It looks like the view range is pretty limited based on the images, especially in the front. Can a pilot chime in and explain how important this is?
The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
71–80 of 252 posts
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#72Huge if true:
- 450 miles per hour, range of over 4,500 miles
- 18 to 25 miles per gallon (vs 2-3 mpg for jet)
- per-hour flight cost of just $328 (vs $2100 for light jet)
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#73It's still a GA aircraft though... so you still have to deal with all the BS. If you don't own it yourself then you need to pay a pilot (though with the recent downturn there's no shortage of pilots). There is absolutely no way many people will try and get their pilot's license. The FAA written test for a PPL may be easy compared to IR but it's still not a walk in the park. The checkrides are very strict nowadays too…
I think the point is more that this kind of tech could be scaled up to make commercial airliners more fuel efficient too?
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#74For some perspective, the Scaled Composites Catbird (powered by a 210-hp V6) achieved just over 20 mpg at 200 mph with close to 1000 lbs of payload (it could carry a pilot and four passengers) in the late '80s and early '90s. Amateur-built experimentals have achieved upwards of 50 mpg in realistic flying conditions, but they generally tended to be tandem-seat designs with minimal frontal area and low-powered engines.…
I think this airplane is pressurized, flies very high and has a big turbocharger. And it has a diesel engine, so the MPG means a different thing - diesel is denser.
It's optimized differently to the experimentals, and it's more useful commercially. Flying high avoids a lot of weather issues. You don't have to cancel flights because of weather.
The drag from the streamlined shape is very low. It's just a textbook minimum drag shape.
The cruise speed advertised does seem high still.
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the future of airplanes. Windows add cost and reduce the structural integrity of the plane. Commercial airlines are already removing them. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44383220
Wow, this is a literal nightmare for flight anxiety sufferers.
The last flight I was on had the window shutters down and lights off almost the entire flight.
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#76Is there a reason why small aircraft don't just use a car engine (with some appropriate gearing I guess)? Those have had so much R&D in them and they're pretty much as efficient as you can get - plus much easier to maintain and repair
Although probably not the majority, many experimental aircraft do use car engines. I'm building a Zenith 750 kit aircraft and installing an engine from a company called Aeromomentum who convert Suzuki engines for use in light aircraft. The model I have installed is a 117HP engine originally designed for use as boat outboard motor. A sibling comment mentions that car engines aren't designed to operate continuously at high power. Outboards are. And there are benefits to using highly developed and tested engines vs traditional aircraft engines - efficiency being the most obvious.
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#77It seems to require a pretty seriously long runway to take off. On a warm day, we’re talking international airport length runway. While pistons are cheaper than turbines, that’s because almost all of the approved pistons on the market use 1940s or earlier technology. They are very, very, very simple machines. They are still extremely expensive. This engine is very complicated, even for an automotive engine. It’s got…
The article says its typical takeoff run is 3300 feet, which is about half what a 737 needs. I don’t know a lot about airplanes, but that seems like a pretty short runway length requirement. What am I missing?
Takeoff run length is for the marketing sheets.
What counts is the ASD — accelerate-stop distance, see also, balanced field length.
Citation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_field_takeoff?wprov=s...
/Acey
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#78The fuel mileage sounds incredible, it's in the same range as an F150. The pilot must be a major part of the expense, meaning it could also be well positioned for an autonomous shuttle future, if those are ever fully trusted, bringing the cost down even further. Obviously they still have a long way to but they are saying the right things to get me excited, even though my knowledge of aircraft efficiency is pretty min…
> It looks like the Yak-152 mentioned elsewhere in the thread can do about 14 mpg if wikipedia & my math is right.
Isn't the MPG highly dependent on what it's paired with? You can't expect a Honda Civic to hit it's stated MPG either if you overload the car or tow something, but if you replace a lot of parts with lighter equivalents (or put the engine in a lighter car) you would expect it to get a higher MPG.
One of the major points of this plane is that it's supposed to be extremely aerodynamic.
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#79For some perspective, the Scaled Composites Catbird (powered by a 210-hp V6) achieved just over 20 mpg at 200 mph with close to 1000 lbs of payload (it could carry a pilot and four passengers) in the late '80s and early '90s. Amateur-built experimentals have achieved upwards of 50 mpg in realistic flying conditions, but they generally tended to be tandem-seat designs with minimal frontal area and low-powered engines.…
Feel the same, rooting for them but website is still a bit light on actual data and a lot of startup speak, wondering how they would get that big of an improvement vs similarly shaped (Avanti EVO) or powered (DA62) aircraft. Other question is how safe the simplicity of the shape is, no front wing / canard with presumably very variable CG, or if they’ll have to sacrifice a lot of initial specs to make it work. Also if…
Well, at least it's clear that they have no competition in piston powered niche because all pressurised piston aircrafts died out. Any remote equivalents are dual engine planes.
Re: The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
#80It seems to require a pretty seriously long runway to take off. On a warm day, we’re talking international airport length runway. While pistons are cheaper than turbines, that’s because almost all of the approved pistons on the market use 1940s or earlier technology. They are very, very, very simple machines. They are still extremely expensive. This engine is very complicated, even for an automotive engine. It’s got…
3,300 feet in not a long runway - it means you can access ~80% of the ~5,000 runways in the US. On the the other hand A 777 needs 8,000-10,000 feet meaning it can only access https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200LR
3300 feet in balanced density conditions. You’d better not bet on 3300 feet in Phoenix during the day time most of the year. Or Denver for that matter.