Elon Musk’s (Top Secret) Revolutionary Jet Plane Idea

Lotus Technologies
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Yesterday Elon Musk went on The Joe Rogan Experience, a popular podcast with large readership, and had one of the most relaxed and insightful conversations ever heard and/or seen in years.

In it, after Joe Rogan asks if he ever considered improving airplanes, Musk casually discusses designs for a plane he’s put together.

“I have a design for a plane,” Musk states.

Musk proceeds to talk about the general workings for a vertical take-off, super sonic jet that would run completely on electricity.

Now this sounds ridiculous until Musk begins to explain how he plans on doing it.

The Concept

At 1 hour and 16 minutes into the podcast (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI ), Musk states the following about the electric plan idea:

…You want to go as high as possible but you need a certain energy density in the battery pack. Because you have to overcome gravitational potential energy.

Once you’ve overcome gravitational energy and you’re at a high altitude, the energy you use when you cruise is actually very low. And then you can recapture a large portion of the gravitational potential energy on the way down.

So you really don’t need any sort of reserved fuel. Because you have the potential energy of height.

So What’s That Translate To In English?

Elon Musk is saying you can build an electric plane that relies on very little fuel by using gravity itself.

How?

The jet would only need enough energy to push off of the ground and into a high altitude. Once there, the plane would dive down and use the friction of the air, as it’s falling downwards (aka drag), to glide forward.

How would it accelerate and maintain altitude?

The plane would use gravity alone to glide itself forward, kind of like a paper airplane doing the same to fly in the direction you want it to even though it has no engine.

And since the plane would be able to glide forward using gravity, the energy needed to accelerate forward or increase altitude using the (electric) engine would be marginal and maybe even in short spurts.

The altitude plays a really important factor. Elon states the following important note:

The higher you go, the lower the air resistance is. Air density drops exponentially. But drag increases with a square. And exponential beats a square. The higher you go, the faster you’ll go for the same amount of energy.

..And at a certain altitude you can go super sonic.

How do we know this will work?

Well we don’t.

But I think there is evidence that it’s a reliable technique.

Since the fastest animal in the entire world, the peregrine falcon, uses this same technique to move at speeds in excess of 180 miles per hour.

The peregrine falcon is a bird that primarily eats… other birds.

And it accomplishes this by flying at speeds higher than any other bird can ever hope to accelerate to by flapping alone.

The peregrine falcon follows its prey. And when it sees the right opportunity, quickly increases its altitude and dives downward at a speed that makes its claws inescapable. It’s essentially a living missile.

A video below on the subject below:

What Do You Think Of Elon’s Idea?

I think it’s very solid. And it’s also a great reminder of how some of the more powerful concepts rarely use space age wizardry to accomplish what seems like impossible improvements.

Musk, just by re-examining the possibilities of gravity and following the logic down to gravity’s capability to be a storage place for energy, found a powerful solution to a list of problems.

Glad to see Elon and others like him constantly meditating on crazy solutions to old, large problems.

Article written by Dossey Richards, Founder at Lotus Technologies LotusTech.NYC

Lotus Technologies

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Lotus Technologies - Unlimited mobile app development at one a simple monthly rate. (Website: LotusTech.NYC)

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