Electric Planes
- Thread starter the_killjoy
- Start date
Soon we will have to seriously think about burning fossil fuel to power a jet engine so we can go and sit on a beach in Malaga or some other dreadful place, believing that we have the right to do so.....same as we should think carefully about driving our diesel powered 4X4 to drop our children off at school and polluting the cities with trillions of fine carbon paritculate....
But couldn't we just keep flying with jets etc., since with time that would bring Malaga's sunshine and temperatures to us, so we then wouldn't need to fly any more.
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A rail mounted electric powered launch platform that accelerates and elevates to assist wing lift at the same time should be viable without excessive G forces. Within normal takeoff length that could easily exceed takeoff speed. The additional runway space for launch platform deceleration would also provide safety for aborts in the event of a aircraft engines failing to adequately take over.
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... There are two logical stances one can take when confronted with these types of dilemma, .The first is a retrenchment, conservative ( not used in the political sense) approach and seek to return to a less energy consumption world. The other is to aggressively seek technological solutions and a possible higher energy consumption The third is the do nothing , eg business as usual scenario, . I would tend towards the active persuit of engineering solutions , trying to improve the quality of life, by improving our engineered infrastructure.
We would need to invest in good public transport systems,public bikes at Street level, trams in local areas, trains in regional areas, and high speed and ultra high speed trains between regions and countries.aeroplanes between continents. We would need to invest in renewable energy systems , and for those countries where the population density is very high eg UK, probably nuclear power stations , but built on non exploding technologies and where the waste products are less pervasive. The current nuclear reactors were designed to provide material for weapons.
Incidentally Malaga is a lovely historical town, it's the necklace of villages around it that reek of coconut oil sunscreen.
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Depends on how fast you ramp up the catapult, If it was designed to increase speed at the same rate a plan accelerates up to lift off speed it would still save all those Ah for use in flight.
They mostly use steam for the propulsion, not rubber, and the steam pressure propulsion rate is of course controllable. Rubber is used in the capture slings for landing.Yeah, a plane catapult......suppose you could just use a different rubber band....
Currently an electromagnetic one is under prototype development.
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I can see a time when electric power helium balloons could carry frieght or cruise passengers as speed is not a problem and no need of a large area of land for a runway.
lift consumes the power in aircraft witch is reduced in balloon flight.
lift consumes the power in aircraft witch is reduced in balloon flight.
No rubber involved.
The arrestor system consists of a woven wire cable, the ends of which are attached to hydraulic dampers beneath the deck.
... Apparently there is a potential shortage of helium. Up until recently it was a novelty gas without practical application. The science establishment s seeking to have it stockpiled, as we are not yet making any and any that makes its way to the atmosphere eventually drifts off into space. Something to do with it being light. Ironically we are living on the trace amounts trapped along with fossil fuels and it is collected from the oil wells !
There are quite a few Ultralights that are both long range and electric. The motor is used for takeoff and for flying between thermals. All of the rest of the flight is done by gliding.