3 ms·

I had to squint to look at the images on that site. The designs may or may not be a good idea, but if we can't read them then it doesn't matter. Bit of a poor s

by bArray 10y ago

I had to squint to look at the images on that site. The designs may or may not be a good idea, but if we can't read them then it doesn't matter. Bit of a poor show from whoever published the article. Looking at the accompanying text, there are some problems with his ideas. Some of that "supporting" material is also about fail-safe design and heat distribution. A copper plate running through the middle of a battery will draw the heat out nicely. These batteries are all good and well until they fail, at which point you have a huge problem. With fuel, you can dump it. What do you do with you battery wing? One of the massive problems is energy density, but that's not the only problem. With the batteries embedded into the wings, you need you to figure out how to effectively charge them too. Planes can't afford to sit for hours on the ground between flights and swapping wings over is not going to fly with safety regulations very well. The intentions are good but I'm not convinced there is something viable here.

Declanomous 10y ago
Planes might be able to afford sitting for hours if batteries are that much cheaper than aviation fuel.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with the cost of fuel, an aircraft can't afford to be sitting for hours because the aircraft is very expensive (so you need to pretty much fly all the time) and the space at an airport is at a premium. Airports don't have unlimited apron space and the costs are pretty high the apron costs for LGA for examples are: For the first 15 minutes or fraction thereof $ 50.00 For each additional 15 minutes or fraction thereof $100.00 source: http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf/scheduleofcharges-lga.pdf http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf/scheduleofcharges-lga.pdf And even with these charges apron space is still a "premium" and it's not designed to be constantly used (this is why airlines usually have a home airport where they can actually reserve space).
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    Well, he's kind of right, if fuel cost was suddenly zero, the profit margin would explode, and planes wouldn't need to fly as many flights to recoup the capital investment.
    - sulam 10y ago
      Profit margins exploding is shortly followed by profit margins declining as everyone gets busy competing on cost. By any measure an airplane is a high cost asset, and increasing (or maintaining) utilization will be important.
    - ars 10y ago
      > if fuel cost was suddenly zero See my post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12591666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12591666 electrical costs are higher than typical fuel costs.
  - tlb 10y ago
    A Concorde-load of fuel costs around $40k (100000 liters * $0.40/liter). From your numbers, a 90-minute recharge costs $550. So apron costs don't seem like the deciding factor.
    - ars 10y ago
      > 100000 liters That works out to approximately 1GWh. At $0.10/KWh divided by two because of worse efficiency, that's $50,000 worth of electricity. So the electricity at $50k costs more than the $40k for gasoline. (Or about the same depending on the exact price.) The bigger issue is a 90 minute recharge of .5GWh would require 333MW of power, which about half the total output of a typical power plant. i.e. not a chance in the world of that happening. Can you imagine just grabbing the power lines on a typical power plant and plugging them in here and there?
      - bArray 10y ago
        There's also some consideration needed here of jet plane vs electric plane efficiency. From what I've read about Rolls Royce jet engines - it's a very serious contender. Anything that runs fast, hot and a lot of power needs very careful design. My prediction is that you would need cooling for such large motors travelling at such high speeds and that too would drop your efficiency. The airframes get pretty got at those speeds and every electrical component with high power will generate it's fair share of heat too. You won't be able to keep the thing cool enough to fly for any period of time. I have MX Dynamixels sitting beside me that sometimes weld themselves shut because of the immense heat they generate. The bigger they are, the bigger the problem. For now, the only viable method I see is low-speed, short journeys as somebody else suggested. Maybe these sorts of flights would be more viable where solar panels can be utilized to also work off some of that money and make recharging quicker and adding less weight.
avn2109 10y ago
>> "...swapping wings..." If you were going to do this, you wouldn't swap wings. Instead, you'd swap passenger compartments in and out of various airframes, probably with some kind of automated gantry. This would reduce airfield turnaround times by allowing boarding to be finished before deplaning begins and by removing baggage handling from the critical path of getting the plane back in the air. Then the batteries would be charged during maintenance on the tarmac or in a hangar. Though overall I'm a skeptic of electrical aviation.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  Whether the economics of having two or more airframes would work remains to be seen. That's two of all the expensive bits. I can see short haul, lower speed routes working with less radical battery approaches. Probably have to have multiple battery locations per plane for weight and balance. I'm incredibly sceptical of SST and replacing Concorde.
jcfrei 10y ago
> I had to squint to look at the images on that site. The designs may or may not be a good idea, but if we can't read them then it doesn't matter. Bit of a poor show from whoever published the article. Remove the ?amp=true from the URL and you'll get the proper desktop version.
- bArray 10y ago
  I don't understand why that's set, but thanks.

by bArray 10y ago

Declanomous 10y ago

Planes might be able to afford sitting for hours if batteries are that much cheaper than aviation fuel.

dogma1138 10y ago
This has nothing to do with the cost of fuel, an aircraft can't afford to be sitting for hours because the aircraft is very expensive (so you need to pretty much fly all the time) and the space at an airport is at a premium. Airports don't have unlimited apron space and the costs are pretty high the apron costs for LGA for examples are: For the first 15 minutes or fraction thereof $ 50.00 For each additional 15 minutes or fraction thereof $100.00 source: http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf/scheduleofcharges-lga.pdf http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf/scheduleofcharges-lga.pdf And even with these charges apron space is still a "premium" and it's not designed to be constantly used (this is why airlines usually have a home airport where they can actually reserve space).
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Well, he's kind of right, if fuel cost was suddenly zero, the profit margin would explode, and planes wouldn't need to fly as many flights to recoup the capital investment.
  - sulam 10y ago
    Profit margins exploding is shortly followed by profit margins declining as everyone gets busy competing on cost. By any measure an airplane is a high cost asset, and increasing (or maintaining) utilization will be important.
  - ars 10y ago
    > if fuel cost was suddenly zero See my post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12591666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12591666 electrical costs are higher than typical fuel costs.
- tlb 10y ago
  A Concorde-load of fuel costs around $40k (100000 liters * $0.40/liter). From your numbers, a 90-minute recharge costs $550. So apron costs don't seem like the deciding factor.
  - ars 10y ago
    > 100000 liters That works out to approximately 1GWh. At $0.10/KWh divided by two because of worse efficiency, that's $50,000 worth of electricity. So the electricity at $50k costs more than the $40k for gasoline. (Or about the same depending on the exact price.) The bigger issue is a 90 minute recharge of .5GWh would require 333MW of power, which about half the total output of a typical power plant. i.e. not a chance in the world of that happening. Can you imagine just grabbing the power lines on a typical power plant and plugging them in here and there?
    - bArray 10y ago
      There's also some consideration needed here of jet plane vs electric plane efficiency. From what I've read about Rolls Royce jet engines - it's a very serious contender. Anything that runs fast, hot and a lot of power needs very careful design. My prediction is that you would need cooling for such large motors travelling at such high speeds and that too would drop your efficiency. The airframes get pretty got at those speeds and every electrical component with high power will generate it's fair share of heat too. You won't be able to keep the thing cool enough to fly for any period of time. I have MX Dynamixels sitting beside me that sometimes weld themselves shut because of the immense heat they generate. The bigger they are, the bigger the problem. For now, the only viable method I see is low-speed, short journeys as somebody else suggested. Maybe these sorts of flights would be more viable where solar panels can be utilized to also work off some of that money and make recharging quicker and adding less weight.

avn2109 10y ago

>> "...swapping wings..." If you were going to do this, you wouldn't swap wings. Instead, you'd swap passenger compartments in and out of various airframes, probably with some kind of automated gantry. This would reduce airfield turnaround times by allowing boarding to be finished before deplaning begins and by removing baggage handling from the critical path of getting the plane back in the air. Then the batteries would be charged during maintenance on the tarmac or in a hangar. Though overall I'm a skeptic of electrical aviation.

anexprogrammer 10y ago
Whether the economics of having two or more airframes would work remains to be seen. That's two of all the expensive bits. I can see short haul, lower speed routes working with less radical battery approaches. Probably have to have multiple battery locations per plane for weight and balance. I'm incredibly sceptical of SST and replacing Concorde.

jcfrei 10y ago

> I had to squint to look at the images on that site. The designs may or may not be a good idea, but if we can't read them then it doesn't matter. Bit of a poor show from whoever published the article. Remove the ?amp=true from the URL and you'll get the proper desktop version.

bArray 10y ago
I don't understand why that's set, but thanks.