Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman
I haven't worked out whether it actually makes sense, but I've sometimes wondered if fossil fuels were much scarcer and development of solar PV was earlier, would airships coated with thin-film PV would work as an explanation dirigibles being widely adopted. They would have more surface area than planes, and a lower power requirement to stay in the air.
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The problem is that we already have solar-powered planes (drones mostly but sometimes fairly large ones) and they work pretty well even without the virtually weightless solar cells you'd need fpr dirigible skins.