Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
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Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#2I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime.
Why? Weight.
The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 pounds lighter than it took off, meaning the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes can all be lighter.)
Many airplanes are certified for a ramp, taxi, and takeoff weight higher than their approved landing weight. Electrics will be unable to take advantage of this and must confine their takeoff weight to their landing weight.
I love that such rapid progress is being made in automotive, and I'd love to see that adoption increase so we can reserve petro-based fuels for cases where their energy density provides a compelling operational benefit, such as in aviation.
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#3I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
There is little question that carbon-based flight power is here to stay for quite some time, but that isn't really the point - which is that electric flight is nevertheless a growth industry, and there are some markets where electric flight can make a lot of sense. If all you need to do is go up and fly for 2 hours or so, then an electric plane is a viable contender for the investment - maybe we're not at the tipping point, but we are approaching it, technologically at least, a few knots at a time.
It is a worthwhile goal, though. If we can somehow harness the suns' energy to get us around the world instead of using the world itself (and thus screwing it up), then we move closer to the cusp of a more viable long-term civilization. At the moment, every cheap flight to somewhere on a jet plane costs the Earth a great deal of survival potential...
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#4I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
Surely the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes all have to be able to cope with an unexpected turnback and landing with most of the original weight? (not to mention heavy landings in adverse weather conditions)
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#5I read a piece by Elon Musk, who was saying that electric planes - whilst very far away - are the future of air travel. Why? Because they will allow planes to fly higher - increasing efficiency and speed. Apparently the normal 30,000 feet cruising altitude is not higher because the reduced oxygen levels at higher altitudes impact the gasoline combustion too much. Even at 30,000 feet the air is thick as soup at cruising speed, and that's why planes have not got faster for the last 50 years. Go higher, as electrics could do, and you reduce the air pressure further and could fly faster and more efficiently. Who knows when battery technology will be advanced enough, but it sounds like a goal worth shooting for (as well as the other benefits of noise reduction and environment concerns)
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#6I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
Surely the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes all have to be able to cope with an unexpected turnback and landing with most of the original weight? (not to mention heavy landings in adverse weather conditions)
I have not idea: But could this be why Planes will often dump fuel for a turn back.
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#7I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
Surely the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes all have to be able to cope with an unexpected turnback and landing with most of the original weight? (not to mention heavy landings in adverse weather conditions)
Planes usually fly around for a bit dumping fuel if they need to turn back.
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#8I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
Surely the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes all have to be able to cope with an unexpected turnback and landing with most of the original weight? (not to mention heavy landings in adverse weather conditions)
No see http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=90&pagei... or
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3...
They are only certified to the maximum landing weight which typically is lower than the maximum takeoff weight. When an overweight landing (ie. the weight is higher then maximum landing weight) occurs engineers have to perform a thorough inspection of the plane structure - landing gear, spars, wings, wingbox
EDIT: thanks ForHackernews
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#9I read a piece by Elon Musk, who was saying that electric planes - whilst very far away - are the future of air travel. Why? Because they will allow planes to fly higher - increasing efficiency and speed. Apparently the normal 30,000 feet cruising altitude is not higher because the reduced oxygen levels at higher altitudes impact the gasoline combustion too much. Even at 30,000 feet the air is thick as soup at cruisi…
> I read a piece by Elon Musk, who was saying that electric planes - whilst very far away - are the future of air travel. Why? Because they will allow planes to fly higher - increasing efficiency and speed.
That's a meaningless/nonsensical assertion. If we're going to ignore basically everything we can also state that nuclear is the future of air travel (and that's actually a more sensible statement, nuclear fuel has ridiculous specific energy).
Re: Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation
#10I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime. Why? Weight. The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 poun…
> The energy density of batteries sadly lags the energy density of gasoline or kerosene
Nitpick but the energy/mass density is usually called "specific energy" to differentiate it with the more usual energy/volume "energy density".
And while a battery's energy density is pretty bad, they pretty universally have a higher density than petroleum fuels and thus even worse specific energy: the best batteries have 2 orders of magnitude worse specific energy than petroleum fuels (Li-Ion or AgZn store 0.46 MJ/kg, kerosene stores 43 MJ/kg)