• prime_number_314159@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Oh boy… So, they took off from a test facility adjacent to Plattsburgh International Airport. I don’t see it stated, but I give it 98% they landed where they took off. Plattsburgh has some of the lowest residential and commercial electricity costs in the country, so that $5 nets them about 110kWh of juice.

    They also reached a maximum altitude of 1,100 feet with a plane that weighs in excess of 25,000 pounds. Lifting 25,000 pounds up to 1,100 feet takes 37 million joules of added potential energy, or a bit above 10 kWh.

    The entire remaining 100kWh of energy budget is the equivalent of accelerating the 25,000 pound aircraft up to 252 meters/second at perfect efficiency in a vacuum. This flight was not going very high, and it was not going very fast.

    If the economics of their hybrid idea work out, it’ll be fantastic, but the attempt at marketing over transparency here doesn’t fill me with optimism.

    • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      They didnt say the planes weighted 25000 pounds. They said it could exceed 25000 pounds. My guess is that not even the passenger seats were installed in this run.

      1mw of power from the 4 engines. For 30 minutes, 500kWh. So for $5 they paid 1 cent per kWh. Somewhere there’s a bunch of bullshit hidden.