Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

Re:Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude so... by syntaxing on Monday October 16, 2023 @01:44PM (#37903457)

Fun to see this problem tackled again, I worked at a startup during the boom around a decade ago. Startup failed less than a year (mixture of funding drying up and a shitty founder). Wonder if the technological landscape has changed enough where this is business viable.

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Re:Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude so... by ge96 on Monday October 16, 2023 @01:47PM (#37903494)

Would think so, better motors, better sensors, better batteries, better cells, etc...

Not a fan of the split tail (wing torsion) but Virgin Galactic does it with their massive mothership.

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Re:Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude so... by jthomaslm on Monday October 16, 2023 @02:46PM (#37904280)

Quite a lot has changed in the past decade. Li-ion Battery energy density has roughly doubled, solar tech has come a long way (both in efficiency, but also production scale/costs for commercial silicon cells), and there’s been a wave of improvements for miniaturized drone/UAS hardware. On top of that, there’s 50 years of existing research into solar flight - we’re lucky that we can learn from that!

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