Currently the shortest LGW-CDG flight is 1h. There is LCY-CDG lasting 1h 20m. For both cities it takes 30 - 60m to get to the airport from central location and you should be there at least 1h before the departure (for a total of 2-3h non-flight time). This makes total travel 3h - 4h30m. For comparison, the fastest train is 2h 25m. I guess you need to travel to and from the train station too, but it's definitely more…
The better idea for the first electric flight is probably LCY-AMS. It's a 35-40 min flight but there's no alternative to it (train 4+ hours, ship 8+ hours). There's a lot of demand for that route, you have more than 15 flights per day across all London airports.
London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
111–120 of 165 posts
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
That buys you roughly a factor of three. Subtract again for the fact that you're not shedding half your takeoff weight in fuel over the course of a flight. You land with as much battery as you started with. More if you're using metal-air batteries.
Not necessarily! Imagine a system where the plan actually jettisons the spent batteries along the way. They could glide/parachute down to a collection depot to be recharged and sent back to the airport for installation.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#113Currently the shortest LGW-CDG flight is 1h. There is LCY-CDG lasting 1h 20m. For both cities it takes 30 - 60m to get to the airport from central location and you should be there at least 1h before the departure (for a total of 2-3h non-flight time). This makes total travel 3h - 4h30m. For comparison, the fastest train is 2h 25m. I guess you need to travel to and from the train station too, but it's definitely more…
The better idea for the first electric flight is probably LCY-AMS. It's a 35-40 min flight but there's no alternative to it (train 4+ hours, ship 8+ hours). There's a lot of demand for that route, you have more than 15 flights per day across all London airports.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume that's just market share of travel specifically between the two cities? There's also the market of connecting flights to consider.
There aren't any flights to anywhere in the world out of London that would connect through Paris unless you require a flight on Air France.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
The better idea for the first electric flight is probably LCY-AMS. It's a 35-40 min flight but there's no alternative to it (train 4+ hours, ship 8+ hours). There's a lot of demand for that route, you have more than 15 flights per day across all London airports.
I wonder why there is no fast London - Amsterdam train. It's not that much farther than Paris.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#116Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily! Imagine a system where the plan actually jettisons the spent batteries along the way. They could glide/parachute down to a collection depot to be recharged and sent back to the airport for installation.
Speaking as someone with no aviation knowledge at all this seems like an awesome idea. The plane could take off with battery packs slung under the wings which are jettisoned and become drones, gliding down to a depot. I'm now waiting for someone who actually knows what they're talking about to point out the flaws. One that springs to mind is the logistics of collecting the drone-batteries and transporting them to be…
There's also the problem of mass-transfer. In general, aircraft should keep the center of mass behind the center of lift, and ... bad things happen when this isn't maintained. With liquid fuel, tanks are actively pumped to retain both forward-aft and left-right balance, something difficult to achieve with solid battery packs.
There's the problem of both energy consumption profiles and battery delivery/drain cycles. An aircraft generally needs maximum power to get off the ground (hence: all batteries delivering at or near their maximum output), but only partial power once airborne. What you'd like to do is to drain a few batteries completely in the take-off and ascent stages, then jettison them, but this doesn't match the batteries' own power delivery capabilities. You might be able to switch to jettisonable packs after TOaA, to completely drain those.
If fit between wing spars, you might end up with a roughly rectangular package which could be ejected aft of the aircraft from the wing, with a door sealing off the cavity. The battery itself would require some sort of deployable wing itself, as well as guidance and control systems and surfaces, possibly a small propulsion unit. A guided descent stage might actually be one of the more viable options.
It's also possible that jettisoning additional batteries on final approach would make landing dyanamics for the aircraft itself simpler.
On whole, though, I'm questioning the usefulness of this, particularly given coplexities, a likely low airspeed, and competition with ground-based alternatives (high-speed rail, Chunnel) which would bypass the power storage requirements entirely, and would likely operate at equivalent or greater speeds, direct to city centres.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#118Currently the shortest LGW-CDG flight is 1h. There is LCY-CDG lasting 1h 20m. For both cities it takes 30 - 60m to get to the airport from central location and you should be there at least 1h before the departure (for a total of 2-3h non-flight time). This makes total travel 3h - 4h30m. For comparison, the fastest train is 2h 25m. I guess you need to travel to and from the train station too, but it's definitely more…
I presume you meant CDG for Paris Charles de Gaulle. CHG is Chaoyang, China ;)
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maximum efficiency is ... 100%. So if a turbofan is 30% efficient, then the best you can do is about 3x.
Good point, but something to keep in mind is that the efficiency of the motors in turning stored energy into motion is only one part of the efficiency of the aircraft. If a plane is able to fly much higher due to the engines no longer being air breathing, that would also change the equation, as drag would be much lower with the thinner atmosphere.
The current turbofan engines are close to the size limits in relative fan size and bypass ratio without a gearbox, which adds cost and mass. (Only one manufacturer is in the process of introducing a geared turbofan.)
Because of no high speed jet exhaust and large area thrusters, these aircraft have the potential to be able to take off really steeply and to be really quiet.
Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily! Imagine a system where the plan actually jettisons the spent batteries along the way. They could glide/parachute down to a collection depot to be recharged and sent back to the airport for installation.
Speaking as someone with no aviation knowledge at all this seems like an awesome idea. The plane could take off with battery packs slung under the wings which are jettisoned and become drones, gliding down to a depot. I'm now waiting for someone who actually knows what they're talking about to point out the flaws. One that springs to mind is the logistics of collecting the drone-batteries and transporting them to be…