The Vari-Eze guys were early adopters of solar panels to maintain charge on their radio batteries on aircraft with no heavy alternator or starter. Since Vari-Ezes are ‘eze’ to hand prop with nose gear retracted, the lightest overall solution with no generator or starter was practical. Oddly enough, on-board solar saved weight in that application.
This photo taken in the early 80s:
My home utility bill is so small in relation to other expenses, its not worth thinking about. $2 per day or so.
In my mind, these Vauxhall Adam’s and Renault Zoe’s etc are what’s unappealing about the new car market – electric powered or not. What happened to the days when a car was a Dodge, or a Mustang, or a Ford Scorpio or something that represented power (ok lets forget about the Ford Escort which sounds like someone accompanied by a lady friend, or the Fiesta which is some kind of happy carnival celebration) ? I am no rugby player or alpha male who goes by the name of Mr J Clarkson – though I wouldn’t deny being a bit of a petrol head, and I always thought most of GA was liked their noisy uneconomical light aircraft machines.
I think the losses are linked to the chargers. Some AC 220/380V 2/3 phase must be converted to DC of some other arbitrary voltage and trickle.
That’s why it surprises me that the charging losses should be so high. As I was saying, well designed switch mode power supplies hit around 95% efficiency, and even trivial non-optimal designs like the 555 timer on breadboard design can easily hit the upper 80% while providing an arbitrary output voltage – no one is going to use a linear supply to charge a large lithium battery pack.
Kitplanes, the magazine, started a series of articles in the June edition about electric flight. They started with available motors, and will continue with the rest of the systems in the next editions, batteries, regulators etc.
Very interesting from a homebuilders view.
The next thing will be electric flight.
No – the next thing will be nuclear fusion 
Then everything becomes possible.
Well, not quite. Once (if) they find a means of interacting with gravity (other than via the manipulation of large masses, like planets, which is kind of impractical) then everything will change…
Well. Here in Norway about 13% of new cars sold are electric and 7% are hybrids. Leaf, Tesla and now also the electric VW and BMW are everywhere. Electric cars have definitely shown they are practical forms of transportation. I just came home from a week in the UK, and I din’t see a single electric car though. The reason for this is of course cheap electricity in Norway and no taxes or VAT or anything on electric cars + other bonuses. They still are practical forms of transportation.
Electric flight is not that far off. Today 1-2 hour endurance is the max, in three years it will be 2-4. Another thing is that no one has today really exploited the possibilities with current technology in more specialized forms of aviation. An electric aerobatics airplane with 10-15 minutes endurance would fly circles around all current aerobatics airplanes. An electric glider tow airplane could tow a glider to 4000 feet in a matter of seconds, not minutes just to mention a few examples. Long range solar/electric/combustion engine cruisers are very possible today.
What’s the range of an electric car with heating on?
You don’t need heating in Norway… do you?
My i3 has about 170km when it is warm and 100km when it is cold. That’s based on practical experience, not the sales brochure. I have had the electric car since February and not a single time, range was an issue for me. So for me, it clearly is the better technology.
I can also imagine buying an electric leisure aircraft with 1.5h endurance.
My i3 has about 170km when it is warm and 100km when it is cold. That’s based on practical experience, not the sales brochure. I have had the electric car since February and not a single time, range was an issue for me.
Are you saying that in the last 5 months, you’ve never driven a journey of more than 100km? Or are you saying that you’ve access to a different vehicle for such trips?
Most days that would be fine for me too, but certainly there have been many days over the past few months that 100km (or indeed 170km) wouldn’t have been near enough for me.
The thing about electric cars is that all the person I have talked to that have one are 100% satisfied. There are some things an electric car cannot do, drive long distances or fill up the tank in a minute or two (although the Tesla can go for 400-500 km on one charge). It’s like when the iPhone came out. It could do only a fraction of all the stuff a “real” Symbian Nokia could, but the few things it did, it did exceptionally well. Electric cars are fast, great acceleration and are fun to drive, no fuzz whatsoever. The things they do well, drive around the city and do errands and/or commute to work, they do much better than an “old fashioned” car. When you come home, you just plug it in.
