Top
Best
New

Posted by feb 2 days ago

The largest electric aircraft just flew [video](www.youtube.com)
https://www.ycombinator.com/library/Y6-the-world-s-largest-e...
251 points | 183 commentspage 3
mandeepj 5 hours ago|
Hybrid! That's what happens when you build new devices around old infra. Steve Jobs didn't design the iPhone around Carriers; it was the other way around.
aliljet 9 hours ago||
To be clear, this is a hybrid aircraft, but it's still an awesome step forward!
rotringlvr 8 hours ago|
[dead]
Robdel12 9 hours ago||
This is awesome! More of this in YC and less Flock's.
tantalor 6 hours ago||
Did it fly?

Most of the video is the workshop.

Where is the airplane??

gavinsyancey 9 hours ago||
> It's the first clean sheet airliner to be flown in any category, electric or not, uh, in the US in in the last 18 years.

Uh, what about the Bombardier C-series (A220)?

ojbyrne 9 hours ago|
Wikipedia says “It was initially developed by Bombardier Aviation with the program launched on 13 July 2008 and had two years in-service as the Bombardier CSeries.”

Hence 18 years.

Scrimptech 2 days ago||
Hope it's accurate. Sounds good to be true.
AmVess 6 hours ago|
It's true. Good? Nope. This thing will burn giant piles of cash in repairs, and that's not even considering battery replacement, which completely obviates the entire point of this thing.
tristanj 10 hours ago||
The interior of the plane is clearly designed by an engineer. They stripped everything down to save weight, passenger comfort be dammed. The seats don't even look comfortable.

They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.

dmurray 9 hours ago||
Really, a prototype airplane, the first of this size ever built with this novel propulsion system, had engineers involved in the design?
tristanj 9 hours ago||
You've missed the point. The engineers went too far optimizing for weight, to the point of sacrificing usability.
amluto 8 hours ago|||
It’s a prototype. Surely easy access to the structure and equipment is a lot more valuable than nice seats and a finished-looking interior surface.
free_bip 6 hours ago||||
The company that makes the airplane is not normally the company that installs the interior anyways. The airline that buys the plane typically determines what the interior will look like (stuff like ratio of business to economy, overall # of seats, in flight entertainment, etc)

It being barebones from the factory is not a problem.

notahacker 9 hours ago|||
What does "usability" mean in the context of a prototype short haul passenger aircraft? It's got seats for people to sit in...

The competition in this market segment doesn't look like Middle Eastern airlines' first class cabin concept art, it looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340#/media/File:Mesaba_Ai...

MBCook 10 hours ago|||
But maybe they’re aiming at short haul cargo. And either way, wouldn’t that really be one of the last things to do? Just proving the plane can even get in the air and stay there for a useful distance on electricity is more important than how comfortable it is.
tristanj 9 hours ago||
The video shows dozens of seats, so they are not only aiming for short haul cargo.
mhb 9 hours ago||
And, unsurprisingly, the video also includes speaking where the head of the company says that.
serf 8 hours ago||
customers buy furniture options when they order the plane.

related : many flight demonstrators in the past for large passenger planes have had no interior at all aside from the cockpit and ballast kits.

rotringlvr 8 hours ago|
[dead]