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A comment on Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation. Parent comment

Re:Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation by stcredzero on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @12:07PM (#9962549)
If you could run cargo planes on beamed power, you wouldn't have to haul your power storage (fuel) to altitude. Also, given the extreme simplicity and reliability of electric motors, such an infrastructure would save huge amounts of money and also avoid externalities like atmospheric pollution.

The big question, of course, is the ability to build such an infrastructure with enough reliability.

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Re:Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation by elektromekatron on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @12:26PM (#9962711)
Perhaps an orbiting network of solar powered satellites that can each manage large numbers of directed power beams. Though maybe that would be a non starter due to the large number of non-civilian applications.
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Re:Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation by stcredzero on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @01:11PM (#9963017)
Satellites? I doubt it. Too expensive. Long-duration high altitude aircraft, maybe?
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