Quote:
Originally Posted by nuke11
How is an aircraft converted to fusion? We have a decent idea as to how a ground vehicle (and by extension boats/ships) can be done, but what is needed for an airplane?
We have space and weight restrictions as well as power to weight ratios that would need to be somewhat maintained for the power plant.
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If you are talking about converting an existing plane into being fusion powered, the weight distribution would be a bigger issue than the weight limit. There simply might not be any place to set up the fusion plant that wouldn't also take up cargo/passenger space. At least with smaller planes. (I know a few things about electric cars and have been involved with converting one petrol powered car into an electric car and even then the weight distribution, was an issue and we actually had to sacrifice the back seats and the trunk in order to find a place where we could physically fit the batteries AND keep the weight distribution from getting messed up too much. It was a school project. Not quite the same as airplanes, I assume that with planes this will be even harder. With a large cargoplane this might not be such an issue, just like converting an electric bus is SO much easier than a smaller car.)
What you can do instead is design a plane that is powered by fusion, by starting from zero. (Kinda like the "joke" about how the A-10 Warthog started from "we have this huge gun, how can we make it fly" rather than "we have this plane, what are we going to arm it with?")
And I still think that there isn't enough justification for jet planes. The only scenarios where rotor planes and helicopters aren't enough are so unlikely that they won't be worth all the trouble.
Meanwhile, Zeppelin's could have a place in Morrow project...