Re: Osprey, the X-57's electric motors are vastly simpler than the fueled gas turbines + driveshafts in that aircraft. All you do is run wiring down the wings, with the Osprey you're running pressurized, flexible fuel lines into a movable nacelle with enormously complex turbomachinery to do all of the compression + combustion. These things are a pandora's box of fatigue problems from the multimodal vibrations and it takes years to analyze them all.
You also can't compare operating costs of a military vs. civil aircraft. VERY different priorities, military aircraft have dramatically higher requirements due to where they operate (desert sand anyone?) and their mission. EVERYTHING gets inspected, components are designed to be performant like Formula 1 race cars and not necessarily for lowest operating costs. It's like comparing an M1 tank, which gets 0.5 mpg, to a Ford F150.
> What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.
This is nonsense, there's no rule of the thumb that states any random wing reduces prop thrust by 50%. You must calculate it. It's a very complex unsteady flow field dependent on all of the geometries involved. It will vary on flight condition obviously.
> informal aerodynamics student
I'm sorry but the average pilot's understanding of aerodynamics is very poor. I've seen blatant mistakes in flight manuals. At the least you should know how to explain what Reynolds number and Kutta condition are before diving into these discussions.
You also can't compare operating costs of a military vs. civil aircraft. VERY different priorities, military aircraft have dramatically higher requirements due to where they operate (desert sand anyone?) and their mission. EVERYTHING gets inspected, components are designed to be performant like Formula 1 race cars and not necessarily for lowest operating costs. It's like comparing an M1 tank, which gets 0.5 mpg, to a Ford F150.
> What's weird about mounting propellers at the end of the wing is that you lose half the lift of the propeller wash over the wing, over a normal placement.
This is nonsense, there's no rule of the thumb that states any random wing reduces prop thrust by 50%. You must calculate it. It's a very complex unsteady flow field dependent on all of the geometries involved. It will vary on flight condition obviously.
> informal aerodynamics student
I'm sorry but the average pilot's understanding of aerodynamics is very poor. I've seen blatant mistakes in flight manuals. At the least you should know how to explain what Reynolds number and Kutta condition are before diving into these discussions.