aviation
Flying and the machines that do it: propulsion, airlines, runways, and what happened to Boeing.
FilterEveryone, all time49 from 24 people
- PL
Pieter Levels quoted
Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone
Their wordsIn reality at too high speeds things just start falling off an airplane like here the rudder
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals
Their wordsthe one thing that could make me switch to @united is Starlink. It's just so much better.
- 7 days earlier
- YB
Yoshua Bengio quoted
Deep-learning researcher and Turing Award laureate
Their wordsFrontier AI should be licensed like other critical technologies; medicine, aviation, and nuclear energy, to incentivize safe development.
↗Professor Yoshua Bengio’s speech at the UN Security Councilyoshuabengio.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 12 days earlier
- MY
Matthew Yglesias quoted
Writes Slow Boring, a near-daily newsletter on American…
Their wordsI think appreciation of the contingency starts with observing that the whole idea of hijacking airplanes in order to destroy the World Trade Center is eccentric.
↗We’re still underrating 9/11’s impactslowboring.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 10 days earlier
- SA
Scott Alexander quoted
Essayist; writes Astral Codex Ten
Their wordsRather than treat AI as similar to airplanes, we should treat it as something between airplanes and humans. We don’t know exactly where on this spectrum they will land, but we can no longer be certain that AI will lack any given humanlike motivation.
- 2 weeks earlier
- MK
Michael Kratsios quoted
US science and technology adviser to the president
Their wordsI think it's the most obvious sort of like in your face example of technological stagnation. We had the Concorde flying years ago. We're flying slower than we were back then today. Absolute tragedy.
↗Michael Kratsios: Inside the White House's AI Strategyyoutube.com 13th of 20 in this recording
- 13 days earlier
- ZH
Zeke Hausfather quoted
Climate scientist and energy systems analyst
Their wordsUnlike aviation, this is an end-use we already know how to decarbonize.
↗The real energy use of agentic AItheclimatebrink.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
- PC
Patrick Collison quoted
Co-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc Institute
Their wordsI mean, obviously aviation was was a pretty big deal, but uh I I I don't think it was sort of quite the um the sociological rewriting that some of the you know excitable proponents at the time imagined. So I am you know it's it's hard to predict anything especially the future but I would I would take the under on this being the last couple of years to get a company going.
↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 6th of 20 in this recording
- 3 days earlier
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic
Their wordsIn 1969, we landed on the moon for the first time and the same year we flew Concord, the faster than the speed of sound airliner. The future was supposed to be faster and better. where we're supposed to look forward to innovation in air and in space. And yet, half a century later, we can't go to the moon and we can't fly faster than the speed of sound.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 1st of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsBut if we fast forward half a century, this is the 787, their latest airliner, which by the way was launched more than 20 years ago. You can't spot the difference. It doesn't fly any faster. It doesn't make the world any more accessible.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsThose first jetliners truly did double the speed of what had come before them. And was they doubled the speed of air travel, the most important changes were on the ground. Hawaii was simply not a tourist destination before the speed of the jet.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 4th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsWell, no. They're not even building new airplanes anymore, let alone innovative new airplanes.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 5th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsby making the sonic boom disappear entirely, we are able to put aside a question that had long plagued people talking about supersonic flight, which is how quiet is quiet enough? If there's no boom at all, there's nothing to argue about.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 6th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsThe key thing is to make hardware development look more like software development to reduce the cost of iteration both in the world of bits and in the world of atoms.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 8th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsBut great airplanes are incredibly integrated and everything affects everything else. uh the the best airplane design is interplay of propulsion, of aerodynamics, of structures, of all kinds of optimizations, how you fit the systems into it.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 9th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsYou can't get to product market fit on a supersonic jet by building it and seeing if anybody likes it. You have to analyze very carefully the art of the possible and also what will maximize the market opportunity.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsThis is a supersonic engine adapted for ground power generation that can ship without the rest of the airplane, thereby generating the test data, the learnings, the reliability, and also the capital that we need to go big.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 13th of 22 in this recording
- BS
Blake Scholl quoted
Their wordsWhy? We engaged early. We made the regulators part of the team and we worked together. We made it boom plus FAA versus the problem, not Boom versus FAA.
↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 18th of 22 in this recording
- 8 months earlier
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Physicist, formerly at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Their wordsBy 2045, natural gas will be used as LNG primarily for high performance supersonic aviation, shipping, and industrial heat.
↗Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 5th of 6 in this piece
- 7 months earlier
- JH
James Holland quoted
British historian and writer specialising in the Second World War
Their wordsAnd by that time, aircraft production in Britain is massively outpacing the Germans and the best ratio that the Germans achieve in 1940s, July 1940, when the British produced 496 new Hurricanes and Spitfires, single-engine fighters, and the Germans only produced 240 single-engine fighters.
↗James Holland: World War II, Hitler, Churchill, Stalin & Biggest Battles | Lex Fridman Podcast #470youtube.com 20th of 27 in this recording
- 16 months earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordslow-cost airlines had to emphasize all the things you didn't get when ordering a fifty euro flight from Paris to London to become credible alternatives to full-cost carriers
- 7 months earlier
- DW
Dan Wang quoted
Writer and analyst of Chinese technology and industry
Our readingChina will substantially close its strategic technology gaps, including in chips and aviation.
Their wordsSo I continue to hold the view that China will mostly patch up its strategic deficiencies, including in chips and aviation.
↗China notes, July ’23: on technological momentumdanwang.co 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 6 months earlier
- ED
Eli Dourado quoted
Economist writing about why physical technologies
Their wordsA small rigid-body airship for good physical reasons should not exist.
↗Cargo airships could be bigelidourado.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
- ED
Eli Dourado quoted
Their wordsFAA certification is required before you transport anything for money.
↗Cargo airships could be bigelidourado.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
- ED
Eli Dourado quoted
Their wordsDesigning your aircraft for the beachhead market is a huge distraction, particularly when there are certification costs that have to be paid for each new model.
↗Cargo airships could be bigelidourado.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
- VS
Vaclav Smil quoted
Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst
Their wordsBut even if that trend continues for the next 50 years, we would still see top densities of about 3,500 Wh/L, no more than a third that of kerosene. The wait for superbatteries ready to power intercontinental flight may not be over by even 2070.
↗Waiting for Superbatteries (IEEE Spectrum, Numbers Don’t Lie)spectrum.ieee.org
- 3 weeks earlier
- RB
Rodney Brooks quoted
Robotics researcher, emeritus professor at MIT and former…
Their wordsI see lots of hype about eVTOLs being on the verge of being big, but I can’t find any videos of prototypes doing what the hype says will be common place by 2025.
↗Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- RB
Rodney Brooks quoted
Their wordsAll radically new products, and air taxi eVTOLs certainly count as radically new, require the convergence of many different capabilities and technologies. Often one or more technology will be lagging and it may take decades for them all to come together in the right place at the right time.
↗Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 4 months earlier
- BF
Bjorn Fehrm quoted
Aeronautical engineer, former fighter pilot and airline…
Their wordsAll propulsion systems are air pumps, and they work more efficiently if they accelerate a large mass of air to a small overspeed than vice versa.
↗Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 27. Multicopters.leehamnews.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- BF
Bjorn Fehrm quoted
Their wordsThe drone-like architecture of the multicopters is simple, but as the rotors are responsible for keeping the unit at a constant altitude with hover power, they represent an energy-intensive version of VTOLs. Their range is, therefore, short, typically less than 20 miles.
↗Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 27. Multicopters.leehamnews.com 2nd of 2 in this piece