Comment on High Altitude Solar Cruise

• Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No, I’m not. You’re imagining something on a scale at which it can never work at.

  It’s a physical impossibility to have a plane the size you’re proposing which would continously recharge itself via solar unless it’s 10-20 American football fields in size. No matter how peak your scifi tech the sun doesn’t output more energy.

  Is that the size you’re proposing? How will it work aerodynamically? Would it even be counted as a plane? Well technically it would be exactly a plane, as in a plane, not airplane. A huge plane.

  We also have flapping flying droids now, we have drones, etc etc erc but you still don’t see people with a set of flapping wings on their back. Why is that?

  Because A) the wings would have to be fucking enormous or B they’d have to have an insane rpm.

  Chill travel in the air can work. With blimps. Not solar planes.

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDIojhOkV4w

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  • keepthepace@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    10-20 American football fields in size.

    So about 20 times the biggest wing area that we currently have? Is this what you are scolding at? Is this your physical impossibility?

    What’s the obsession with blimps by the way? If you are afraid by enormous sizes please tell me you have done the calculations there…

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    • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What’s the obsession with blimps by the way? If you are afraid by enormous sizes please tell me you have done the calculations there…

      Blimps don’t require speed for lift, mr “pro-engineer”. If you want to cruise in the clouds at a chill pace, you’re gonna need a blimp. I’m not too bothered, to be honest.

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      • keepthepace@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Ok so scaling blimps up is realistic but planes not, no justification needed. I see, ok, bye.

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    • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So about 20 times the biggest wing area that we currently have?

      A handegg field is ~5350m2. What fucking plane has a wing top surface that size?

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules

      That’s the largest wing area I can find. And “wing area” refers to the entire surface of the wing, top and bottom. Solar will never cover more than half, and the top wing is slightly less than half when you account for the shape needed for lift. The wing area would be around ~1600m2. And half of that would be 800m2.

      That’s ~15% of a football field.

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