For non-Americans, that's 300 km/h.
Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
31–40 of 203 posts
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#32Something seems suspect here. There is just no way that small unit could generate near enough thrust to make a real difference. I think we need to look deeper into this claim
Are you sure? Those small EDFs can generate 12-25kg of thrust.
The fastest wingsuit flight almost topped 400km/h so maybe the real question is how much extra speed was gained with those little EDFs.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#33Does anybody else think it is way too small to produce any real thrust? If it put out serious thrust, I'd expect it to be less flimsy...the video made it look kind of floppy on the guy. I think BMW needs to publish the thrust produced vs use numbers that aren't truly comparable.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#34For non-Americans, that's 300 km/h.
And I just read on Wikipedia the fastest speed ever recorded was 396.86 km/h. And the fastest average horizontal speed over 1000m: 325.4 km/h.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#35Lithium-based batteries (and associated tech) are to the 21st century what the internal combustion engine was to the 20th century and what the steam engine was to the 19th century. There’s a ~90% chance you’re using a device powered by a lithium chemistry battery to read this right now (laptop or tablet or phone). The smartphone alone (enabled by lithium based batteries) has transformed the world. Lithium-based batte…
Does this mean when we run out of lithium we will fall into some kind of dark age?
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#36Lithium-based batteries (and associated tech) are to the 21st century what the internal combustion engine was to the 20th century and what the steam engine was to the 19th century. There’s a ~90% chance you’re using a device powered by a lithium chemistry battery to read this right now (laptop or tablet or phone). The smartphone alone (enabled by lithium based batteries) has transformed the world. Lithium-based batte…
Does this mean when we run out of lithium we will fall into some kind of dark age?
We will never run out. Lithium is infinitely recyclable, is common in underground brines and some rocks all over the world, and has sufficient concentration in seawater that it can usefully be extracted (for non-insane cost) if for whatever reason all other sources are exhausted.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are so inclined to answer, I’d live to know why lithium batteries and not some other form of battery? That is, do other elements not have the right properties? Are they too rare? Are they dangerous? You sort of answer a bit in your last paragraph. Why did it take until now to get to lithium batteries? Why way NiCad the thing before? Will lithium continue to dominate, or are there other competitive solutions ju…
NiCd is actually more capable than NiMh, but suffers from memory issues (capacity decreases significantly if not carefully discharged and recharged; ie you cannot “top them off” without sacrificing capacity. Again, speaking from my lived experience, NiCd pushed to the limit resulted in many gnarly fires in high performance RC use, NiMh was never a contender given low output (again low discharge rates). LiPo is king h…
As a non-performance (including weight) practical matter as well, cadmium is just plain a rather toxic heavy metal. IIRC the EU has outright banned NiCd batteries entirely with a few very minimal legacy exceptions (medical devices I think?). Even though in principle part of the price is supposed to cover proper disposal EOL, people being people plenty got tossed and it's nasty stuff to have in a landfill even let alone elsewhere. There isn't any real treatment for it either as far as I know, normal heavy metal treatments like chelation therapy don't really work with Cd.
So I think yet another benefit of lithium is also that it's relatively easier to deal with over its whole life cycle. Elemental lithium is of course quite reactive, don't want to be directly exposed to it, but it doesn't stay that way in nature. That it's extremely abundant and distributed doesn't hurt either. While for economic reasons it makes sense to get it initial from naturally highly concentrated sources, and to recycle lithium packs, it'd be perfectly viable to pull it right out of the ocean with solar power if there was ever a need.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this mean when we run out of lithium we will fall into some kind of dark age?
We will never run out. Lithium is infinitely recyclable, is common in underground brines and some rocks all over the world, and has sufficient concentration in seawater that it can usefully be extracted (for non-insane cost) if for whatever reason all other sources are exhausted.
Correct.
Certain kinds of lithium batteries can be limited by the availability of other elements used in them, which are less abundant than Li, e.g. cobalt.
There are efforts to reduce or eliminate the use of such elements.
Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are so inclined to answer, I’d live to know why lithium batteries and not some other form of battery? That is, do other elements not have the right properties? Are they too rare? Are they dangerous? You sort of answer a bit in your last paragraph. Why did it take until now to get to lithium batteries? Why way NiCad the thing before? Will lithium continue to dominate, or are there other competitive solutions ju…
The periodic table is limited. Of all metals, lithium is the lightest. It also has the highest mass-specific conductivity and the highest chemical specific energy of all the metals. Hydrogen is not a solid or a liquid at room temperature and is also too volumetrically in-dense.
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Re: Electrified wingsuit from BMW reaches 186MPH on first flight
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tho that was not what was tested, this is about having additional thrust to regain altitude and fly longer distances: > “I found the idea of being able to jump from my local mountain wearing the wingsuit and land in my garden fascinating.”
Sure, I just find it funny how in most cases 180MPH is fast, but that’s about the minimum speed for horizontal wingsuit flight. You really can strap a get engine to a brick and get it to fly, but you can’t stick a jet engine to a brick and get it to fly slowly. EX: F-15 landed safely with just one wing. A little cough propaganda, but still interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M359poNjvVA .
I don't fly wingsuits, but from a bit of quick research it seems that 180 MPH is fast even for a wingsuit.
The article itself mentions typical horizontal speeds of around 62 mph.
The Wikipedia article on wingsuit flying says:
> A typical skydiver's terminal velocity in belly to earth orientation ranges from 180 to 225 km/h (110 to 140 mph). A wingsuit can reduce these speeds dramatically. A vertical instantaneous velocity of 40 km/h (25 mph) has been recorded. However the speed at which the body advances forward through the air is still much higher (up to 100 km/h [62 mph]).
Even mentions another jetpowered attempt with hydrogen peroxide rockets reaching a horizontal speed of 160 mph, back in 2007.