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“If you follow things far enough, most of the complications in aviation come down to the fact that airplanes need to be light!”

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"Do they?"

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“Sure! For example, there are lots of bad situations you could avoid if you had lots more power. That means a bigger engine and possibly more fuel, and you also need to strengthen the wings so you don't now have a plane that easily rips its own wings off — that's itself a category of it-would-be-nice-if-we-could-avoid-that — and all that's weight you need more power to move, which means now you have less carrying capacity, a shorter range, or you're building an all-around bigger airplane that costs more to fly.”

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"Huh. I didn't realize planes could rip their wings off."

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“Well, at that point you don't have an airplane any more, so both the airplane design and how people are trained to fly them tends to prefer anything but that!”

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"I guess so!"

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