alt Hacker NewsThe weapons use saddens me. Ignoring that, this is interesting for electric aviation as a whole. One of my arguments about electric aviation is that burning fuel for propulsion has a lot of challenges, especially at altitude. Pushing the speed envelope for electric will lead to more and more novel ways of pushing things and once they get efficient, fast and, very importantly, high altitude, the amount of power you need drops considerably. The argument against electric aviation is always that (pick your favorite fuel x) has 100x the energy per gram. This is an apples to bananas comparison for many reasons but at a high level if you need far less energy to cover the same distance then that argument goes away in a hurry. Electric propulsion with aircraft redesigns taking advantage of it has a chance to do that. I'm really looking forward to hitting FL1000 and getting to my destination in an hour using electric propulsion.... eventually.
FL1000 is likely not possible using electricty. Electric power is converted into thrust via propellers pushing against a working fuild (air). The less air at fl1000 means less working fluid. A combustion engine adds to the air, generating thrust not just by propellers but through rocket forces: heating the working fluid and ejecting it at speed. To do that with electricity one would have to convert the electricity into heat, a massively wasteful process. The only way to get the necessary heat without burning something would be nuclear tech a la Skyfall or project Pluto.