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No, You Can’t Have a Solar-Powered Passenger Plane
Guilt-free air travel is a beautiful dream, but there’s simply no way to get enough solar energy to keep a cabin full of people in the air.
At a recent rally, Donald Trump stated that electric planes would be a bad idea because you couldn't fly if it was cloudy. If you don't want to slow down, you will need some type of force pushing the plane forward, like a jet engine. Putting it all together—lift, drag, gravity, thrust—here is a force diagram for a plane flying at a constant velocity:
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