Electric aircraft that use normal propellers are significantly quieter than their combustion counterparts. Here's a short video of some takeoffs and landings from both.[1] 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXm4TnaXDWc
Thanks for this! My local airport is so freaking annoying with all the Cessnas flying over our heads. I can't wait for electric to be the better choice. I don't think most pilots realize how annoying they are in disturbing the peace.
One of the electric flight niches might be landing at night in areas that otherwise would be restricted for noise reasons.
Does anyone know if there is a theoretical limit for how energy dense a battery could be? I wonder if there is a possible future where some sort of commercial long haul flights could be done by a fully electric plane. I've never gotten a great answer on this, and maybe we don't have an answer for certain since battery chemistry is some sense is still early days
Lithium air batteries theoretically can reach 10000-12000w/kg though they have only reached 1200w in labs so far. Gasoline is 13000w/kg. We don't need to match gasoline as it is inefficient. CATL just got it's 500w/kg batteries for commercial aviation approved I am betting China is going to do the same with electric planes that it did with cars. They can't build a efficient enough jet engine to be competitive yet but…
Where does 12kw/kg come from? A specific type of battery? That sounds like the energy density for lithium alone. There may be architectures like flow batteries which could get close for some chemistries, but a standard battery (intercalation of ions) cannot get remotely close, even in theory.
> It uses electric motors for zero-emission short hops up to 124 miles and backup reserve generators for an extended hybrid range up to 300–500 miles. I was wondering how they're gonna deal with alternate airports and "fuel" reserves, but it seems they also have generators on board (supposedly used in case of emergency / unplanned detours).
I think the generators are meant for intentional longer range trips as well. You get the cost savings for a big share of the trip even if you have to use the generators for part of it.
Lots of places have water or mountains preventing car or train travel or making it go the long way around. Ferries are slow. Those would be natural applications for this. Tallinn-Helsinki city pair for example. I wonder, if this can get approved or certified somehow now, if then modifications and improvements are relatively easy, as long as many aspects like the pilot interface stays the same. Battery technology impr…
There are really weird short hop routes like Adana/Mersin Turkey to Northern Cyprus and Bahrain to Dammam (Saudi). The latter trip is 1 hr by CAR. Gulf Air flies wide body aircraft on that route and the plane doesn't even have time to properly take off before it needs to start landing. They hand you your juice box while you enter the plane and you never get to recline the seat or open the tray. Surreal stuff :)
> It uses electric motors for zero-emission short hops up to 124 miles and backup reserve generators for an extended hybrid range up to 300–500 miles. I was wondering how they're gonna deal with alternate airports and "fuel" reserves, but it seems they also have generators on board (supposedly used in case of emergency / unplanned detours).
I think the generators are meant for intentional longer range trips as well. You get the cost savings for a big share of the trip even if you have to use the generators for part of it.
Yeah, could be. The article linked here had very few details on the generators, besides calling it "hybrid electric" which led me to google a bit and found those ranges, but not additional info on how it'll be used. I guess we'll find out mroe when they start flying routes.
Lots of places have water or mountains preventing car or train travel or making it go the long way around. Ferries are slow. Those would be natural applications for this. Tallinn-Helsinki city pair for example. I wonder, if this can get approved or certified somehow now, if then modifications and improvements are relatively easy, as long as many aspects like the pilot interface stays the same. Battery technology impr…
There are really weird short hop routes like Adana/Mersin Turkey to Northern Cyprus and Bahrain to Dammam (Saudi). The latter trip is 1 hr by CAR. Gulf Air flies wide body aircraft on that route and the plane doesn't even have time to properly take off before it needs to start landing. They hand you your juice box while you enter the plane and you never get to recline the seat or open the tray. Surreal stuff :)
I've flown from Helsinki to Tampere, under 200 km, long long time ago. The cabin personnel had to push the refreshments trolley uphill and downhill the aisle as there was not much level flight portion. I don't really know why it even existed as a route. National carrier and I assume there was a subsidy involved. Back then there was not much security so there was a lot less overhead. Still, a direct train route and road exists and all, so it was very redundant.
27 mins endurance (?) for $5 of power. Not bad. I rent a 172 and have been paying a $5/h fuel surcharge for the past few months due war in Iran - but at UK avgas prices 27 mins in my plane would be $55ish. Haven’t looked into the details but kind of crazy impact on economics of aviation if this size plane (10x 172 MTOW) can actually do useful short haul
I assume being electric that the maintenance costs will also be much lower. How much do you spend annually on engine maintenance?
Well I just rent so no idea. Not sure they will end up lower as presumably it will all need to be conducted by a FAA double-starred technician who is not just vibe coding it
There are really weird short hop routes like Adana/Mersin Turkey to Northern Cyprus and Bahrain to Dammam (Saudi). The latter trip is 1 hr by CAR. Gulf Air flies wide body aircraft on that route and the plane doesn't even have time to properly take off before it needs to start landing. They hand you your juice box while you enter the plane and you never get to recline the seat or open the tray. Surreal stuff :)
I've flown from Helsinki to Tampere, under 200 km, long long time ago. The cabin personnel had to push the refreshments trolley uphill and downhill the aisle as there was not much level flight portion. I don't really know why it even existed as a route. National carrier and I assume there was a subsidy involved. Back then there was not much security so there was a lot less overhead. Still, a direct train route and ro…
The Bahrain - Dammam flight might have something to do with being a necessary connection HUB for workers. The plane I was in was quite large and packed with workers coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. There's some quite weird routes in the Middle East. One time I took a flight from Bahrain to Istanbul via Omman or Doha can't remember which but going in the wrong direction for Istanbul. I believe the plane had made a stop in Abu Dhabi before Bahrain too. A flight with a bus like route.
Lithium air batteries theoretically can reach 10000-12000w/kg though they have only reached 1200w in labs so far. Gasoline is 13000w/kg. We don't need to match gasoline as it is inefficient. CATL just got it's 500w/kg batteries for commercial aviation approved I am betting China is going to do the same with electric planes that it did with cars. They can't build a efficient enough jet engine to be competitive yet but…
Where does 12kw/kg come from? A specific type of battery? That sounds like the energy density for lithium alone. There may be architectures like flow batteries which could get close for some chemistries, but a standard battery (intercalation of ions) cannot get remotely close, even in theory.
This was claimed by CATL chief battery scientist recently or at least that's what the press claimed could be mistranslation from Chinese to English.