NASA reveals what the final X-57 all-electric X-plane will look like

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/nasa-images-final-x57-electric-x-plane/

by lxm • 6 years ago

244 105 6 years ago

obmelvin• 6 years ago

Does anyone have enough aerospace knowledge to comment on the design? Comments on the article seem skeptical on placement of the propellers, but I have absolutely no expertise here to make any assessment myself.

csours• 6 years ago

I have no special knowledge myself, but as I understand it, the little propellers along the wing greatly reduce takeoff and landing speed and distance - they basically produce airspeed without groundspeed. Note - this is based on a video I watched one time, if I got this wrong, please educate me.

gnramires• 6 years ago

That's correct, essentially you can apply Newton's law (F = dp/dt): the propellers over wings can produce a strong downward momentum flux (air flux) that by reaction generates lift (upward force). Without this flux being directly controllable by the wings (or steerable in other ways), you need to rely on the vehicle's airspeed to generate sufficient airflow on the wings to produce lift (so you'd expect greater takeoff speed/distance necessary).

You might wonder also about efficiency. Generally the energy efficiency of an aircraft is dictated by 1) friction losses 2) outgoing airstream velocity. The lower the friction and the slower you can push an air stream the more efficient the aircraft ((2) is because the kinetic energy imparted on the air is quadratic on speed, while the momentum, and force, is only linear in speed). That's why high-bypass turbofans are now the norm (more air at slower speeds). And why you want a large propeller surface of low speed (I expect at very large propellers you get diminishing/negative returns due to additional drag), which can be few large props or many smaller props (which have the previously discussed advantages).

starpilot3• 6 years ago

There's no better place to put them if your goal is redundancy with lots of small props. Puller props are generally more efficient because they're not in the wake of the wing, but it's a tradeoff and you can Google as for the pros/cons of push vs. pull props. The larger tip props are really interesting. Larger, slower rotors are more efficient. Putting them far outboard puts them in the least-disturbed flow while knocking out the tip vortices. This is only possible with lightweight electric motors vs. shrouded turbines, otherwise the wing/wing box would be quite heavy to support such a long moment arm.

oliveshell• 6 years ago

Here’s a NASA paper on the propeller arrangement:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201600...

Apparently the small propellers’ primary function is “to act as a high-lift device [1]” rather than to generate thrust.

They allow the wings to have a higher aspect ratio (i.e., be ‘long and skinny’) for reduced drag. Without them, such a wing would give undesirable low-speed handling characteristics and a higher stall speed.

Also, their speed can be varied independently and quickly by computer to compensate for turbulence and wind gusts.

Looks like quite an interesting design that plays to the strengths of electric motors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-lift_device

eternauta3k• 6 years ago

Do you mean "lower stall speed"?

Gibbon1• 6 years ago

The tip propellers reduce losses due to wing tip vortexes. From memory about half the drag from a wing comes from those. So potentially there is some savings there.

The reason no ones built an conventional aircraft with tip props before is because mechanical limits, put a piston engine at the tip the wing and like a big weight on a spring. And losing an engine would mean real problems flying the aircraft.

Electric motors are simple and have a higher power to weight ratio. So probably workable. And electric aircraft reducing drag is really important because of the low energy density of batteries compared to aviation fuel.

starpilot3• 6 years ago

Really recommend watching the short video at the end of the article. It shows them fiddling with a 3d-printed prototype of the folding propeller, and some of the CFD analysis of the prop wake - wing interaction.

mfsch• 6 years ago

In the video they tout the X-57 as a contribution to the “urban air mobility market”, arguing that small aircraft can decrease commute times and avoid congestion. This seems very backwards to me. Cars are already very inefficient in their use of space, since they require large amounts of space around them when they are moving at speed. I expect this issue to be significantly worse for aircraft, with the speed they are moving at, the safety distances needed to avoid crashes, and the volume of air they are disturbing around them. While they can potentially make use of the vertical dimension for more space, they still have to move through the surface layer for take-off and landing and will want to stay close to the ground for short trips. And they potentially add a lot of noise to an already noisy urban environment.

I’m all for ambitious research projects pushing the boundaries of electric flight, and there’s probably reasonable use cases for planes like the X-57. But a sustainable urban transport future looks much more like buses and bicycles rather than small electric aircraft.

jacquesm• 6 years ago

Facts never stood in the way of PR.

pritovido• 6 years ago

I believe they will be use for the same thing helicopters are used today:

1-Emergencies and organs transplant. No pilot means more carry load in volume and weight.

2.As a status symbol for top of the ladder executives and polititians. They will go from the top of skyscrapers to their mansions just looking down of those that waste their time in car jams.

I see this being useful for short distance travel as well, but not that much in cities, but outside them.

pilsetnieks• 6 years ago

It's still a plane, it has no VTOL capability. It cannot be used for what helicopters are used today.

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Ha. Organ transplants. Only on TV. My sister runs organs as a volunteer. Commercial flights, no special consideration.

dgudkov• 6 years ago

Cars move in a 2-dimensional space (surface), aircraft move in a 3-dimesional space (without costly highways), so you can utilize space way more efficiently and move more people per square mile.

The safety distances will probably reduce due to automated collision-avoidance systems which may become mandatory in dense flight areas.

Although, I don't know how planes compare to cars in terms of energy utilization efficiency. A car only needs energy to move. A plane needs energy to move and stay above the ground.

rumanator• 6 years ago

Cars move in a 2-dimensional space (surface), aircraft move in a 3-dimesional space (without costly highways), so you can utilize space way more efficiently and move more people per square mile.

You still need to land planes 1 at a time, and that involves a clearing period between landings.

adrianN2• 6 years ago

Nothing can move more people than a subway, certainly not single person planes that need to land and still consume space when not in use, just like cars.

meheleventyone3• 6 years ago

Aircraft require significantly more space between them in order to operate safely so I doubt the efficiency is there even taking into account stacking in an extra dimension. They're also pretty weather dependent in comparison to other options so capacity can vary a lot.

If we actually cared about efficiency in urban transport we wouldn't have personal vehicles beyond bikes and small electric vehicles. We'd rather rely on public infrastructure like subways, trams, trains and buses.

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

While I agree about the hope for this being a solution to mass transit in urban areas...

Cars don't merely require "space", they require space that has road on it with tarmac and signs and lights and junctions, and they require it in a limited 2D plane and that is the same 2D plane that we need space for buildings etc.

Planes work in basically any space and require no infrastructure.

There is a metric shit tonne of space for planes right now just waiting for use. The same is never true for cars.

gmueckl• 6 years ago

You got it wrong. Airspace over cities is very limited. At some point you get to the height in which long distance flights travel. Also, all aircraft have a minimum required safe distance between them tht needs to be large due to aerodynamics. This it become physically impsible to increase traffic density beyond a certain, low threshold.

choeger• 6 years ago

The thing is that cars (and bikes, and to some degree planes) are point-to-point. This decentralized mode of transportation is much more efficient when it comes to satisfy the needs of many commuters. For instance, by bike I save at least half of the time compared to Subway. And I have access to a well-developed subway and I do not need to change.

I agree, though, that planes will never be a replacement for cars or even bikes. That is because the utility per € is much higher for the former. A bike is generally cheap. A car is much more expensive but can carry four or more persons very far in pretty much every weather. A small electric plane is going to be even more expensive (conjecture) but otherwise worse than a car.

jacobush• 6 years ago

Agreed except the fabled concept of the flying car which NASA has been tinkering with for a long time. (Don't know if they still do. Not tinkering with as in actually building it, but thinking about "lanes" in the air, collision avoidance and such.)

jillesvangurp4• 6 years ago

You are ignoring the fact that cars have to navigate what is basically a set a of 1 dimensional corridors on a 2 dimensional plane. Airplanes don't have these limitations and can fly point to point at their choice of altitude.

Currently most of the congestion in aviation is around airports which are necessarily optimized for large jets. With a small airplane, you can fly to a much larger variety of airports, around ~50K world wide and it's relatively straightforward to build even more of them as needed.

Noise is a function of propeller size, rotation speed, and engine noise. Simply put, lots of small propellers rotating at faster speeds driven by electrical engines are a lot less noisy than larger props driven by combustion engines. The physics around this are complex and involve things like the speed of sound of the tips of the propeller (you break that limit at lower rpm for larger props), the mass and thickness of the propeller, vortices, etc. Basically, all of that improves with smaller props.

Compared to a loud helicopter, an electrical plane at the same altitude could be a lot less noisy to the point where in a busy city you'd hear one but not the other above the ambient noise.

Zenst• 6 years ago

Noise is a function of propeller size, rotation speed, and engine noise

Yes and also the frequency of sound, which is another factor of complexity as to how that propagates.

mumblemumble• 6 years ago

I'm guessing that the break-even point on space efficiency is somewhere close to the point where you invent Blade Runner-style levitating cars that require zero extra space for take off and landing, and can move arbitrarily slowly, or even come to a complete stop, without falling out of the sky.

Without that, I doubt that that adding some room for vertical stacking would offset the amount of additional lateral space they end up needing.

And I believe that effect would be intensified by the the amount of vertical stacking you can reasonably do being constrained by how far a vehicle needs to move laterally in order to gain or shed a given amount of altitude, and the distance of the trip being made. For a traditional fixed-wing aircraft operating over "urban commute" distances, that constraint would be downright tyrannical. For Blade Runner style levitating cars, it would be no big deal.

athenot• 6 years ago

cars have to navigate what is basically a set a of 1 dimensional corridors on a 2 dimensional plane. Airplanes don't have these limitations and can fly point to point at their choice of altitude.

That's not entirely correct. Planes also have corridors in the sky. Just like roads, there are the highways (with different altitudes for different directions) and slower lanes for smaller aircraft. And airports are basically a confluence of many lanes, which requires a coordination (air traffic controllers).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airway_(aviation)

technofiend2• 6 years ago

You are ignoring the fact that cars have to navigate what is basically a set a of 1 dimensional corridors on a 2 dimensional plane. Airplanes don't have these limitations and can fly point to point at their choice of altitude.

Absolutely true. However cars are mostly autonomous and airplanes flying through urban airspace are not, with rare exception. The bottleneck will be our air traffic control system, which can not in its semi-automated form scale to the volume required and would not qualify for the usual SV "move fast and break things" treatment, since "breaking things" in this context would be in-air near misses and collisions.

LargoLasskhyfv• 6 years ago

Have you seen/heard recently built rescue helos in action? Been very surprised by them. The loudest thing is the whine of their turbine, but not that loud at all. There are many louder cars and motorcycles on the street. I don't know the type anymore, but it was something built by Airbus Industries, based on some Eurocopter platform. Worlds apart from those old Bell UH-1s!

fastball5• 6 years ago

I don't see why any electric vehicle can't be part of the sustainable urban transportation future.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Would it be better if we built cities around public transport? Generally yes. Does that mean there isn't a place for electric aircraft, electric cars, and smaller personal electric vehicles (bicycles, scooters, segways, hoverboards, skateboards)? Nope. I don't think anyone in this thread thinks that all of our future transportation needs will be satisfied by flight.

And given our current state of global pandemic, I think we can probably agree that even without the pros of other forms of transport, public transit has its own unique downsides.

meheleventyone3• 6 years ago

Right but the comparison is being made against "ground transportation" in the video. Light aircraft are already a component of urban travel (notably helicopters) and merely making them electrically powered isn't going to dramatically increase their utility which again is what the visualization in the video shows.

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

Anything positive to say about this though?

fudged71• 6 years ago

I believe the overall goal of urban+suburban mobility is to increase the number of modalities of transport available. So adding scooters, busses, trains, uber, helicopters, planes, boats, etc.

rcpt• 6 years ago

How different is this from what Joby is doing?

spaceandshit2• 6 years ago

Joby makes the electric motors for this aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joby_Aviation (title image)

redis_mlc4• 6 years ago

The X-plane program does fundamental research. All military and commercial aircraft have benefited from that research, in the same way WW2 German designs also influenced the world.

X-57 is fundamental research, not an effort to create a final product. The closest program similar to it is the X-29, which investigated forward-swept wings, canards and augmented computer systems to control them. (Nobody wants forward-swept wings because a failure in wingtip rigidity or the computer software destroys the structure.)

As a commercially-rated airplane pilot and informal aerodynamics student, I think the wingtip propellers are questionable, and the retractable inboard propellers sound like a maintenance and operations nightmare.

What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.

What's misunderstood about wing tip vortices is that regardless of what the loss is, that flow comes from the entire wing producing lift, so is unavoidable. There are already passive techniques like winglets and fences to direct vortices that don't require daily maintenance.

And we know from the Osprey that complex propeller systems fail too often. A dozen propellers means an order of magnitude more inspections, replacements, ground time (AOG), etc.

At $83,000/hour to operate, a V22 Osprey is more expensive than an A380. Also, read the section on "Design Challenges":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey

Additionally, there is no "urban air mobility market" in the USA, and never will be, due to regulation and insurance requirements. In a showdown between the FAA and Uber, the FAA will always win, and the FAA reserves the perogative to change its mind later, as in drone regulation.

To give you an idea, it was easier to start SpaceX than it would be to get the FAA to allow "urban air mobility." So regulation is the real challenge, not technology.

TeMPOraL2• 6 years ago

To give you an idea, it was easier to start SpaceX than it would be to get the FAA to allow "urban air mobility." So regulation is the real challenge, not technology.

I though the regulatory hurdles around "urban air" come straight from the need to protect people and property from the dangers of a) falling aircraft (which would become a real concern as the use scales up), and b) excessive noise. And I'd guess c) dust clouds. We'd have to invent propulsion that's much more quiet and doesn't push air around for air taxis to make sense. So this would make the root cause of those regulatory problems be technology problems (or perhaps even physics problems).

dodobirdlord• 6 years ago

Large-scale urban air transport would also have to be entirely autonomous. Drunk/distracted driving is already a major issue and cause of death in the United State. In three dimensions and when failure of control can result in collision with any arbitrary part of any structure, this is obviously a non-starter. So getting the FAA to sign off means not only producing a design that must be, elevator style, mechanically essentially incapable of failure, but also getting them to sign off on an autonomous low-altitude flight system for use in dense airspace.

redis_mlc4• 6 years ago

The FAA doctrine is "one level of safety."

What that means is that:

1) a flying car is going to be treated like operating an airliner if money changes hands to carry passengers. To give you an idea of what that costs, consider that an adequate tourism helicopter is $2 million.

2) otherwise, there's a rule for built-up areas that requires flying 500' over people and structures. That doesn't count for landings on regular airports and EMS helicopters on top of hospitals, but does pretty much everywhere else. Not terribly useful for commuting downtown.

3) the FAA regulates airspace and airports, but municipalities generally say no in urban areas when private citizens ask to operate helicopters off-airport. Steve Jobs found that out when he tried to get permission to use one for personal "urban air mobility" either in Palo Alto or Cupertino.

So to conclude ...

If you wanted agreement from the FAA and municipalities to do the "urban air mobility" thing, you'd need to start with what I wrote and devise a compelling argument that satisfies their concerns. Note that wasn't done with drones, and look at how restrictive the rules are now. It will be far worse if you want to charge money to carry passengers.

Rightfully so - passengers expect to embark, travel and disembark without making the headlines.

And you need a plan for what happens after the first accident that kills a passenger. Because not just one air mobility company, but all companies, will be mercilessly hammered by the FAA. Can you afford to shutdown for a year or two while the NTSB and FAA do their thing?

WalterBright3• 6 years ago

If we had the modern regulatory environment 130 years ago, we'd never have had consumer cars.

ncmncm2• 6 years ago

And no 30k-50k car deaths / year. Worth it? Biased?

dTal• 6 years ago

An excellent point. Alas, we didn't, and now we're stuck with an awful 19th century local maximum.

friendlybus• 6 years ago

Judging a regulatory environment for a market that doesn’t exist yet from research craft seems pre-emptive.

We’ve had multi engine turbo props forever, I don’t understand why the osprey is more comparable than a traditional propeller aircraft.

audunw• 6 years ago

What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.

But it's pretty obvious that they don't have a problem with lift during cruise, so why does it matter that you lose some lift? I really doubt they would design the wing that narrow if simulations showed that lift was an issue, and I think these guys know what they're doing, so if you think this is an issue I think you need a stronger argument.

That's the whole point of the small propellers, to gain that lift during take-off and landing, while not producing drag during cruise.

And we know from the Osprey that complex propeller systems fail too often. A dozen propellers means an order of magnitude more inspections, replacements, ground time (AOG), etc.

But we're already seeing from small electric planes entering the market now that they have much lower maintenance and operational costs. Electric motors are fundamentally more reliable and low-maintenance than other alternatives.

So it can make sense to spend some of those saved costs on increasing the complexity a bit to increase efficiency and redundancy.

I also don't agree that this propeller system is complex or would require an order of magnitude more inspections. As mentioned, electric motors are extremely simple and reliable, and the small propellers have a high degree of redundancy, so you could design the system to allow for failure of one or two motors without affecting operations. The folding mechanism for the propellers looks to be very simple.

A way to think about it could be: ensuring that you have high enough safety margins require a certain amount of complexity. You can either spend that complexity on two engines that require a high degree of internal complexity and maintenance, or you spend the complexity on 10 motors that are extremely simple and are allowed to fail.

I also think the comparison with the V22 Osprey is extremely flawed. The purpose of those complex rotors have an entirely different purpose, and it's certainly not for redundancy or efficiency, and the engines have wildly different properties from electric motors.

Additionally, there is no "urban air mobility market" in the USA, and never will be, due to regulation and insurance requirements.

It's pretty bold to say "there never will be". But anyway, it's just a vision, something to strive for.

What we do know is that it's very likely that electric planes will lead to higher utilisation of small airports. They're cheaper to operate and more silent, which significantly reduces the barrier to using these kinds of airports. At first we'll just see pretty standard looking electric planes in existing small airports, but as this market grows, I think you'll see both the planes and the airports change to optimise for this new/growing market. No, maybe you won't have a flying car in your garage, but I find it very likely that you can drive/bike/walk to something like a bus/train-station to catch a small 10-20 passenger plane somewhere. And though that would be impossible with the regulations today, the regulations will adapt iteratively, allowing the small airports to move closer and closer to urban centres, with shorter and shorter runways.

redis_mlc4• 6 years ago

it's just a vision, something to strive for.

There's no path to that vision in US urban areas.

New airports will not be built near urban centers due to lack of land and NIMBYs. So you have a significant last mile problem.

Everything seems possible when you don't know anything.

sunstone• 6 years ago

Fluid dynamics can be counter intuitive.

rswail• 6 years ago

Surely providing electric general aviation is a good idea, assuming that the economics of electric power compared to fossil fuels in general aviation is worth it on both ecological savings (CO2) and operational.

Electric motors are inherently much simpler than internal combusion, but I don't know how they compare to turbofans.

But it's definitely worth the research and working out design and other aspects is a good thing for research in other aviation areas like drones.

bdamm2• 6 years ago

What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.

They're generating lift at low speeds by using the array of small motors, and then optimizing the wing for cruise lift. It's really brilliant. And it'll result in better handling in turbulence too. Frankly I'm stunned at the direction they've gone here, it's really remarkable and is a major shift in approach to aerodynamics that has huge implications across the industry.

starpilot3• 6 years ago

Re: Osprey, the X-57's electric motors are vastly simpler than the fueled gas turbines + driveshafts in that aircraft. All you do is run wiring down the wings, with the Osprey you're running pressurized, flexible fuel lines into a movable nacelle with enormously complex turbomachinery to do all of the compression + combustion. These things are a pandora's box of fatigue problems from the multimodal vibrations and it takes years to analyze them all.

You also can't compare operating costs of a military vs. civil aircraft. VERY different priorities, military aircraft have dramatically higher requirements due to where they operate (desert sand anyone?) and their mission. EVERYTHING gets inspected, components are designed to be performant like Formula 1 race cars and not necessarily for lowest operating costs. It's like comparing an M1 tank, which gets 0.5 mpg, to a Ford F150.

What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.

This is nonsense, there's no rule of the thumb that states any random wing reduces prop thrust by 50%. You must calculate it. It's a very complex unsteady flow field dependent on all of the geometries involved. It will vary on flight condition obviously.

informal aerodynamics student

I'm sorry but the average pilot's understanding of aerodynamics is very poor. I've seen blatant mistakes in flight manuals. At the least you should know how to explain what Reynolds number and Kutta condition are before diving into these discussions.

alkibiades• 6 years ago

does the have anything to do with actual space travel or just a hobby project for global warming?

kryptiskt• 6 years ago

The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics.

TeMPOraL2• 6 years ago

The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics. NASA doesn't do just space.

redis_mlc4• 6 years ago

NASA did abandon aviation for space, shelving the X-plane program for about 2 decades, which was a huge loss.

It's great they're back, and have been doing fantastic work in fundamental research that private companies don't get around to: hypersonic vehicles, small-airplane electronics, now electric.

NikolaeVarius• 6 years ago

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

sintaxi• 6 years ago

"spreading congestion" is not the best marketing pitch.

mlindner• 6 years ago

Not a fan of this design. The future for electric motors on aircraft is ducted fans, just as are used on jet engines.

fastball5• 6 years ago

That sounds loud.

hwillis• 6 years ago

For complex reasons, ducted fans are generally quieter, but less efficient if you arent going quite fast.

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

Can you expand on that? I’ve wondered the same thing.

atrettel• 6 years ago

Propeller-driven aircraft perform best at subsonic speeds (slower than the speed of sound). This is because the blade tips of the propellers approach the speed of sound at faster speeds, and this greatly increases the drag on the propeller blades, among other things. This is why after World War 2 propeller-driven fighter craft fell out of use, since they could not get much faster without major issues.

Modern passenger jets operate in the transonic range (0.7 to 0.8 times the speed of sound). This range is a bit too fast for propellers and pretty much requires jet engines or something similar. Using props for passenger planes would reduce their speed as experienced by passengers today. I believe this is what the author is referring to.

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

Meta: I haven’t seen this much negativity for an exciting new technology from HN before. It’s kind of bizarre.

leetcrew2• 6 years ago

it's transportation research money that isn't being spent on bike lanes, buses, or rail.

rexreed• 6 years ago

In our part of the US, money for bike lanes, buses, and rail comes from states and local jurisdictions, not from federal funds. The portion of money NASA is getting from this does not take away from multi-modal transportation investment at the local level.

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Problem in the article with the caption? It says the picture is in 'cruise mode' but when cruising at altitude, the X-57 folds the small electric motors into the wing nacelles and leaves only the two wingtip props active. Did I miss something?

roelschroeven• 6 years ago

No, the propellors fold into the motor nacelles. Not the motors into the wings.

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Thanks!

GordonS3• 6 years ago

Aside from the pictures, the article was a bit lacking in information. According to wikipedia, it only seats 2 people, has a maximum range of only 100 miles, and a maximum flight time of only 1 hour. The batteries weigh 390kg, which sounds like a lot of weight relative to the small size of the plane.

I get that electric flight is new, and it's going to take a long time before anything happens at scale, but given the limitations (and of course the fact you need an airstrip at either end of your journey) I can't help but wonder who is going to actually buy them, and what they would do with them?

PaulRobinson• 6 years ago

The X in X-Planes stands for "eXperimental". The history of them goes back within the US to 1946 and as the list [1] of vehicles shows, these aircraft are intended to test concepts and ideas, not provide a sellable solution to the market.

Whilst most are betting that commercial electric in the air is going to be VTOL - and they do address the low endurance and runway issues you highlight - there are efficiency gains for longer distance in fixed wing designs, and you're going to have to think about electrification of that class of vehicle at some point.

Put another way: we don't use helicopters for all passenger transport for a whole bunch of reasons, EVTOLs don't fix all those reasons, and so if you want to keep fixed wing aircraft around as a concept AND you want to use electric motors, at some point you're going to have to think about experimenting with electric passenger-carrying fixed wing aircraft.

Thus: the X-57.

You might wonder what the purpose of an experimental aircraft in this config is, if the eventual goal is to build airliners that can move lots of people.

Well, the X-1 was no Concorde, but Concorde would not have happened without the X-1. And so it goes...

It's OK then to think of the X-57 to an airliner of the future, as the X-1 was to Concorde. It's a whole set of interesting experiments that will validate some hypotheses, refute others, and we move along another step towards a better future.

Seat count will get higher, endurance will improve, batteries will get lighter, and within 20 years, who knows where we'll be.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-planes

GordonS3• 6 years ago

Thanks, your comment makes a lot of sense.

I do understand this is experimental, but I just assumed the end goal was to do a licensing deal of some sort with a partner than would sell a commercialised variant.

My assumption (yes, another one ;) was that electrification would require baby-steps towards commercialisation in order to continue to fund the kind of progress you speak of - in the same kind of way we saw with cars, where initially they were expensive, had a very short range, there was very limited infrastructure etc, but they were still an option for a small market segment.

Dylan16807• 6 years ago

Not that having an efficient fixed wing is mutually exclusive with VTOL.

GordonS3• 6 years ago

With cars, we've seen a lot of companies going the hybrid route, combining multiple small electric motors with a combustion engine. I'm curious if the same could be done with aviation - perhaps a turboprop or jet engine to get to cruise altitude, then electric engines taking over.

Anyone know if there are any promising hybrid planes on the horizon?

spaceandshit2• 6 years ago

Only one of many competitors: https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/press-releases/2019/06-11-...

sergeykish• 6 years ago

Cruise efficiency increased from 0.7 km/kWh to 2.9 km/kWh (13 nmi/gal AuGas to equivalent 51 nmi/gal AuGas).

Better than ICE car!

zelienople• 6 years ago

Humans need a basic amount of exercise for health. It is hard for me to understand how someone with a functioning brain would look at traffic congestion and propose this solution, particularly with the codicil, "it's already benefiting taxpayers".

No, technological developments that cannot possibly be used by anyone but the wealthy few, no matter how energy-efficient, are not a sane solution to urban transportation issues.

The solutions are more prosaic:

(1) Reduce population, population density, and the product of population times lifestyle. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and our science is telling us that unequivocally with a cacophony of data from coral reefs, the status of the ocean, the loss of insects, and many other sources. We must control our own numbers. There is no technological alternative to that.

(2) Create spaces and routes that foster personal human-powered transportation, such as bicycling. Separate the cars from the people to stop the carnage and remove legitimate safety arguments against bicycling.

(3) Make public transit extensive and free. Stop extracting a pound of flesh from the poorest for every ride that they must take to get to a job that doesn't pay a living wage. The inequity of wealth distribution in our society has passed all limits of sanity. Incentive works great in small "c" capitalism, and we need to make sure that mom and pop outfits and very small businesses have the incentive to innovate and produce, but there is no need for the unlimited capitalism that we have now. Take a few pennies out of the pockets of the uber-rich to pay for transit.

(4) Stop the propaganda, herein represented by NASA's usual BS about how we all benefit from their R&D. Organ transplants my fanny. The only thing this kind of transportation is going to do is to further increase the divide between ordinary people and the ultra-rich who pay no taxes in any case. Taxpayer-funded research into new toys for the CEO. Yay.

We are brainwashed into a profligately wasteful, unnecessary, insanely-self-focused lifestyle. Mass media makes us feel bad so we'll go out and spend all our money on the latest stupid thing that will break in a year or less and we'll throw out. All the while we are striving to fill some artificially-stoked hunger for more: more money, more things, more waste and more destruction.

The X-57 feeds right into that brainwashing. It will be our end.

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Its actually pointed at reducing the entry cost of flying. So ultimately not for ultra-rich.

NASA spends peanuts, and part of those peanuts is spent on fostering innovation. When I hear "Lets just feed the poor!" I feel ill. We're not so desperate we can't do right by our people, without tearing down everything else that's good. NASA's budget isn't going to feed the poor for more than 10 minutes.

NASA reveals what the final X-57 all-electric X-plane will look like

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