Quote Originally Posted by dapug View Post
Now let's apply this to aviation.

I agree completely regarding the use of available components (Zero as you mentioned, etc). I'm not trying to invent motors here, I'm trying to come up with a practical horizontal flight eVTOL airplane buildable by home builders with commercially available parts. How many motors? Will the wings rotate, or stay fixed? How will it transition? Should it be a hybrid, or all electric? That takes engineering, and a Tesla junkyard is not going to provide it.

A revolution and shift is indisputably happening in aviation regarding eVTOL. Let's also see a shift in the way planes get designed in the first place too.
I'm still listening but not YET convinced.

There already has been a huge revolution and shift in aviation! Look at the $1.4B that Eclipse wasted on an unfounded, pie in the sky, business model. Now the question is how many more $B or even $T are going to be wasted ignoring basic physics? Just briefly (free Engineering advice , there is currently not a high enough power/weight ratio with electric/electric storage for long, fast flights in conventional, fixed wing aircraft. Now add to this, power-lift vehicles require ~10 times more thrust than fixed wing aircraft. Decreasing the rotor diameter makes this much worse … and adds noise. For those not old enough or haven't done their homework (those that don't know history are bound to repeat it), all of these new revolutions have been done before! Powered lift, ducted fans, blown wings, VTOL (tilt wing, tilt rotor, tilt pod, tilt etc.), boundary layer suction, etc. In the end on (e)VTOL, they are greatly speed limited due to no propeller inflow velocity for takeoff and a lot of inflow velocity for cruise. With this said, though …

We do need to be getting ready for when electric power will be truly unlimited. Electric airplanes have HUGE advantages in many areas. The simplest being that a single-engine airplane can be made into a "multi-engine" airplane with a single motor (2 or more motors within 1 physical motor). Electricity simplifies many, many areas. I'm all for electrics and getting ready for the future. The future is not just thousands and thousands of autonomous, intercity vehicles that reduce automobile congestion instantly by 2021.

If you want to develop a kick *, electrically-powered, conventional airplane that is more reliable, safer and the currently-foreseeable future, I'd be thrilled to make you/us rich.

Blue on Top,
Ron Blum

PS. (More free engineering) Hybrid related to airplanes is NOT more efficient, it is an interim fix until we solve the energy density issue first.