Re:Aviation Is on a Low-Carbon Flight Path
by Mountain_Skies on Thursday November 07, 2019 @11:19AM
(#21474532)
That would also make point to point flights easier to coordinate. It might not make sense to have a direct commercial flight from Birmingham, Alabama to Fort Collins, Colorado with today's aircraft but if you only needed to fill four seats, such pairings might work. Not sure how much quieter an electric airplane would be but if it is significantly quieter, smaller airports spread out in greater numbers would also make point to point more viable.
Re:Aviation Is on a Low-Carbon Flight Path
by notahacker on Thursday November 07, 2019 @05:08PM
(#21477845)
Four seater aircraft have been around since the first decade of flight, and I'm not sure batteries are going to solve the cost and logistics issues of using them as taxis, except in edge cases where there's a mountain in the way.
Flying anywhere near as far as from Birmingham, Alabama to Fort Collins, Colorado is also an exceptionally hard problem for electric aircraft.
To be honest, the worst parts of flying are usually all those other passengers anyways. If you could scale up a fleet on-demand small electric planes. Flying would improve. If you account for all the waiting time, it might be just as fast too.