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Boeing Working on Fuel Cell Aircraft
"Boeing is working with development partners on a fuel cell-based small aircraft. It seems like a logical use of the technology. Now if they can come up with a quiet, personal-sized VTOL craft a la Paul Moller's Skycar (which is anything but quiet), we'll really have something." From the article "A Boeing research director was quoted as saying, "While Boeing does not envision that fuel cells will provide primary power for future commercial passenger airplanes, demonstrations like this help pave the way for potentially using this technology in small manned and unmanned air vehicles."
The Skycar is vaporware. It has been for the last 30 years. Please don't use the Skycar as a benchmark for anything but hype and failure.
One of the biggest problems with smaller aircraft is reliability. Simply put, piston engines are not as reliable as jet engines. They must be rebuilt every 2,000 hours of flight under the best circumstances. And, with smaller planes at slower speeds, jets just don't make sense.
Turboprop engines are a good middle ground for mid-sized planes starting at the 12-seat size or so, but are very expensive for the smallest aircraft. (2 and 4 seaters)
Electric motors, other the other hand, can be incredibly reliable. If designed for it, they have just a single moving part, and can run continuously, 24x7x365 for many years without issues. This kind of reliability in a small plane would be just incredible!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Their heads are in the clouds on this one. This project will never fly. I bet it stalls and they never get it off the ground. It simply flies in the face of reason. That said, the sky's the limit when it comes to technological fantasy.
And automobile accidents is actually a big deal today, so I guess they were right too.
I'm sure in 2015 plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 2007 it's a little hard to come by.
It's not the engines which are noisy on Moller's ultra-dangerous thing (I refuse to dignify it with the title "car" or "aircraft" as it is neither) it's the fans/propellers which make all the noise. You simply can't move lots of air without making a hell of a racket.
See: Overclocked PCs, Helicopters, Jet Engine, extractor fan, air conditioner, Vacuum cleaner...
It wouldn't matter if Moller's thing had fuel cells - it would just as noisy.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Go here and look at the nice picture on the right-hand side. Notice that the combustion takes place in the exhaust stream, heading out of the engine. Not inside a cylinder.
Sounds like someone failed basic understanding-of-how-things-work class.
Oh I agree, definitely.