-Finally- an honest assessment of electric airplanes

So everything we want to happen, will some day soon, as long as we want it bad enough and fight cynicism?
 
Dan Thomas said:
I don't imagine that many people paid much attention to that one. They figured that flying was either possible or it wasn't. But a lot of people were fooled by stuff like this, from 1957:

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It's only 56 years overdue...
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Flying cars are very close. One more generation of the tech and they’ll be here. Or they are already here. Depending on how the discussion is going at the time.

seriously though, if you think about the logistics and physics, there is very little attraction for electric powered aircraft. We’ve just been trained to think they are a good idea, just like that popular science article above is doing. Seriously. When you really think about the logistics, it makes no sense. Planes that are as heavy on landing as they are on takeoff. That can’t be refueled easily or quickly. Planes you can’t trade fuel for useful load and vice versa. Planes with very expensive and short lived energy supplies.
 
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Salty said:
So everything we want to happen, will some day soon, as long as we want it bad enough and fight cynicism?
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No, but it is highly amusing that a group of people who benefit so greatly from something that was previously-thought to be impossible, now think just like the naysayers of the past.

Surely it’s not just more of the fashionable negativitism that the internet thrives upon?
 
For someone that wanted to go for just evening / sunset flights, this could be reasonably practical.


Also if allowed to operate as a motor glider.
 
RyanShort1 said:
For someone that wanted to go for just evening / sunset flights, this could be reasonably practical.


Also if allowed to operate as a motor glider.
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That video says over and over that it’s just an experiment.
certified in Europe, not the U.S. A certification framework for the us doesn’t exist, and is not really in sight
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costs twice as much as it’s Rotax brother, but not practical for air work or cross countries
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best thought of as a technology demonstrator
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An electric glider seems fairly practical. All you need is enough energy to take-off and climb to a thermal . . .
 
dbahn said:
An electric glider seems fairly practical. All you need is enough energy to take-off and climb to a thermal . . .
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Yeah, a self launching glider seems to be a good application of the tech. Maybe. The weight may be an issue. Not sure. I suspect Pipistrel would be doing it if it made sense since they already make a lot of motor gliders with Rotax's in them.
 
@Cap'n Jack, some formerly hard problems are now more tractable due to ML techniques (see protein structure prediction, AlphaFold). Have there been analogous advances in chemistry? It seems reasonable to expect some game changers as these methods bear fruit.
 
Salty said:
Yeah, a self launching glider seems to be a good application of the tech. Maybe. The weight may be an issue. Not sure. I suspect Pipistrel would be doing it if it made sense since they already make a lot of motor gliders with Rotax's in them.
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Maybe the weight is an issue from an energy to weight ratio, but our current ASK 21 two seater can carry 414 pounds of pilot and passenger with a glide ratio of 34 to 1, so a 180 pound pilot flying solo would have capacity for 234 pounds of battery plus engine and its associated items using the current airframe.
 
It’s probably more the cost than the weight. Why pay twice as much than the self launch with a Rotax and get less for it?
 
Salty said:
Yeah, a self launching glider seems to be a good application of the tech. Maybe. The weight may be an issue. Not sure. I suspect Pipistrel would be doing it if it made sense since they already make a lot of motor gliders with Rotax's in them.
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Been done already.
https://www.solar-flight.com/
 
Salty said:
That video says over and over that it’s just an experiment.
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Talk about selective listening. I'm probably *almost* as sure as you are that it's not that practical, but there's two things you are missing...

1. The biggest hurdle is that the FAA is less forward thinking than Europe on this issue. And,
2. There is every reason for me to believe that if you accepted that this would be a single-seat aircraft, you could choose to install a third battery there that would effectively extend that Pipistrel product to closer to a full hour of recreational flight for a pilot who just enjoys flying for flying's sake.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Talk about selective listening. I'm probably *almost* as sure as you are that it's not that practical, but there's two things you are missing...

1. The biggest hurdle is that the FAA is less forward thinking than Europe on this issue. And,
2. There is every reason for me to believe that if you accepted that this would be a single-seat aircraft, you could choose to install a third battery there that would effectively extend that Pipistrel product to closer to a full hour of recreational flight for a pilot who just enjoys flying for flying's sake.
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responding to 2. With your changes the price will be 2.5 times a rotax powered version that has more range and can carry a second person, and can make more than one flight a day. I'll concede, they might sell a few of those. But they'll never sell enough to make money on them.
 
NorthEast Ohio said:
finally- has an honest assessment of electric airplanes–
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I think if you look behind the scenes this assessment has been known for quite some time and was part of the move toward sustainable fuels and other propulsion technologies like hydrogen fuel cells. The battery powered systems have primarily been focused on the UAM/AAM markets with eTVOLs and similar aircraft with the larger aircraft/markets to be handled by sustainable fuel ICE systems, fuel cells, and hybrid ICE/electric propulsion systems. At least that is where the money is being spent and they've started to fly the prototypes or working to approve the use of 100% sustainable fuels in the real market. While there have been attempts at battery powered aircraft in a larger aircraft like Tecnams and the battery powered R22, most know with current technologies it will never be a main stream replacement at this point. However, the hydrogen fuel side has taken to air with larger aircraft so we'll see if they can fix the issues with that endeavor.
 
As an electric car owner, even they have limited use, and is why I also own a diesel truck.
Electric propulsion is still in its infancy.
Maybe in 400 years, 900 years, or sometime in the future, it will be practical for planes.
But not in my lifetime.
 
Piper Dreaming said:
But not in my lifetime.
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I wouldn't take that bet unless you plan to die in the next 10 years. ZeroAvia flew a Dornier 228 with a hydrogen/electric engine about 5 months ago and Universal Hydrogen flew a De Havilland Dash 8 with their electric engine about 3 months ago. Throw in MIT's 1 megawatt electric aircraft engine is off the drawing board and in the build stage, I think there will a few more commuter size aircraft flying in the near future.
 
Country Flier said:
Evolve, yes, but to reach the type of weight vs storage vs output needed for useful aircraft? Nope...


--Blade Runner was filmed in 1982, and was supposed to depict 2019 Los Angeles.

--Jetsons was written in 1962, depicting 2062.

--Lost in Space, created in 1965, was supposed to be 1997.

Lots of dreamers out there, but reality isn't gonna play along.
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1984 was written in 1949, and within the last decade or so it stopped being fiction. So that one wasn't far off.
 
Baked Potato said:
That's because nobody's seriously talked about it in decades.
And the absence flying cars is because of common sense, not a technological barrier.
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Then you haven't been paying attention. It's been all over the news the past 5 years.
 
Baked Potato said:
First link: Cold Fusion? Is it Possible?
(from March of this year)
And quote from that article:
"They — like many before them — still haven’t proven the phenomenon of cold fusion exists."

I'm asking an honest question. I'm not a physicist and am fully willing to be proven wrong.
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Oh, it’s definitely garbage.

But it makes clickbait so the media keeps publishing it.
 
GeorgeC said:
@Cap'n Jack, some formerly hard problems are now more tractable due to ML techniques (see protein structure prediction, AlphaFold). Have there been analogous advances in chemistry? It seems reasonable to expect some game changers as these methods bear fruit.
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You can buy software that helps a chemist to synthesize compounds:
SYNTHIA™ Retrosynthesis Software (sigmaaldrich.com)
I haven't heard of machine learning or AI being applied on a large scale to battery technology.
My current opinion is that battery technology will end with rechargeable metal-air batteries. I feel they will have the energy density to power a small plane such as a C-182 or maybe an otter. The metal won't be lithium, either.
 
Bell206 said:
I think if you look behind the scenes this assessment has been known for quite some time and was part of the move toward sustainable fuels and other propulsion technologies like hydrogen fuel cells. The battery powered systems have primarily been focused on the UAM/AAM markets with eTVOLs and similar aircraft with the larger aircraft/markets to be handled by sustainable fuel ICE systems, fuel cells, and hybrid ICE/electric propulsion systems. At least that is where the money is being spent and they've started to fly the prototypes or working to approve the use of 100% sustainable fuels in the real market. While there have been attempts at battery powered aircraft in a larger aircraft like Tecnams and the battery powered R22, most know with current technologies it will never be a main stream replacement at this point. However, the hydrogen fuel side has taken to air with larger aircraft so we'll see if they can fix the issues with that endeavor.
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I think SAFE will be the answer for passenger planes. Hydrogen isn't very energy dense. People who remember Henning will also remember he was fixated on the stuff. The ICE beat hydrogen for range, even if it was liquid hydrogen. If they improve the energy density (adsorbing it onto something or something else), I'll change my mind. Hydrogen "refuels" faster than batteries.
 
ElPaso Pilot said:
Oh, it’s definitely garbage.

But it makes clickbait so the media keeps publishing it.
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There are quite a few non-clickbait articles out there that actually dig into the science. Those articles probably won't show until page 56 of google results.
 
dbahn said:
An electric glider seems fairly practical. All you need is enough energy to take-off and climb to a thermal . . .
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Yep. In the experimental world you can build your own ...

 
Cap'n Jack said:
I think SAFE will be the answer for passenger planes.
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Agree. The only drop-in/plug-n-play fuel source I know of that equals or exceeds conventional fuels is SAF. Its the stop gap and once it gets certified for 100% use will change a number of things flying wise at the commercial level.
Cap'n Jack said:
The ICE beat hydrogen for range
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I think the concept of "range" is the part that has become rather subjective of late. But what if the market accepts a new range requirement? What if the market accepts an eVTOL that is limited by battery technology and commuter aircraft that is limited by hydrogen energy density? There's a lot of money being spent to answer those questions. Time will tell.
 
I'll stick with my previous statement, not in my lifetime.

Age 43 now, lets pretend that I double my age before death, that gives them 43 years to make batteries that hold 100 times the energy, at quarter of the weight and size they are currently.
It isn't going to happen.
 
Piper Dreaming said:
that gives them 43 years to make batteries that hold 100 times the energy
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FYI: you simply stated "electric propulsion" in your post. There are several methods to produce clean electrical propulsion airborne other than with batteries. As I said, becareful what you wish for.;)
 
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Baked Potato said:
And the absence flying cars is because of common sense, not a technological barrier.
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Baked Potato said:
And quote from that article:
"They — like many before them — still haven’t proven the phenomenon of cold fusion exists."

I'm asking an honest question. I'm not a physicist and am fully willing to be proven wrong.
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Not a physicist, and obviously not a mechanic either, and certainly not an aeronautical engineer. Anyone that has worked extensively on both cars and airplanes realizes the vast differences between them, and the reasons for those differences, and what might happen if you start trying to blend the two: you get a rotten car and a rotten airplane, too heavy to fly safely and too light to handle roadwork, including strong crosswinds and parking-lot bumps. You get something that has poor landing gear geometry, like the Terrafugia, with its mains so far back behind the CG it could barely raise its nose to take off. It needed pretty much to fly itself off, with little rotation. So it eats lots of runway.

There are indeed lots of technological barriers, which is why the sky isn't full of these things. Declaring that there are few barriers is just wishful thinking. Reality has its way of destroying that.
 
Bell206 said:
FYI: you simply stated "electric propulsion" in your post. There are several methods to produce clean electrical propulsion airborne other than with batteries. As I said, becareful what you wish for.;)
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I'm taking batteries...not a fule burning generator making electricity in flight.
That seems silly, then just keep using the fuels we have now.
 
Dan Thomas said:
There are indeed lots of technological barriers, which is why the sky isn't full of these things
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Well, I was alluding to the fact that flying cars don't exist yet due to reasons other than technology. Your average driver is bad enough. 40k deaths per year in the US by people struggling to navigate two dimensions of movement. No way that blurring the lines between aviation and driving makes logical sense at this point.
 
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