sircac

Physical coupling and emergency decoupling of a fuel tube in flight due to engaging or having to land and take off from an air carrier seems necessarily more slow and risky than beam interrumpion or nor having to land/take off at all.

Current batteries have not been under the same amount of research than fuel deposits, so I think that being matture enough, contacless repowering seems a great asset in any scenario.

I have the feeling that current refueling in flight procedures are clearly more vulnerable than this approach that do not require physical coupling, for whatever these are useful (increasing operation autonomy, etc) the same for having to land in air carriers to extend patrolling times, this electric alternative seem safer in both scenarios, and at least with no more weak points than the fuel alternatives.

If is necessary to reload ammo no refueling-in-flight technology applies of course.

And if something blow up the damage radio clearly propagate immediately further than a battery fire, though regaring the situation a persistent fire can become also problematic, but these battery issues are still experiencing improvements, same happened with fuel counterparts (self sealing deposits, etc).

If this technology matures also recharging times will drop, we are seeing huge advances in plugged batteries.

I still see many advantages to the concept.

I asume this technology when mature enough will not be surrounded by a single point failure. Allowing electric recharge of flying devices, that already have some battery autonomy, without having to land and take off, is clearly more efficient and less vulnerable. Plus mobile electric rechargers, battery deposits and infrastructure will have the same weaknesses than fuel ones (except electric ones would may blow up a bit less under fire)

I think that the “recharging” will always be a vulnerable stage and that the objective is to do that puntually and not a continuous dependence on power supply, but still seems safer and easier to abort than the one done currently with non electric planes, and for defense patrolling you will have more important infrastructures that would be targeted first, I still see only advantages if mature enough

Many comments are about how impractical/useless is this technology TODAY considering easier alternatives… but I see research exploring recharging electric flight devices in flight, which sounds as cool as powerful to have flight devices with larger services and ranges