On Thursday, 11 March 2021 at 01:33:34 UTC, Matthew Scutter wrote:
On Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 10:42:32 AM UTC+10, waremark wrote:
Someone said:

"Electric self-launchers seem particularly
well-suited to partnerships, with their easier use of the motor."

The contrary may be the case for electric gliders with removable batteries. At our airfield the electricity supply will not be adequate for the potential recharging requirements of more electric gliders. At the moment the only FES gliders at the club are individually owned, and the owners take the batteries home to charge them. The batteries of a syndicate owned glider would have to be charged on site - which will become a problem.

On a completely different point, I have been flying an ICE self-launcher for 14 years. I like to take off with sufficient fuel on board for a relight and a self-retrieve. I have rarely needed it, but if I didn't I would need to make road retrieve arrangements before cross country flights. I won't change to an electric glider until it has that sort of endurance - which is unlikely in my gliding lifetime.

Incidentally, twice in the 14 years I have landed in a field (safely, I am happy to say). The first time I initiated the start sequence at 1,000 foot on downwind, and the engine failed to start. The second time, I was on a marginal final glide, I took a clear decision to continue below a safe engine start height in the knowledge that there were safe fields on the way to the airfield, and when the final glide became too marginal I landed in a field without considering deploying the engine. Happily, I have never had to start the engine other than over a safe place to land.
Is your airfield off-grid? How constrained is the capacity of your club's electricity connection that you wouldn't be able to handle charging gliders there? The FES chargers are 1200W, the Antares is similar. They seem to only charge at full current briefly and then start dropping down rapidly as the batteries approach full charge. Even with a single phase connection you should be fine for 12 gliders at max current simultaneously. I even charge my FES batteries off an inverter in my van (which has 2x135Ah Lithiums + 300W solar + 1000W inverter).

On grid - but of course we have a lot of draw for other purposes before people start charging gliders.