Future has arrived

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_dnAD5TD-E


Makes you want to fit some floats on an Antares and give it a go!

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 10:37:26 AM UTC-5, kinsell wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_dnAD5TD-E


Makes you want to fit some floats on an Antares and give it a go!

He must be dreaming. Fuel cost is at most 25% of airline's cost.

Let's talk about how much fuel it takes to get an airliner from Point A to Point B. You want to climb above the weather (30,000 ft. or more), you want to haul enough passengers and their stuff to pay the cost of doing business, the airplane, the crew, the maintenance, the insurance, and all the rest of what makes a business run and an airplane fly.

What are you going to use to make this happen? Jet-A1 (or JP-4 or Kerosene, or diesel, or whatever other petrochemical compound) with a sufficient energy density to lift its own weight plus the mass of the airplane and payload and keep it aloft until Point B is reached (with a significant fuel reserve because **** happens).

You want electric airplanes that will do the same thing? Not likely. The energy density of the most powerful battery bank is still nowhere near sufficient enough to allow an airplane (even Light Sport Aircraft) to take off, climb to altitude, cruise for long distance and carry anything but batteries..

Yes, battery technology is improving, and quickly. But the actual laws of physics take over and determine the maximum output and duration of every chemical battery.

"$200,000 worth of Tesla batteries, which collectively weigh over 20,000 pounds, are needed to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil." (from the Manhattan Institute study on the economic cost of "Green Energy."

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/...ear-impossible

As soaring pilots, we recognize, appreciate, analyze and utilize "free" atmospheric energy. But we also recognize the limitations of our technology when the energy suddenly (or gradually) diminishes or disappears. Trying to legislate and force an unreliable and wildly expensive form of unreliable energy on an energy dependent populace for political gain will doom a large portion of the world to starve to death in the dark.

In the context of the Harbor Air efforts, most their flights are only 30 minutes,
so they don't need huge batteries. The AOPA article (or maybe it was an EAA
article) had details that indicated the one hour flight time target was feasible
and economic. They are doing this to improve their business operation, and not
because it was forced on them.

In the soaring context, electric self-launchers offer good or better launching
power, less maintenance, and easier operation for similar purchase cost. They
don't have the self-retrieve range of the gas powered gliders, but my 25 years of
self-launching experience showed I rarely use much of that available range.


wrote on 1/3/2020 8:17 PM:
Let's talk about how much fuel it takes to get an airliner from Point A to
Point B. You want to climb above the weather (30,000 ft. or more), you want to
haul enough passengers and their stuff to pay the cost of doing business, the
airplane, the crew, the maintenance, the insurance, and all the rest of what
makes a business run and an airplane fly.

What are you going to use to make this happen? Jet-A1 (or JP-4 or Kerosene, or
diesel, or whatever other petrochemical compound) with a sufficient energy
density to lift its own weight plus the mass of the airplane and payload and
keep it aloft until Point B is reached (with a significant fuel reserve because
**** happens).

You want electric airplanes that will do the same thing? Not likely. The energy
density of the most powerful battery bank is still nowhere near sufficient
enough to allow an airplane (even Light Sport Aircraft) to take off, climb to
altitude, cruise for long distance and carry anything but batteries..

Yes, battery technology is improving, and quickly. But the actual laws of
physics take over and determine the maximum output and duration of every
chemical battery.

"$200,000 worth of Tesla batteries, which collectively weigh over 20,000
pounds, are needed to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil." (from
the Manhattan Institute study on the economic cost of "Green Energy."

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/...ear-impossible

As soaring pilots, we recognize, appreciate, analyze and utilize "free"
atmospheric energy. But we also recognize the limitations of our technology
when the energy suddenly (or gradually) diminishes or disappears. Trying to
legislate and force an unreliable and wildly expensive form of unreliable
energy on an energy dependent populace for political gain will doom a large
portion of the world to starve to death in the dark.



--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

Can you windmill the prop upon descent to regenerate some power?

Can you turn the prop in reverse to back up?

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 9:43:43 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Can you windmill the prop upon descent to regenerate some power?

Can you turn the prop in reverse to back up?

I can hardly wait to see the look on the pilot's face when the L/D numbers drop dramatically while trying to regenerate power with a windmilling prop.

wrote on 1/4/2020 5:37 AM:
On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 9:43:43 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Can you windmill the prop upon descent to regenerate some power?

Can you turn the prop in reverse to back up?

I can hardly wait to see the look on the pilot's face when the L/D numbers drop dramatically while trying to regenerate power with a windmilling prop.

Regenerating upon descent might have real value for an electric powered towplane,
as the pilot typically wants to get down as rapidly as possible. Shock cooling
would not be an issue :^)

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Fri, 03 Jan 2020 20:17:59 -0800, markmocho53 wrote:

Let's talk about how much fuel it takes to get an airliner from Point A
to Point B. You want to climb above the weather (30,000 ft. or more),
you want to haul enough passengers and their stuff to pay the cost of
doing business, the airplane, the crew, the maintenance, the insurance,
and all the rest of what makes a business run and an airplane fly.

What are you going to use to make this happen? Jet-A1 (or JP-4 or
Kerosene, or diesel, or whatever other petrochemical compound) with a
sufficient energy density to lift its own weight plus the mass of the
airplane and payload and keep it aloft until Point B is reached (with a
significant fuel reserve because **** happens).

You want electric airplanes that will do the same thing? Not likely. The
energy density of the most powerful battery bank is still nowhere near
sufficient enough to allow an airplane (even Light Sport Aircraft) to
take off, climb to altitude, cruise for long distance and carry anything
but batteries.

Yes, battery technology is improving, and quickly. But the actual laws
of physics take over and determine the maximum output and duration of
every chemical battery.

"$200,000 worth of Tesla batteries, which collectively weigh over 20,000
pounds, are needed to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil."
(from the Manhattan Institute study on the economic cost of "Green
Energy."

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/...volution-near-
impossible

Interesting stuff.

The future of electric air transport may well turn out to be something
like an Airlander with an outer skin covered with lightweight solar cells:
https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ou.../airlander-10/

The Airlander 10 is a direct derivative of the P-791 project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVNV-FFUOnc



--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

Yeah, I am really looking forward to a six day trip to New Zealand at 20,000 feet, through all of the lovely tropical storms over the Pacific. And helium is so plentiful, too!

On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 08:09:19 -0800, markmocho53 wrote:

Yeah, I am really looking forward to a six day trip to New Zealand at
20,000 feet, through all of the lovely tropical storms over the Pacific.

Indeed, but probably not as high as 20,000 - I'd guess 8000 - 10,000 to
avoid presurised cabins, which are both heavy and need energy to compress
the incoming fresh air. OTOH, pax would most likely have bunks/bars/space
to move round rather than the less than wonderful seats I've travelled in
(apart from the A380, which has really nice seats even in cattle-class).

And helium is so plentiful, too!

True enough, though IIRC these beasts can transfer their helium between
lift bags and storage tanks, i.e. no valving off helium when they land,
and they do use a reasonable amount of aerodynamic lift as well as
gasbags. There are other similar projects, e.g.

http://aeroscraft.com/
https://www.varialift.com/

that will also use some aerodynamic lift and will look and fly quite like
the Airlander.

But, my main point was that something like these aircraft, but using
electric motors instead of the IC engines in the current prototypes, need
a lot less power stored in heavy batteries than anything that depends
entirely on aerodynamic lift.

Airbus and Rolls Royce are retrofitting a BA 146 as a test-bed for using
electric ducted fans as potential replacements for high bypass jet
engines, BUT they will be powering the fan(s) from a 2MW gas turbine
generator in the rear fuselage. It would take a shed load of batteries to
replace that generator, so its not at all clear where the electric energy
needed to power an all-electric Airbus 320 or Boeing 787 would be stored
or how it would be generated in flight. Portable fusion generator
anybody?


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org