All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
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All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
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Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#2Does anyone have more specifics about the actual capabilities of the prototype? I'm skeptical they're able to get 3 hours of flight time out of a battery pack without sacrificing just about all the weight capacity for things like... a pilot. It's great to see that companies are actively working on electric-powered flight, though, especially in the small aircraft space where it has high potential.
Also a small beef with the article - it makes it seem like there just aren't enough pilots to fly commercial planes, which simply isn't true. There are plenty of pilots, they just don't want to work for the terrible pay and life-destroying hours most carriers are offering, while at the same time often having to cover their own massive training costs. Some more info on the situation: http://time.com/4257940/pilot-shortage/
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#3My concern about training on an aircraft of this fashion is that you get no exposure to controls such as carb heat, fuel mixture, etc.
I wonder if a distinction will be made (in the not so far future) between getting rated on a combustion plane vs. electric? Much like you get rated for high-performance or twin engines today.
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#4As someone who really would love to get into general aviation but finds the fuel costs off-putting, I'd love for this to be successful. Isn't the big problem with electric planes supposed to be the energy density per kg? Wikipedia is showing 46MJ/kg for jet fuel, vs only ~1MJ/kg for lithium batteries [1]. Is this a lesser concern than I've been led to believe, is there recent development that improves lithium batteries by at least an order of magnitude in this property, or are they using some different battery technology entirely? I'm disappointed that there's no mention of the battery tech.
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#5It seems like an obvious feature would be to have solar cells on the upper wing surfaces... I guess the energy payout isn't sufficient for the area?
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#6My concern about training on an aircraft of this fashion is that you get no exposure to controls such as carb heat, fuel mixture, etc. I wonder if a distinction will be made (in the not so far future) between getting rated on a combustion plane vs. electric? Much like you get rated for high-performance or twin engines today.
I would gladly pay for 5 hours of training for a combustion endorsement, if I could avoid fuel costs for 40+ hours of training to get my private certificate.
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#7My concern about training on an aircraft of this fashion is that you get no exposure to controls such as carb heat, fuel mixture, etc. I wonder if a distinction will be made (in the not so far future) between getting rated on a combustion plane vs. electric? Much like you get rated for high-performance or twin engines today.
If this proves to be all it's to be, then soon this will make no difference. Just like in the US, getting a driver's license is not required to be done on a stick shift, cause 97% of the cars on the road are automatic. So will getting certified in an electric airplane make no difference compared to its old and 'outdated' internal combustion friends.
As far as career progression for a professional pilot, most pilots don't deal with mixture/carb heat etc as jet engine themselves are mostly fully automatic with a start button and a fuel cutoff switch and a thrust lever. And even some of those are coming out too and will become obsolete within just a few years time.
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#8What about this one: http://www.pipistrel.si/news/wattsup-the-new-2seat-electric-...
Not an expert - don't know if they can be compared and the article lacks any actual specs to compare by, but the pipistrel's electric plane seems to be much cheaper.
"Pipistrel expects to bring the final product to the market in 2015 with a target price below 100,000 EUR."
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#9I wonder how long the batteries will last for? Not the flying time, I mean instead their useful lifetime. It might become extremely expensive if you have to replace the batteries every year or so...
Re: All-electric trainer aircraft, cheaper than Cessna
#10An electric powerplant with effectively one moving part should also have dramatically lower mantenence cost than a traditional, gasoline-powered engine of more than 1,000 components
I see this sort of statement made about electric cars also, and I think it's really not true. Modern internal combustion engines are very reliable, and need very little maintenance. Yes they need oil changes every so often, and I guess that's "dramatically" more in a divide-by-zero kind of way, but realistically it's not going to make a huge difference in the operational expense of a GA aircraft. Also not addressed in this piece, how long do the batteries last and what does it cost to replace them?