Cool 
Cool. Think that’s Walter Extra himself behind the stick.
Very nice! What’s the current state of the Siemens – Pipistrel saga?
This is great. 10-15 minutes endurance is enough for aerobatic training.
One issue I see is that aerobatic aircraft are often shared by several pilots during training or competition. I’m afraid it won’t be possible with this one due to recharging time.
But for a single pilot it’s perfect. Zero maintenance and one needs to rest between flights anyway.
Does anyone know what’s the battery capacity?
It’d be useful to know the power/weight ratio of motor, power electronics, cables and batteries combined, versus just the motor. A typical short aerobatic flight in a piston powered Extra 300 burns maybe 13 USG of fuel including taxi, so while an aerobatic plane is an obvious short term target for application of electric propulsion, its not as small a battery as some may imagine.
Just speculating. The LE is 1000kg with a 50kg motor. An SC is 600kg with a 200kg motor. That would mean about 550 kg of battery. 80-120 kWh?
loco wrote:
One issue I see is that aerobatic aircraft are often shared by several pilots during training or competition. I’m afraid it won’t be possible with this one due to recharging time.
You can solve that with easily swappable packs. It just means higher capital investment. However, the capacity will go down somewhat overtime so I would want some reserve (to protect my investment). And you have laws to comply with speaking of reserves.
loco wrote:
Zero maintenance
Less maintenance, sure, but I usually don’t believe in zero maintenance.
I think swapping a 500kg battery pack is going to be a whole load of fun
Clearly it would need a very slick mechanical solution… a bit more than a forklift truck.
I think these projects are at best flights of fancy or devices to create something which will draw a crowd at an aviation show (journalists are always desperate for column inches, especially in a world where almost nothing new happens e.g. GA, and they can’t afford to hire D Trump, and Bruce Forsyth is getting old) to get loads of press coverage and hopefully sell some of their mundane stuff (which actually does something useful).
Nowadays, quite possibly, it is an EU grant acquisition device… The EU runs possibly the world’s biggest grant distribution machine and has “bought” a huge chunk of the R&D world in Europe. These grants are hard to apply for (hard to qualify for, too) but the industrial R&D / academic research community has developed a framework for applying for them, and “green” projects, no matter how impractical, get in first 
Zero maintenance… no way. The engine is different. The rest of the plane is as before, and the great majority of aircraft maintenance (50hr checks aside) are airframe stuff. As with electric cars, the battery degradation is a big factor in the costs (regardless of who underwrites it, you have to pay for it) so you have not escaped from an “engine fund” of some sort.
Peter wrote:
I think swapping a 500kg battery pack is going to be a whole load of fun
Extras can’t fly aerobatics with fuel in wings, so I’m guessing they can’t put batteries in there too. That would leave only the front compartment for batteries. Looking at the picture in article, there seems to be 8 modules. Judging by their size, they’re nowhere near 500kg or 80kWh. There’s 18,6kWh mentioned in some articles. This could be true, but at the same time too less to consider buying such an aircraft.
