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Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

heartaerospace.com

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Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#21

Post by ramesh31 »

vel0city wrote: post #11

At 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win. I wonder why they don't push the idea of it being a hybrid more, as it seems to me a lot of useful routes are going to rely on the generators. I'd love to see something that can do around 250mi. It would be nice to…

>"At 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win."

It's about feeding the existing network. Millions of people in the US live in places a 2+hr drive to the nearest major airport, but have plenty of smaller municipal fields nearby. Electric aviation could finally make it profitable and cheap enough to run those routes. It also opens the door to true commuter aviation becoming a thing, when you can offer short flights for the cost comparable to a train ticket, and operate out of small fields with small planes multiple times a day and no need for the whole TSA experience.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#23

Post by wffurr »

Aboutplants wrote: post #15

VTOL aircraft have the same distance capabilities and make more sense in a lot more scenarios than this, with way more flexibility. It’s obviously larger but I’m just not sure of potential advantages over other modes of transport currently available and in the near future

Aren't VTOL aircraft significantly more complex and riskier to operate than fixed-wing prop aircraft? There's certainly many fewer moving parts and tricky transitions from hover to airfoil flight regime.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#24

Post by bglazer »

Aboutplants wrote: post #15

VTOL aircraft have the same distance capabilities and make more sense in a lot more scenarios than this, with way more flexibility. It’s obviously larger but I’m just not sure of potential advantages over other modes of transport currently available and in the near future

I'm not so sure. I haven't seen a true regional airline class VTOL yet, mostly just demonstrators that carry a few people, at that. The fact that it's larger is actually very important, the economics of a regional jet replacement make far more sense than that of an air taxi. I also doubt the similar range claim, lifting an airframe directly into the air without wings is far, far less efficient than just taking off with the benefit of lift. They're also way more complex and would require additional training for pilots.

Further, noise restrictions will probably limit VTOL's to airports, never underestimate the NIMBY's. Note that demo videos of eVTOL's almost always have background music rather than ambient sound.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#25

Post by griffinkelly »

mikeyouse wrote: post #16
vel0city wrote: post #11

At 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win. I wonder why they don't push the idea of it being a hybrid more, as it seems to me a lot of useful routes are going to rely on the generators. I'd love to see something that can do around 250mi. It would be nice to…

As someone who lives in the Great Lakes region - there are a ton of 100 mile flights that would take 4 hours to drive - often as the first leg in a two-flight trip. Also places like Denver -> Ski resorts (Vail/Aspen/Crested Butte) are 2 - 3hr drives, heavily dependent on road conditions all within the pure-electric range.

There's regular DEN to COS flights by United, every hour on the hour. Sometimes can be faster than driving, would be a great one to replace. Also ORD to MKE. A lot of small routes that are about 100 miles that are equally inconvenient to drive.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#26

Post by peterdsharpe »

> Largest Electric Aircraft

"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse) and [Helios](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype...) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples.

Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever is writing their PR pieces.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#28

Post by ramesh31 »

peterdsharpe wrote: post #26

> Largest Electric Aircraft "Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse ) and [Helios]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype... ) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples. Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever i…

>"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim.

Largest in terms of takeoff weight. Wingspan is a pretty meaningless metric for "largest aircraft". By that logic the planes you linked are larger than a 737.

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#29

Post by peterdsharpe »

ramesh31 wrote: post #28
peterdsharpe wrote: post #26

> Largest Electric Aircraft "Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse ) and [Helios]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype... ) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples. Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever i…

>"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. Largest in terms of takeoff weight. Wingspan is a pretty meaningless metric for "largest aircraft". By that logic the planes you linked are larger than a 737.

There is a word for that. It is "heaviest", not "largest".

Re: Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

#30

Post by red75prime »

peterdsharpe wrote: post #26

> Largest Electric Aircraft "Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse ) and [Helios]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype... ) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples. Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever i…

I guess it's the largest by its useful load.
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