seems silly to embrace the design of a plane that is made to move 2 static length blades when even longer blades have been shown to continue the trend of cheaper MW.
the article mentions that 3d printing is a no-go due to the facility needed to print the blade in -- seems like it'd be better to pursue an unfolding container factory with a printer in it and how to transport that thing with conventional craft than to go all-in on a new unproven airframe made for very specific parts.
plus that way the length of the product isn't set in stone, either.
I say this as a total layman -- i'm just taking the articles stated reason for no 3d printing and running with it.
Sadly, an LLM rejected my idea of building an enormous helicopter drone from wind turbine blades. They can't spin fast enough to generate sufficient lift.
Alternative, can you make a turbine blade that can be an (inefficient) wing when bolted to a fuselage and engine? Effectively fly the blade there, using it as a lifting surface area.
It's a fairly straightforward physics question, and Gemini Pro thinks the thrust to weight ratio is too low, by more than an order of magnitude, even before adding the weight of the frame and propulsion system.
seems silly to embrace the design of a plane that is made to move 2 static length blades when even longer blades have been shown to continue the trend of cheaper MW.
the article mentions that 3d printing is a no-go due to the facility needed to print the blade in -- seems like it'd be better to pursue an unfolding container factory with a printer in it and how to transport that thing with conventional craft than to go all-in on a new unproven airframe made for very specific parts.
plus that way the length of the product isn't set in stone, either.
I say this as a total layman -- i'm just taking the articles stated reason for no 3d printing and running with it.
Were we not getting airships for this purpose? The ones with a butt?
A diagram comparing it to the 747s and oil tankers mentioned in the text would have been appreciated.
OK, looked it up. 108m v 72m. Kvikk diagram, pretty much to scale:
(what is a kvikk diagram - google isn’t helping here)
wild guess: a distorted "quick"
Brain glitch. I’d just read this - https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250909-kvikk-lunsj-the-...
Sadly, an LLM rejected my idea of building an enormous helicopter drone from wind turbine blades. They can't spin fast enough to generate sufficient lift.
Alternative, can you make a turbine blade that can be an (inefficient) wing when bolted to a fuselage and engine? Effectively fly the blade there, using it as a lifting surface area.
Why is that sad? That's way outside LLM training sets.
It's a fairly straightforward physics question, and Gemini Pro thinks the thrust to weight ratio is too low, by more than an order of magnitude, even before adding the weight of the frame and propulsion system.