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The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

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Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#241

Post by brnt »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #32

These kind of startup excite me. More so than the "next killer app" or "look what we shoved AI into." Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes and attack Europe's short flight market (which is already cheap). Now we need bigger planes or more frequent planes and the next startup to solve the energy needs.

I don't think 30 pax airplanes are competing with 500 pax high speed trains.

125 mile range is also far from being suitable for all Love to see this work out. 100 pax and 500 mile (electricity) range minimum is where I see it having a (good!) chance for mainstream.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#242

Post by ddlsmurf »

D_Alex wrote: post #231
ddlsmurf wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What China does hardly indicates economic sense, and you can be sure you won't hear about the down sides or failures. They already very agressively hide car lithium fires but they're very frequent. Economics over there are mostly investment driven with a large dose of ideology and vanity, not demand driven. You can see it everywhere including the massive amounts of empty housings for example

>They already very agressively hide car lithium fires But you found out... how?

They regularly pop up on the usual guanxi, douyin/weibo etc. They stay up for a few hours usually.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#243

Post by dist-epoch »

golem14 wrote: post #238
giancarlostoro wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'd feel better knowing it has a reserve system in case there's any issues, even if the batteries have more than enough power, beats having it and never using it, than needing it and suffering as a result.

The real benefit really seems to be that the electric motors have a much smaller failure rates than mechanical ones running near their top rpm. The hybrid motor can run at a much optimized RPM, so the idea is that this will improve the overall safety margin of the overall design. I could be wrong, but that's what the video said.

One would assume that all combustion engines used in aviation run at an optimized RPM?

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#244

Post by ddlsmurf »

ncruces wrote: post #233
ragebol wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read new truck sales in China are about 30% electric and climbing. Apparently it does make sense for them

Due to Iran, they're cutting oil/fuel imports 30% YoY, and consumption by the transportation sector by 5~10%.

And opened about 80GW of coal last year alone. That's the only advantage to electric trucks, they can run on coal too, even though you can only carry half the capacity whilst moving the same total weight, it still can make sense, just not economic and certainly not ecological. They sure love people writing articles about it though, and how green and solar they are.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#245

Post by Gravityloss »

alberth wrote: post #83

Is this EV or Hybrid? The founder seems to sneak in the word "hybrid", around 1m30 mark in the video below. https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=5unXLmPxk6M_kmuN&t=86 Note: not being negative, I just want to ensure I understand correctly since the title might imply something else. Update: confirmed, it does use aviation fuel. > "The airplane will also include a reserve-hybrid configuration, consisting of two turbo generat…

But on this flight it did not have a combustion engine, I assume it was fully electric and if so, the title is 100% correct.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#246

Post by ragebol »

ddlsmurf wrote: post #226
dmichulke wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores the fact that there are also things that China does better or equal than Western companies. Like robots, solar panels, electric cars (?), AI models, electronics. They must be good at something, otherwise China wouldn't be where it is. So flat out dismissing anything from China is not enough of an argument. Mind you, I'm not saying you're generally wrong, just your "generally" is wrong. ;-)

I'd dispute they do any of those better, they stole the IP, then used public funds to make cheaper versions in the hope of leading the markets, including by being artificially more affordable while there is any competition. Besides electric cars and solar, it's very debatable wether those will actually be ecological in the end. For ex. they are still opening massive amounts of fossil based electric plants, so the tru…

> used public funds to make cheaper versions in the hope of leading the markets, including by being artificially more affordable while there is any competition

If you replace 'public' with 'VC', isn't that the exact same as the US does in Silicon Valley?

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#247

Post by ragebol »

ddlsmurf wrote: post #214
ragebol wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read new truck sales in China are about 30% electric and climbing. Apparently it does make sense for them

What China does hardly indicates economic sense, and you can be sure you won't hear about the down sides or failures. They already very agressively hide car lithium fires but they're very frequent. Economics over there are mostly investment driven with a large dose of ideology and vanity, not demand driven. You can see it everywhere including the massive amounts of empty housings for example

Being dependent on (cheap) oil can make economic sense as well. Unless you get cut off all of a sudden. Depending on local energy might make more sense in the long term. also for factor other than the economy.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#248

Post by mapt »

alberth wrote: post #83

Is this EV or Hybrid? The founder seems to sneak in the word "hybrid", around 1m30 mark in the video below. https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=5unXLmPxk6M_kmuN&t=86 Note: not being negative, I just want to ensure I understand correctly since the title might imply something else. Update: confirmed, it does use aviation fuel. > "The airplane will also include a reserve-hybrid configuration, consisting of two turbo generat…

According to the founder, he can make the economics of short trips (1-2hr) work with all-battery.

He cannot make them work if he has to store enough battery to fly around for an additional hour or two searching for an airport to divert to in an emergency, which is an FAA requirement.

So he has the heavy battery bank for regular trips costing almost nothing per flight-hour, and the expensive fueled backup system for emergencies.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#249

Post by kvemkon »

jacquesm wrote: post #120
dghlsakjg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nit: When they did the actual flight I did the math on the $5 worth of power claim, and it just doesn’t pencil out even at the lowest power rates in North America. Just to illustrate: at $.05 per kWh (which is less than half the price of electricity where they flew), you get 100kwh for $5. 100kw is what it takes to takeoff a 1200 pound Cessna. Probably about 75kw for an efficient cruise in that same plane. Still an i…

You can't convert between kWh and kW. 100 kWh = 6 MW for one minute... so there is plenty of power if the flight is short enough. They said the plane has 4 Tesla's worth of battery power, let's assume they are 80KWh packs then that's 320kWh that they could use for a short flight. That's a fair amount of juice, they definitely won't be flying long in a 25 ton aircraft without starting up the auxiliary motor but I have…

> more likely to be 50 kWh just for the take-off

1.6 MW power [1]. Would be 2 minutes for take-off realistic?

[1] https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?t=475

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#250

Post by petcat »

DanielHB wrote: post #236

Anyone knows the details why Heart left Sweden? I applied for a job with them a few years ago but never heard back so I am quite curious. They seemed to have a lot of former Embraer engineers from Brazil, I wonder if they brought them over to the US.

> In comments to Sweden's government regarding the EU Net Zero Industry Act, Heart wrote that: “The regulatory framework and access to financing is very attractive in the US.”

> Heart warned that Europe needed to respond to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act if it wanted: “to retain technology companies like Heart within the EU”

2 years later:

> "We are deeply grateful to our team in Sweden for being part of this chapter of Heart’s journey, and for all the support we have received in Sweden," said Anders Forslund. "However, as our customers, partners, and investors are increasingly based in the U.S, we see greater opportunity in focusing our resources here. By consolidating our operations in Los Angeles, we can accelerate development, strengthen collaboration, and better position Heart Aerospace for the future."

Looks like a combination of regulatory and business/operations made USA more attractive.

[1] https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/0a5c91ad1a1c4fdaaefb... (PDF)

[2] https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...

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