Reply To: General thought on old coal mines.

[Glenn Millam]

OK, let me get this straight. There are a lot of unknowns to me here.

To get a 747, fully loaded, into the air you would need to know:

– The amount of thrust necessary to get the thing flying at cruising speed

– The amount of electric fans necessary to produce the thrust

– The difference in weight between the electric and liquid-fuel engines they are replacing (hopefully a nice savings)

– The landing weight the plane must have to land safely

– The number of DPFs to provide energy and some level of redundancy

– The weight of those DPFs

– The weight if the capacitors and other plumbing to make the DPFs work

– The weight of the transformers and other equipment used to capture the energy and direct it for use by the airplane

– The weight of the lead-foil “onions” to capture X-ray energy bleed-off

– The weight of extra X-ray shielding to keep ANY hint of X-ray radiation outside the reactor chamber

– The weight of neutron shielding

– The weight of the superstructure to house the entire reaction chamber and keep it stable on a moving vehicle

– Considerations such as extra equipment or personnel necessary to run the reactor (assuming that the pilots or other crew cannot be trained to handle this task

– Safety considerations for such events as lightning strike and turbulence. Would a DPF be affected by a lightening storm? Would its magnetic nature be disrupted by passing directly through one, or near one? Would you need more shielding, or would the X-ray shielding work for this problem?

– How much of the cabin must be sacrificed to deal with the energy plant being housed in the fuselage

Then compare all this to what current technology is providing in terms of weight, volume, and aerodynamic performance.

Does anyone have these answers? I know that the current plan for FF is to be housed in garage-sized power plants. Thats very small for a power plant but kind of big on a jetliner. But where there is a will there is a way….