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London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#71

Post by anovikov »

Why not, a jet powered plane can fly 17,300km, electric plane must have about 2x energy efficiency (70-80% vs 35-40% overall) because it's not a heat machine, so with 50x less energy density it translates to 700km. Actually it can be more because batteries are a lot denser than jet fuel so plane will be thinner, thus having a lot less air resistance, so 800km is possible. As you can see they are shooting for 500km, must be easily possible.

Airbus works on a 1000km battery powered regional plane (catch is, it's probably a turboprop) by 2030, by the way.

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#72

Post by fridek »

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 central (2x15 min) and you can easily hop on train even five minutes before the departure - although I usually plan at least another 15 min buffer. That is a total of a little over 3 hours.

I don't pretend to know enough about economy of future trains vs future electric flights, but it looks like short distances will always be a tough sell for airplanes. Personally I also find trains more comfortable and I was never given a free massage for carrying scissors in my pocket when boarding one.

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#73

Post by dx034 »

fridek wrote: post #72

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.

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#74

Post by dx034 »

notahacker wrote: post #57
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the turnaround for the aircraft though? If they can't turn around an aircraft in 15-30 min, we'll need more aircraft or prices will skyrocket (no pun).

Any sensible proposal for electric systems for commercial aircraft is going to aim for batteries to be safely swappable in 10-15 minutes. (Though they can still make delays from unexpected diversions to airports without a stock of batteries worse)

And then charge overnight and be used as energy storage for the time they're not in use. As flight times are very predictable, they should be a good use case for battery storage.

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#75

Post by D_Alex »

I am really quite confident that no serious development of electric passenger aircraft will take place during the coming decade.

And it is not a question of feasibility, but rather of priorities. There is so much low hanging fruit to be collected! By the end of the decade, if all goes well, we will be in the middle of replacing petroleum fuelled cars and busses with electric ones, and maybe turning our attention to other land-based petroleum consumers such as trucks, agricultural equipment, mining machinery etc.

Airplanes are so far down the list of things we can easily swap over to batteries that it is not yet worthwhile to work in this field.

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#76

Post by gus_massa »

ptaipale wrote: post #15
koolba wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I'd agree with you but seeing that SpaceX was able to go from zero to sending stuff into orbit in a decade, building a plane in that same time period doesn't seem totally unreasonable. I'd be more concerned with the realities of battery technology not being ready and existing regulations/testing stretching the timetable v.s. pure technical ability of a team to design something that would be fit for purpose.

Building a space craft quickly is in fact more realistic because you're not operating in the conventional flight market which has extremely high requirements and heavy regulation for safety. If a space rocket blows up, including passengers, it's okay, part of the business - everyone knows space flight is high risk. If a commercial flight crashes, that is simply not acceptable.

They smartly tested the initial rockets in unmanned missions. (Actually, all of them yet.) So they have two explosions, a few minor problems (and many expected crash landings test) but no one was killed.

For comparison: https://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#77

Post by fridek »

dx034 wrote: post #73
fridek wrote: post #72

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.

I was just looking for a route London - Rotterdam and found exactly what you mention - no good alternative to flights :)

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#78

Post by athenot »

fridek wrote: post #72

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…

I presume you meant CDG for Paris Charles de Gaulle. CHG is Chaoyang, China ;)

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#79

Post by seren »

fridek wrote: post #72

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…

When you take the Eurostar, you have to go through border controls, so you have to been there 30 minutes or 1 hour earlier. (Probably because London is not in the Schengen area)

Re: London-Paris electric flight 'in decade'

#80

Post by galago »

fridek wrote: post #72

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…

In the US, I travel between Boston and New York City fairly regularly and its the same deal. Even with the less frequent and relatively slow US trains, its still faster because the transit is city-center to city-center.
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