Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
Along with cheaper freight, there would be substantial military applications for liftwood. Imagine if you could build a flying personnel transport that was as fast as planes, but could carry as many troops or as much materiel as a sea ship. Think about that for a minute.
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Unfortunately this is a thing liftwood would not do. An air freighter as large as a sea freighter would have a lot more drag than a conventional airplane of smaller size. To go just as fast it would have to have proportionately bigger engines and fuel use.
You could get away with somewhat less drag from not having wings. It's not certain that this works out in liftwood's favor though. Only a lift mechanism with virtually no volume avoids any drag penalty. You get drag from wings and you get drag from gas bags and you get m9ore drag from the gas bags which is why lighter-than-air craft are special niche only these days.
So it could depend on how bulky liftwood is. It's possible that it would impose drag penalties as large as or even greater than that of wings.
Lift without expending energy is good and without the crippling drag penalties of gas bags is even better but you're nto going to get away without drag penalties.