this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Airships, as a principle, tend to be much slower than jet aircraft. And that slowness creates a bunch of negative knock-ons - crosswinds more heavily impact navigation, you can't fly at the same altitude because of passenger air needs, storms carry a higher risk to the vehicle.
At the end of the day, jet aircraft is still the future. The big question is whether companies like Boeing will be able to keep pace with their Chinese peers in pivoting to all-electric engines as the escalating price of jet fuel renders the 20th century aviation industry non-viable.
I just don't see it. Batteries are heavy and they don't get lighter while you're flying. An electric jet would be too heavy to land, or it wouldn't be able to go very far.
Battery weight changes with the material used in their construction. Super-light batteries are possible, but they pose a host of safety considerations, as the lighter material presents risk of thermal run-away. At the end of the day, what you're trying to construct is a tiny electric bomb with a controlled discharge. But the same can be said of jet engines and their fuel. It took decades to perfect modern jet engine technology, and that's not even getting into super-sonics.
Mako’s Forerunner is essentially the electric answer to the kerosene jet engine. The Forerunner enables larger aircraft up to 40 seats and gives a current range of 600km (370 miles) using today's batteries.
MIT Unveils a Megawatt Motor for Electric Aircraft. When fully assembled, the motor will weigh 57.4 kilograms, which equates to a specific power of 17 kilowatts per kilogram, considerably more than the 13 kW/kg that previous research from NASA identified as necessary to power large electric aircraft.
Electric aircraft engineers are definitely in the future, given how the price of renewable electricity keeps falling and the cost of fossil fuels continues to climb.