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The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

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Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#261

Post by mikepurvis »

mapt wrote: post #248
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 e…

Seems like an extremely practical way to handle that requirement without hauling around a ton of extra battery capacity that will rarely get used.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#262

Post by Kaliboy »

tonyarkles wrote: post #216
dmitrygr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current aircraft have * MULTIPLE HOURS* of fuel tanks. Compared to dozens of minutes of battery that this thing has.

Typical reserve requirement is 30 min for a turbine aircraft (45 for piston). Given the 125 mile battery-only range and the probability that it flies at at least 200 kts (230 mph), it’s pretty unlikely to hit even a 30 min reserve on only batteries. I like the design, I think they get the problem and have a decent solution for it

The most common flight on my island is to the island about 50 miles away from us.

We pay about $120 for the privilege, which takes 20 minutes of flying.

So I think even in this case the reserve capacity is "needed" (for the reserve requierement), but I can see them realistically being able to fly between the islands purely on electric power.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#263

Post by Kaliboy »

dyauspitr wrote: post #164
luma wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrid after the first 125 miles, total range 500 miles. Their problem is diversions - an incident at the destination airport may mean an passenger aircraft may need to land at an airport which could be a couple hundred miles away. The hybrid powerplant throws the fuel efficiency numbers off so goal is not to run it unless needed, but they could not get certification without it.

Unless they have a whole new airport and flying experience, I don’t think a lot of people are going to fly just 125 miles. That’s less than two hours of driving. It would be 2 hours of just airport shenanigans much less the flight itself.

I live in the Caribbean. For island-hopping airlines this would be a godsent.

But I doubt we have the capital to buy them new.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#264

Post by FredFS456 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #243
golem14 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At cruise, yes. However during takeoff and go around they run at higher RPM to develop more thrust. Using batteries for takeoff and only using fuel for cruise or backup power is smart.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#265

Post by ddlsmurf »

cpt_sobel wrote: post #253
ddlsmurf wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> they stole the IP, then used public funds to make cheaper versions in the hope of leading the markets If you steal my IP and you make a better - or at least comparative but cheaper - product, that's on me for not innovating further.

It's trivial to compete if you don't have R&D costs, and don't care about stuff like your employees, regulations or safety, or even sales since you can just use government money (this is not without consequence either). And it's not only about free market stuff, why do you think they're so excited for all countries to use their 5g products for example ? Don't think this is benign.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#266

Post by bryanlarsen »

arjie wrote: post #122
bryanlarsen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the video, 2/3rds of that range is for loiter and divert capability. It's illegal to fly a route without the capability to loiter and divert. You need 30-60 minutes of loiter + 100 miles of divert. This plane cannot be used on any route longer than about ~200 miles. Which can be driven in 2 hours, although obviously the OP was referring to the 120 mile electric range.

> This plane cannot be used on any route longer than about ~200 miles. Which can be driven in 2 hours. Huh, perhaps then it wouldn’t be suited to places where people drive at that speed. In the US I doubt people drive 200 miles routinely in 2 hours. It would be closer to 3.5 h I think going by the routine 6 h it takes SF to LA which is about 350 mi. I think if you have very high speed road/rail transportation that do…

There's a small but real market for However, the real market is for connecting flights to nearby small cities. For a transfer, you're already at the airport, you're already through security and you don't have your car. I'd never fly from Ottawa to Montreal (200km), but I do that flight quite regularly when I'm going to Europe.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#267

Post by speed_spread »

Kaliboy wrote: post #263
dyauspitr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they have a whole new airport and flying experience, I don’t think a lot of people are going to fly just 125 miles. That’s less than two hours of driving. It would be 2 hours of just airport shenanigans much less the flight itself.

I live in the Caribbean. For island-hopping airlines this would be a godsent. But I doubt we have the capital to buy them new.

Just in saved maintenance they'd probably pay for themselves within a few years.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#268

Post by echoangle »

Toutouxc wrote: post #194
dghlsakjg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific claim from the company is that the entire 27 min flight was done with $5 worth of power using an all electric power system with a power output exceeding one megawatt. https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-comp... I still think it is an amazing achievement. I just don’t see how they were able to get it done on $5 worth of power, or they just quoted the wrong price.

I still don’t see what the problem is. The entire flight was likely just a few patterns and your earlier figure of 100 kWh (let’s assume they get their electricity for cheap) is already a serious amount of energy. It takes 100 kWh of energy to lift a 10.4ton object by about 3.2 km, so we’re obviously in the same ballpark for the maiden flight, and the rest is just drag. For drag, I’ll approximate the plane fuselage a…

> A 737 has a lower drag coefficient than my car

Drag coefficient is about the shape and needs to be multiplied by area to get drag. Your car is a lot smaller when viewed from the front than a 737.

And there's no way a plane flying at the speed it does has the same drag losses as two EVs.

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#269

Post by dmitrygr »

tonyarkles wrote: post #216
dmitrygr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current aircraft have * MULTIPLE HOURS* of fuel tanks. Compared to dozens of minutes of battery that this thing has.

Typical reserve requirement is 30 min for a turbine aircraft (45 for piston). Given the 125 mile battery-only range and the probability that it flies at at least 200 kts (230 mph), it’s pretty unlikely to hit even a 30 min reserve on only batteries. I like the design, I think they get the problem and have a decent solution for it

> and have a decent solution for it

Unless we ignore the additional maintenance cost of having to completely different proportion systems to maintain (and it is worse than a twin engine plane, because the propulsion systems are different, so you have to stock up on more different kinds of parts and possibly have different kinds of mechanics on staff to understand them)

Re: The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

#270

Post by ddlsmurf »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #259
ddlsmurf wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Running trucks on a 50% coal grid like in China makes both economic and environmental sense. It makes more of both as the Chinese grid gets cleaner.

neither of those are true, if they were, remember when tesla wanted to sell trucks like 10 years ago ? if you use electric trucks, half the mass you pay to move around is useless. Also the grid isn't "half coal", the truck doesn't wait for the sun to come out to charge. Which is another cost to transporters: the hours of downtime to recharge. They only make very limited sense in very last mile scenarios in dense cities. Also coal is way worse to burn than petrol, and in China's case, it's mostly bituminous, one of the worst coals in terms of pollution.
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