The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

Post by throwaway2037 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

labcomputer wrote: post #353

tonyarkles wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Typical reserve requirement is 30 min for a turbine aircraft (45 for piston). For private, yes. For airlines, the requirement boils down to basically enough fuel to "fly to the intended destination as scheduled, then loiter for XX minutes, then fly at normal speeds to a pre-designated alternate, land". For short flights, that means the fuel loaded at departure can be more than twice what is actually needed to get f…

    > You can use it for ~125 mile flights, and remain 100% electric on ~95% of flights.

Post by dyauspitr » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #280

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.

Not much airport shenanigans in the small island hopping nations and the fjords this is aimed at. 125 miles in 2 hours is assuming flat, straight, high-speed, low-traffic roads. Sure, people might not use these to fly SFO → LAX or back, but they likely will use them to go ABZ → LSI, and the "check-in and security shenanigans" are, errr, quite relaxed, compared to what you might be used to at JFK... There's a ton of s…

Post by dghlsakjg » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

Toutouxc wrote: post #371

dghlsakjg wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that energy and instantaneous power draw aren’t the same. I’m working with the numbers given: over a megawatt of power draw, and the price of energy in kilowatt hours. I’m not saying that they are flying on 100kw. I’m saying that using absurdly optimistic - unrealistic, really - pricing they have alln energy budget of 100kwh to use for the entire flight of 27 min. That means that average power consumptio…

> You are saying that they took off with a normal amount of power for a plane that size, then cruised around using an amount of power (45kw) that wouldn’t keep a two person plane 1/20th the weight airborne. No, I’m not saying anything about 45 kW, you’re, again mistaking kW for kWh. > Citing drag from a Tesla is kind of irrelevant because the whole way an airplane works is by creating lift via drag. That’s already in…