After seeing this:
I got to thinking.
Instead of building something like the Aircam, a blimp with electric power is the ultimate STOL craft. Completely quiet and an unobstructed view downwards.
Use hydrogen as a lifting gas and you can generate it at home. At about 50 cents per kg of lifting gas (electrolysis), it's cheap enough that you could throw it out after every flight.
Electric because it's as quiet as it gets. 20 kg of batteries gets you about 4 kWh of power. Cruising at 1500 Watts and maybe 30 mph, that's a good 2 hrs or about 60 miles. With electric motors, there is no weight penalty against massively overpowering it, such that maneuvering becomes less of a challenge, for example: http://emrax.com/products/emrax-188/
So what am I missing here. No affordable envelopes around? Electric power systems too recent to have anybody doing this before?
I got to thinking.
Instead of building something like the Aircam, a blimp with electric power is the ultimate STOL craft. Completely quiet and an unobstructed view downwards.
Use hydrogen as a lifting gas and you can generate it at home. At about 50 cents per kg of lifting gas (electrolysis), it's cheap enough that you could throw it out after every flight.
Electric because it's as quiet as it gets. 20 kg of batteries gets you about 4 kWh of power. Cruising at 1500 Watts and maybe 30 mph, that's a good 2 hrs or about 60 miles. With electric motors, there is no weight penalty against massively overpowering it, such that maneuvering becomes less of a challenge, for example: http://emrax.com/products/emrax-188/
So what am I missing here. No affordable envelopes around? Electric power systems too recent to have anybody doing this before?
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