> I'm pretty sure those don't exist and if they did they'd be very large and heavy
I'm clueless on these things, but what order of magnitude for "heavy" are we talking about here? If we take a 1Kg microwave and add 4 orders of magnitude we're at 10,000Kg and a 747 weighs in at ~200,000Kg, so by that measures it seems achievable. I'd also assume existing terrestrial ones aren't optimized for weight in any way.
> I would be surprised if there's much hope of that competing with conventional jet engines on efficiency.
Efficiency isn't the only measure, there if energy can be cheaper than fuel then less efficient can win out. There may also be applications for long running, low weight flight powered by solar like starlink.
I'm clueless on these things, but what order of magnitude for "heavy" are we talking about here? If we take a 1Kg microwave and add 4 orders of magnitude we're at 10,000Kg and a 747 weighs in at ~200,000Kg, so by that measures it seems achievable. I'd also assume existing terrestrial ones aren't optimized for weight in any way.
> I would be surprised if there's much hope of that competing with conventional jet engines on efficiency.
Efficiency isn't the only measure, there if energy can be cheaper than fuel then less efficient can win out. There may also be applications for long running, low weight flight powered by solar like starlink.
TIL I learned of this handy site: https://whatthingsweigh.com/how-much-does-a-boeing-747-weigh...