Yes mate…good points. The batteries should (at some stage) become lighter, smaller and more powerful…that’s the goal anyway. It’s good that the west is going electric everything and in tandem developing more tech to produce this electricity…remember Tesla here also…energy from the air. I said a couple of decades ago, when my friends were bemoaning the advent of electric cars, saying that race and drag will lose the thrill of the engine sound, the sound of power and the smells that go with it…I butted in and explained to them that in the future, electric cars will have massive amounts of power, and the ability to apply that power virtually instantly…with the right tyres, this will smash pretty much all the combustion records…a new ‘suped’ sound will emerge…the sound of kilo/mega watts… I apply this to forthcoming aircraft also…just more in its infancy. Just as aircraft leapt forward with the jet…so too they will with new power plants creating forward motion (notice I didn’t necessarily say thrust). Commercial aircraft have been sitting on 500 miles an hour for decades…I’m looking forward to a new standard speed.
I recently had my first time driving an electric car - my office has several of them for staff cars - and it has excellent acceleration. I had to pull on to Interstate 95 and was a bit concerned, but when I stepped on the "gas" it took off like a rocket, all the way to top speed with no pause for shifting gears.
Wright is already testing an electric passenger jet engine, and Rolls Royce has a fantastic prop engine for small planes.
I still think in it's overrated. I always base it on whether or not the Russians tried to copy or better it. Well, they also realized that the frog foot has limit capabilities. The only advantage the A-10 has over it is longer loiter time.
I'm sure there are companies here and in other countries trying to work on more powerful motors and high efficient power cells. Who knows maybe in twenty years we will have electric powered fighter aircraft. BTW I've always had a question about the marines and I take it your a former marine. I had to do an electrical servey and inspection on camp Pendleton and we would run into sargents that would say how can I help you hard dogs, lol, my supervisor was what did he call us was that a slang for dicks? Lol I don't really know what they meant I'm sure it has to do with marines associated with Bulldogs but I would like a clear idea of just what is what.
Yeah, Devil Dog is a generic term used by some NCO's when referring to non-rates (Pvt/PFC/LCpl) eg. "Hey Devil Dog, grab your trash and fall out." It is often shortened to just devil or dawg. "Hey Debil (phonetic) get your freakin' hands out of your pockets." Devil Dog is from the German "TeufelsHunden" reputedly a nickname given the Marines related to the 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood. The French later renamed the wood, "Bois de la Brigade de Marine". What is really funny, is that around 2005, because of the habit of Marine NCO's calling the junior enlisted Devil Dogs, these junior enlisted began to have a negative connotation associated with the term. Headquarters Marine Corps not wanting to lose this traditional point of pride assigned some not really smart officer(s) to come up with a solution. They issued an order suggesting the term not be used and instead Junior Enlisted Warrior should be used in its place. The military being big on shortening things (for instance, in the Marine Corps your web gear/individual equipment is referred to as 782 gear, because that's the form they used to use to sign it out, NAV-MC Form 782. It is often shortened to just "deuce gear". They now use a different form but it's still "deuce gear". They're also big on using acronyms. This created a really unfortunate new problem. (Note the bolded first letters). The order was rather quickly rescinded after they realized what they'd done, but not before the troops had a good laugh at their stupidity. Hard is synonymous with "tough". So, no, you were not being insulted. Furthermore, I can pretty much assure you if they had wanted to insult you, it would have been readily apparent. They can be brutal.
