Separating in flight is a very tricky problem that requires massive amounts of testing and can go very wrong.

You can use some kind of catapult for that

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Fair enough. I'd view it as "florid" vs. "shallow", but it's not my opinion that matters and I fully agree that there's a spectrum between "strongly held" and "offensive" and you have to put the boundary somewhere.

I'm going to push back on one bit though, which I suspect is just a misunderstanding on your part: "yet another high wing puddle jumper" is not remotely dismissive or trivializing! Being "high wing" is purely descriptive, and correct, and a "puddle jumper" is a widely used term for short-range passenger aircraft (like the Dash 8, which I also mentioned), here's a great reddit thread for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/rs7i4m/what_is_t...

I'm not saying this to make the designers feel bad verbally. I'm literally saying they've produced an aircraft that competes poorly in the market with something DeHavilland was selling in the 1980's.

My first sentence was almost 100% sarcasm though and I'll take the hit on that.

> Designs that distribute props across the leading endge, or right on the leading edge of the rudder, are exciting

From a purely aesthetic point of view, pusher props are way cooler. If the wings are far back and the plane has canards, even cooler.

Man, I’d love more trains but we can’t act like the infrastructure necessary to support them, if not present, is very challenging to develop.

Even ignoring land acquisition (which is a big thing to ignore in populated areas where a train would most benefit the population), there are simple things like road crossings, other infrastructure crossing, etc.

In this case an airplane may be simply a lower friction solution.

Trains are great, but they can only go where tracks go. Planes are faster, too, noting that boarding times can dilute that. Trains are perfect for freight and super frequent routes, though.

It's not about moving hundreds of people, it's about moving 30-100 people. Many places don't have the demand or physical possibility for a railway. If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be so many short distance flights.

But politically and financially it is very challenging to build new capacity in a lot of places.

Can I be the one to make the obligatory land acquisition and permitting comment? Navigating the acquisition of all the land and environmental and other rights via US courts is a VERY unsolved problem.

How do you get a train from Vancouver to Victoria on the island?

According to the video, 2/3rds of that range is for loiter and divert capability. It's illegal to fly a route without the capability to loiter and divert. You need 30-60 minutes of loiter + 100 miles of divert. This plane cannot be used on any route longer than about ~200 miles. Which can be driven in 2 hours, although obviously the OP was referring to the 120 mile electric range.

Gotta be Germany and the Autobahn. The questions really are:

What car are you driving?

How are you not dead?

To repeat: the market is filled with fuel-driven turboprops. This only wins if it's better, and it's only better if it's cheaper. Is it cheaper? If it's cheaper they should say, and not spend time talking about "all electric" range in a regime that doesn't want aircraft at all.

And sure, there are places in the world that don't have limited access highways. But the 125 mile range is already served very well by piston-driven lightplanes! Again, who's going to buy one of these vs. just continuing to run their 40+ year old Beavers or Caravans or whatever?

Also: if the only market for your high tech electric superplane startup is backcountry work in Alaska, you're probably never going to get funded to begin with.

It's chemistry, not technology. Motive engines that can suck ~70% of their reactant mass from the atmosphere have a horrifyingly unfair advantage.