? Is every airport going to have its own nuclear reactor?

I want technology to continue to advance, but talk about hurdles...

rickair7777

All that's true but the real problem with batteries is energy density/specific energy... just can't carry enough juice.

Mathematically impossible to fly larger planes on longer routes. Battery-powered airlines will, at best, be limit to short regional hops. That might actually happen, but I'm talking maybe one hour flight time, if that.

JamesNoBrakes

And I'd think the secondary problem would be IF you could have adequate battery density, it would seem it'd be better to just use an electric motor to drive a fan, like pretty much every other electric airplane proposal. Using this exotic process to generate a "jet" of air that would still need to turn a fan, seems to add a lot of extra steps that would just waste energy and add weight. Making plasma is not a big deal, you can do it between electrical contacts. Making it on the scale that would actually transfer enough heat to the air and sustaining that would take massive amounts of energy. I would think this is more along the lines of "we found a new/novel way to make plasma", but due to the laws of thermodynamics and physics, it takes a massive amount of energy to create. Otherwise, as said in this thread, they are essentially claiming "free energy".

rickair7777

Plasma is good for spacecraft, because you have to bring your own reaction mass and it can be accelerated to very high velocities . The more energetic that mass is when it parts company with you, the better your delta-v. And 1/2MV^2 says that a little additional velocity goes a long way, and a lot of additional velocity goes a very, very long way. For a given amount of working mass.

But if you have all the free air you can use, yeah it seems like a fan would be a lot simpler.