Originally Posted by
vikingivesterled
Let's get back to the subject and not diverge into what you'd prefer to fly or what job you'd take first, but what plane will emerge.
There is a possibility that a new aircraft manufacturer will emerge in the electric area like Tesla appeared from nowhere and quickly overtook the established car manufacturers.
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Who knows. That plane could be an electric 757 stilt-shaped 4 aisled delta wing where triple-bogey wheels are used to land the extra weight of batteries, with a hydrogen fueled range extender only operating over water.
Baring a massive improvement in battery energy density vs. weight (I'm talking an order of magnitude), electric aircraft will never be viable for trips of more than a few hundred miles. Similarly, hydrogen has massive issues as an aircraft fuel - not the least of which is it has
horrible energy density (even as a cryogenic liquid) meaning that for long range flight the fuel tank would be as large as the passenger compartment. Sure, it's light, but needing a huge, well insulated tank to carry it tends to offset that low fuel weight.
Then there is the complete lack of the necessary infrastructure for H2 has a fuel, plus the fact that creating H2 by electrolysis is horribly energy inefficient with current technology.
People tend to forget that, before becoming one of the world's richest people, Musk and Tesla came dangerously close to bankruptcy and financial ruin. The car business is hard. The commercial airline business is exponentially harder...