Two vids about an electric airplane from our own Bjorn Nyland. Very cool look at the future. Thanks Bjorn. Bjørn Nyland
Just 21 kWh battery, and after a 15 min flight the plane has only consumed 15% or around 3 kWh. Incredible.
There’s an organization in Fresno giving initial flight training in those.... Sustainable Aviation Project – Making flight training affordable through the use of all-electric aircraft Not sure if they’ve started or not yet, but I saw a presentation by the organizers a while ago, they were very interesting to talk to.
This is not new... the Pipistrel has been around for awhile... I used to work for Siemens and this was a long term project for them... New to him... yes.. Not to the aviation world...
It's the Pipistrel Alpha Electro. I'd seen/read about it before. Pretty efficient given the cruising speed. It shows both how much planes need a battery density increase, and how much they'd benefit from one. Consider what would happen to this plane with double the density: 2 1/2 hour flight at light load (remember that it has a half hour reserve), or, more likely, over an hour range if built to support a bit more passenger load, which would make it much more flexible as a trainer. There's a racing group that wants to begin an electric race series in 2020. Electric Airplane Race is Launched There are of course various companies working on other electric plane projects. All about the batteries.
That was an amazing video. I was wondering if it makes sense to have two motors , one for each of those counter rotating props, or just have one big motor and have a gear that counter rotates one of the props. I am sure the team would have weighed in that and choose two motors.
better control, less gears, perhaps could just be simpler redundancy - one goes bad you got the other.