With the advent of electric airplanes, a group of engineers and designers took a radically different path than the “fast, heavy” trend that prevailed in the 20th century.
Using light materials and an exaggeratedly large wingspan they managed to put enough solar panels on the wings to never need to land, especially when high above the clouds. In a plane, altitude is energy storage so through a mix of slow descent and just the right amount of batteries, the cruise goes through each night peacefully.
Travel is a different experience than transport and living a few weeks over the clouds is actually a very nice break from the bleak city life.
Dammit, here I am, arguing over the feasibility of a fantasy, between a hamster in warhammer gear and a knitted armor. sigh
Dude chill, I merely mentioned the An-255 because you sounded like you were arguing that flying a pool and a greenhouse was somehow breaking a law of physics. It does not, you can fly both for the 250t (that’s payload only btw, that does not count fuel(+300t!), engine, structure) that this plane can lift.
I am not proposing to develop the same amount of thrust, speed, dry range that it exhibits, these are different beasts. Actually, in my fiction, these “sky palaces” only have the thrust needed for sustained flight, and can’t lift off unaided.
I am, but I am also an avid dreamer of new tech.
Sci-fi setting, honey. If 47% is achieved in the lab that’s the bare minimum of what is credible for future tech.
I am happy you made the calculation for something that can drag 300t of batteries at half the speed of sound and can produce the constant thrust the An-225 needs for take-off but that was never the proposition. I am proposing a slow vehicles, with a fairly big lift due to its large wings so probably able to fly at a much lower speed, generating far less drag, drag being the main lower bound for the thrust needs. Probably going at speeds where propellers are much more efficient than jet engines. All of this adds up to levels I don’t care to calculate because this is a fantasy.
However yes, that’s a proposition that still requires extremely large wingspans. And yes, putting a swimming pool in an airplane is kind of a ridiculous proposition, but it is kind of the point I want to make: nowadays that would be a very wasteful ridiculous thing to do. With this sort of tech? It does not harm anything or anyone. It does not burn fuel, it does not emit CO2.
All I know for sure is that eternal planes are a thing that is possible right now, and that better tech will allow us to make them bigger.
Like honestly I know I’m a salty person and am offending you, but that’s just how I am. I’m not trying to offend you, but my point is that while a nice dream, your dream is about as realistic as these drawings of what the 21st century would be like from the pov of 19th century
Like okay sure we do have sort of “jetpacks” and we can do wingsuits with rocket boots but hovering like that with wings like that just isn’t plausible. The wings would have to be huge. Just like your imagined plane.
Do the same fantasy and use a blimp and I’m 100% in.
We do have helicopters. We have canadairs, we have hovering drones.
You are arguing about a technicality that has been worked around.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDIojhOkV4w
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…
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.
Ok so scaling blimps up is realistic but planes not, no justification needed. I see, ok, bye.
“No justification needed”?
Bitch, blimps don’t need speed for lift. They achieve lift through having volume. The more volume you have, the less surface area you have relatively.
This is what I’ve been saying the whole time.
You not understanding that makes you saying you’re a “pro-engineer” exceedingly hilarious. Watch the Veritasium video I linked in the first one and you’ll get at least a basic understanding if you don’t suffer from some severe neurodevelopmental issues.
The fact that you assume I don’t understand that obvious fact clears that out that this is not a serious discussion. You think “plane, heavy, need fuel” “blimps cool, lighter than air” and work your calculations from there. I am sad I wasted so much time in it.
A handegg field is ~5350m2. What fucking plane has a wing top surface that size?
https://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 (aside from reflected light but building panels on the underside? really?) 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.
“scifi setting, honey”
Oh fuck off.
As soon as I bring in hard math you start crying “lol I was just joking”, because you never actually thought about the viability of anything you were saying.
You disregard the space required for a greenhouse, and you disregard the physics of flying, proposing a pool.
In a blimp, sure. In a plane? Have you even thought about the amount of lift needed? No ofc you haven’t.
All of that is utterly utterly ridiculous.
It doesn’t really translate into kW and this is a huge oversimplification but as a wild guesstimate, I’d say the an255 needs some 40 000 to 120 000 kW for sustained flight in fair weather.
Even when you’re talking “scifi setting, honey” you’re not gonna change the laws of physics or how much energy the sun is producing, just the tech. So even if you have 100% efficient engines with 100% efficient solar panels, you’d still need at least 40 000 - 150 000 m2 as a surface area, at minimum for fair weather sustained flight. (That’s 7-26 handegg fields for our American friends)
No offense, but I don’t think you’re a professional aviator.
Let’s be clear, without joking I think you are wrong to dismiss these possibilities and that you have an almost pathological lack of imagination. Yes, science fiction is about techs that do not exist yet are plausible.
You can fit a pool and a greenhouse in 250t. 40 cubic meters of water is 40 tons, 40 cubic meters of soil is basically the same. You have room to spare for the tennis court.
I am not a pro aviator, but I am a pro engineer, on an unrelated field, but I can do my napkins calculations. I mentioned the An-225 to make a point on the physically possible payloads that are possible today, with proven tech. I am not proposing we need those neither do we need the exceptional specs of that exceptional plane.
We scale down speed, it scales down drag (and necessary thrust) quadratically. We assume better efficiency on solar panels, batteries and motors because that’s what we will have in the future. Needing thrust only for sustaining flight and not for take off is another x5 factor on your calculation.
Look at you! You managed to scale down your initial super confident 600 000 m² estimate by an order of magnitude! I am proud of you!
From what I am reading this is about the amount of power an airliner uses at max power on all the engines. You are looking at 1/10th to 1/20th of that for sustained flight, and quadratically less at lower speeds that those typical of those airliners.
You’re wrong to assert things without considering the utmost basics. Thats’ why you’re the exact same as those people who imagined those 21st century images in the 19th century.
Yes, it’s a fancy idea. But it’s completely ignoring reality.
There’s much better fantasies to be had of things we can actually build.
“I am a pro engineer”
No, you’re not, ROFL. You haven’t even done rounded up basic maths with basic physics fucking LOL
I didn’t even use a calculator for that shit and I have zero engineering experience or education.
Yeah a regular airbus. Which is why it’s 4-6 times higher for a AN255 in fair weather conditions. And what you’re proposing would need to be several times the size of the AN255.
But no, you’re not wrong. You can’t be mistaken. None of what you think can be unrealistic. It’s just me, the guy doing the math you refused to even consider, who’s utterly wrong and your fantasies of firemen with flapping wings are ofc completely realistic. Oh wait no that’s the 19th century guys, I get you confused you constantly because both of those are equally unrealistic.