New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
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New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
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Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#2Why would there be a problem with the main engine? It seems like you should fix/redesign/etc that instead of adding another engine.
It reminds me of code that catches all exceptions instead of fixing the problem so those exceptions can never happen.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#3Why would there be a problem with the main engine? It seems like you should fix/redesign/etc that instead of adding another engine. It reminds me of code that catches all exceptions instead of fixing the problem so those exceptions can never happen.
Fuel exhaustion, starvation, fuel contaminants such as water, catastrophic failure of components that are operating under extreme heat and stress, carburetor icing caused by high humidity, engine component icing (pressure/temp sensors on turbine planes, air induction icing on piston power planes), bird strikes. Piston and turbine aircraft engines are phenomenally reliable but all the best minds and all of the money thrown at the problem over the past 112 years have not reached a 0% failure rate. Electric motors don't have the complexities of combustion engines which would be reassuring when flying a single engine airplane over water, in bad weather, or over a populated area. I think it's an awesome idea that could add a huge margin of safety relative to the cost.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#4I wonder if you could use your propeller as a "wind turbine" when landing to recapture some energy? Of fly around in thermals and charge your battery??
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#5Why would there be a problem with the main engine? It seems like you should fix/redesign/etc that instead of adding another engine. It reminds me of code that catches all exceptions instead of fixing the problem so those exceptions can never happen.
Your analogy misses the point that a fallback mechanism is needed in the rare cases where something unexpected happens.
Even in cases where you have everything formally defined, you could still have some axiom not holding, or a transient hardware issue - a random bit flipping in memory for instance.
Putting simply, everything fails eventually, the question is not "if" but "when".
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#6I wonder if you could use your propeller as a "wind turbine" when landing to recapture some energy? Of fly around in thermals and charge your battery??
I suspect that while landing you really want the engine in "neutral" so you can at any moment kick it into full power if some issue shows up. Landing is damn close to a controlled crash.
And i don't think these kinds of aircrafts have the wing surface etc to be floating around on thermals.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#7Wonderful idea. I do wonder how that changes the center of gravity and how much weight is diminished for cargo but seems well worth it. When the engine goes out you generally only have 10 seconds to decide where to land. Now it seems you have many minutes to find a place. In most circumstances I'd think this is better then the parachutes for planes because you have a chance to save very expensive airplanes.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#8Why would there be a problem with the main engine? It seems like you should fix/redesign/etc that instead of adding another engine. It reminds me of code that catches all exceptions instead of fixing the problem so those exceptions can never happen.
Systems with moving parts undergo lots of stress. At some point, they will fail. Regular maintenance limits this; and the maintenance prescribed even for light aircraft keeps it to a minimum.
Still, no system is ever 100% reliable. The typical safeguard for engine failure in light aicraft is to glide to a safe landing. Starting with basic training, you'll do so repeatedly (starting from the vicinity of a landing strip, of course) and should be able to bring a plane down safely. Some (very) light planes even include a parachute system that'll bring down the plane in a manner safe for its occupants.
Speaking as a private pilot with little experience, this systems seems promising to me in two respects: In the case of a failed engine, it'll take you another 20 km or so. This can make the difference between a survivable landing in a field somewhere and a completely safe landing on the closest airstrip. Additionally, you get 40 hp or so of available power in situations where you need it, like taking off or going around after a botched landing. This could allow for shorter runways and help speed your initial climb, which is generally considered one of the most dangerous phases of flight: At that point you are both flying slow and low, and both speed and altitude are important safety aids. After a cursory first look, this system appears to be a considerable improvement in safety while avoiding much of the complexities a true twin engine system would entail.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#9I wonder if you could use your propeller as a "wind turbine" when landing to recapture some energy? Of fly around in thermals and charge your battery??
> I wonder if you could use your propeller as a "wind turbine" when landing to recapture some energy?
Helicopters do this, it's called autorotation. They spin up the rotor while descending and then trade the rotational momentum for a little bit of lift to make a safe landing. It's a tricky maneuver but a part of every heli pilot's training.
I doubt that it's a viable strategy for light aircraft, though. The loss of airspeed from extracting energy out of the wind stream is more dangerous than gliding. Thermals aren't powerful enough to keep a non-glider aircraft in flight as far as I know.
Large aircraft use a small windmill or a ram air turbine to keep hydraulics and electrics up in case of a loss of power, though.
Re: New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft
#10Why would there be a problem with the main engine? It seems like you should fix/redesign/etc that instead of adding another engine. It reminds me of code that catches all exceptions instead of fixing the problem so those exceptions can never happen.
Light aircraft engines are already _very_ reliable, you'll most likely spend a career flying without ever experiencing a failure. The most popular GA motor, the Lycoming O-360, has been in production for something like 60 years, and is pretty much "debugged" as far as engines go. Still, failures do happen (most often because of user error). You can switch to turboprops, and you'll get more reliability, but higher costs. You can switch to a multi-engine plane, but again costs are higher.
An electrical motor which can provide backup assistance without causing further single points of failure is a nice add-on if they can make it work (I'd be sceptical about trusting this thing without extensive testing.)