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Electric / hybrid aircraft propulsion (NOT cars)

Jaguar solved the problem of noiseless electric cars by generating an UFO-like sound on the front. The problem is that pedestrians then were looking in the air, searching for an UFO. I have driven two meters behind pedestrians, on a quiet country road, completely unaware I was following them at walking speed.
Living in a city, I see hundreds of pedestrians/cyclist completely absorbed by their smartphone, a good train horn would barely wake them up;

EBKT

Another development grant collecting scheme has just hit the social media: the Voltaero Cassio. The team are the guys who ran the Airbus E-Fan project which was scrapped in 2017.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Hm, at least they are going for a hybrid, which makes more sense than a pure electric.

Although I don’t know which specific questions are they going to address by this ‘research’. (I found just ‘power management’ in that text, other than that it looks like more or less simple bolting of known compo

The overall configuration makes some sense … especially if the electric props are folding (180kw from the rear should be more than enough for cruise), but surely they won’t be.

I would have gone for as laminar cabin as possible (now that there is no prop in front) and tried some boundary layer ingestion at the rear – reportedly, that could reduce the cabin drag by 50%. And higher AR wings … using known airframe has significant benefits, but electrics only make sense (if ever) if you use suitable airframe.

It would be interesting to see how they deal with cooling that engine (and motors) at the back.

Slovakia
LSZK, Switzerland

While I love the initiative I’d also love to see the data. 750HP calls for a for a big & heavy motor. 30 min flight time would mean being capable to fly for 1 hour or even 1hr 15 min to have a legal reserve? That means a serious battery. And the swapping of batteries after each flight. My car has a battery that weighs 7 kg/kWh. So they need a battery of say 7*550=3.860 kg to cover a 1 hour flight? OK, that’s a full power.. Plus the weight of the engine. I don’t get it.

Last Edited by aart at 29 Mar 18:05
Private field, Mallorca, Spain

Still probably worth keeping an eye on them. Harbour Air is an experienced, busy, efficient, and profitable operation that has been around for a long time. If they plan to convert all 41 aircraft, they must have done the math.

LSZK, Switzerland

Last week I heard a presentation from a Swedish industry/academia consortium about an ongoing project aiming at having an electric regional airliner certified by 2025. It would take 19 pax and have a range with reserves of 215 NM at 270 knots which is enough for most domestic flights in Scandinavia. Recharge in 20-40 minutes. They also said this was with today’s battery technology.

Uppsala university has one of the world’s leading groups in battery research and the guy making the presentation was from that group so I don’t think this is just a pipe dream.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne_Again wrote:

which is enough for most domestic flights in Scandinavia

It won’t get you Oslo – Copenhagen or Stockholm – Copenhagen, or between any other major city. Hopping around Denmark/Southern Sweden would work well, but by the time it takes to get to the airport, go through security etc, get from the airport to your end destination, you would already have done the trip by train/car (already electrified).

There is at least one “consortium” looking at using electric planes for the coastal routes of Norway, now served by dash 8. It could potentially work because there is no real competition from car/train.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Most technology leading edge things take longer than expected… For example I have just read that it is now accepted that “totally self driving” cars will not be around for decades at least. The AI required is way behind the horizon of what anybody can do.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

For example I have just read that it is now accepted that “totally self driving” cars will not be around for decades at least

Probably never. The reason traffic works at all today is that people (and animals) know that the cars are driven by irrational humans. Cars are deadly for other creatures. A self driving car will never be allowed to act irrational. It will always have to stop for pedestrians. and animals etc. The result is that traffic in cities will grind to a hold because pedestrian and animals would lose all respect for the cars. The only solution is isolated roads, physically closed for anything but cars. We already have that, it’s called train/subway.

I ordered an Tesla Model 3 a couple of years back. A couple of months ago I could finally try it and order it. The car is built for self driving. Just about everything is controlled and displayed by the mid mounted touch screen and through speech (whenever that speech function gets implemented). This is OK, I guess, but the problem is it doesn’t really work. Self driving is so far away on the Model 3 that the driver has to control everything by the driving wheel (soft touches etc that is rather cool actually, but light years from self driving).

The car itself is excellent. Acceleration beyond belief (I tried the performance version), and it sits perfect on the road. The problem is the lack of appropriate display and handles for this kind of manual driving. It got some functionality on the steering wheel, but not enough. Taking your eyes off the road to look and fiddle with the screen in the middle is not my way of driving manually. In essence the car is made for self driving, but doesn’t do it. And what use do anyone have for unbelievable acceleration and excellent road holding when the car drives by itself sticking to every and all regulation? Then, driving it manually, which the car really is built for mechanically, is a dreadful experience because it doesn’t have enough handles and does not display anything at all to the driver, where the driver has his eyes. A simple HUD would totally change the car from a schizophrenic nonsense to something worth while.

So, instead of a Model 3, I bought an ULPower UL350i and will drive around in my e-Up a year or two longer until the Honda Urban EV or VW ID comes along. Both made for driving with buttons and display while having the same or more automatic driving features than the Tesla. The best electric car today is considered to be the Jaguar I-PACE, but it also has a Jaguar price tag (still cheaper than Tesla S though, but way more than I will spend on a car).

Anyway, self driving is far away. I don’t think it will ever come. What we will see is more and more automated stuff working in perfect cooperation with the driver, in harmony.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
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