7 ms·

I didn't read the whole article, but if they even mentioned how long it will fly for, they sure hid that carefully. Stop wasting my time until you have a decent

I didn't read the whole article, but if they even mentioned how long it will fly for, they sure hid that carefully. Stop wasting my time until you have a decent product!

livatlantis 9y ago
> We designed the aircraft for the niche application of pilot training, where the inability to carry a heavy payload or fly for more than 3 hours straight is not a problem and where cost is a major factor. So a little less than 3 hours, I'd imagine.
aphextron 9y ago
3 hours of flight time is more than adequate for training purposes. Not only is it a huge win for fuel savings, but safety is the number one reason I can see primary trainers going 100% electric over the next decade. Learning to deal with the intricacies of an ICE across the full range of flight conditions is half your training time wasted, and the myriad of things that can go wrong simply wont exist anymore.
- sohkamyung 9y ago
  > Learning to deal with the intricacies of an ICE across the full range of flight conditions is half your training time wasted I'm not familiar with flight terminology or flight training, so could you elaborate on the meaning of that sentence?
  - SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
    ICE = Internal Combustion Engine.
  - sooper 9y ago
    ICE = Internal combustion engine Off the top of my head: - At certain temperatures and pressures you have to consider icing in the carburettor, which will block air flow into the engine. - You have to tune (lean) the fuel input to reduce fuel consumption and prevent spark plug fouling, but not lean it too much that you overheat the engine. Some more in-depth examples at http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/engine-management http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/engine-management
    - mpweiher 9y ago
      And when descending, you have to be sure not to shock cool it etc. Airplane gasoline engines are a mess, the technology is ~1950s at best and just hasn't advanced at all, with a few exceptions that, pardon the pun, never really took off.
      - mnw21cam 9y ago
        A lot of that "mess" is due to a couple of critical requirements. Namely, low engine weight and reliability.
        pdelbarba 9y ago
        At this point it's mostly certification cost and liability insurance cost that's keeping the tech back. You can easily modify modern aircraft engines to be more reliable and efficient (PMAGs) but you need an STC (certification procedure) to make the switch so the experimental home builders are the only ones who actually benefit.
      - cjrp 9y ago
        Rotax seem to be doing pretty well, they're used in a lot of popular trainers
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        Shock cooling as a concern for cylinder cracking is a fairly well debunked myth at this point, IMO, short of crashing your airplane into a cold lake. Agreed the tech is old, but the uncommanded in-flight shutdown rate for pistons is also very low. Part of that is driven by high maintenance demands (some of which introduces failures themself), but a lot is due to the simplicity and redundancy. Would I like variable spark timing (beyond impulse couplers for starting)? Would I like more automated starting, especially for hot starts? Would I like thermostatic cooling of cylinders? Yes, but not if they came with any substantial increase in failure modes. When I'm taking the family 700 miles at night in a single-engine airplane to grandma's for christmas, I'll suffer with arcane checklists and having to manually manage the engine if it reduces the chance of an uncommanded shutdown by even 5%.
- tjoff 9y ago
  Wasted? Isn't that exactly among the things you need to learn?
  - willvarfar 9y ago
    So you can have an electric plane for primary training, and ICE as the next step? Lots of people learn to drive automatics and not manuals. Perhaps electric planes will become viable enough that many people will never need to progress to ICE?
    - tjoff 9y ago
      Sure, but that hardly means it is wasted. And perhaps that is true, but hardly the case in the near future.
- gruturo 9y ago
  Unfortunately that defeats the purpose of a trainer, because "real" planes, which the trainer is supposed to prepare you for, won't be electric for quite a bit, so you do need to learn all about the intricacies and issues which can crop up on those planes. Even assuming a rather speedy pace of improvement in battery tech, the power/weight ratio won't be there for quite a while. Batteries also don't get lighter as their energy is consumed, like fuel does, and many planes cannot even land with the same weight they are allowed to take off with.
  - grecy 9y ago
    Of course, this means a student can start in this electric trainer, and focus on learning the flying right off the bat. When a student has that down, they can graduate up to a trainer with an ICE, and then learn all of that stuff. Exactly like learning to drive a car in an automatic first, then once you have the actual vehicle control/traffic/etc down, you graduate up to a stick shift.
    - rowyourboat 9y ago
      Except that in countries where stick shift dominates, you start off learning to drive a stick right away.
      - mrob 9y ago
        Unlike airplanes, cars have no stall speed. You first lesson involves driving at very low speeds, away from traffic. If you have any trouble shifting you can just stop. Airplanes are less forgiving.
        pdelbarba 9y ago
        Electric vs ICE trainers won't have much in the way of differences. The main procedural differences will be engine start (just follow the checklist) and low power conditions where carb heat is required (becoming slightly less common now that fuel injection is available and relatively cheap). The most common trainer is the C172 which is high wing and therefore doesn't need an electric fuel pump or tank switching so that's about it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
snt 9y ago
While doing circuit training, a student pilot can do 5 training circuits of 6 mins each using 30 minutes of battery. They'll probably be so overwhelmed and fatigued afterwards (well, I was anyway) that their day's training is over. That's five or six exhausted student pilots per exhausted battery. :)
princekolt 9y ago
> I didn't read the whole article You should have stopped right there.
D_Alex 9y ago
They mentioned 83 kWhr battery, a peak power usage of 80 kW, and a "normal flight", whatever that means, usage of around 20 kW. I should note that a conventional airplane rarely cruises at less than 50% power, 65-75% would be more common. But even an hour endurance, plus reserves, is okay for a trainer airplane, so this product is pretty decent already, and your outrage over the waste of your precious time probably was not warranted. If this thing can recharge in ~30 mins, then it would be a pretty good option for a flying school, where pre-flight briefings and checks will consume a part of this time. And given the pre-orders and options, it seems the flying schools in fact agree that this is a pretty good product.

I didn't read the whole article, but if they even mentioned how long it will fly for, they sure hid that carefully. Stop wasting my time until you have a decent product!

livatlantis 9y ago

> We designed the aircraft for the niche application of pilot training, where the inability to carry a heavy payload or fly for more than 3 hours straight is not a problem and where cost is a major factor. So a little less than 3 hours, I'd imagine.

aphextron 9y ago

3 hours of flight time is more than adequate for training purposes. Not only is it a huge win for fuel savings, but safety is the number one reason I can see primary trainers going 100% electric over the next decade. Learning to deal with the intricacies of an ICE across the full range of flight conditions is half your training time wasted, and the myriad of things that can go wrong simply wont exist anymore.

sohkamyung 9y ago
> Learning to deal with the intricacies of an ICE across the full range of flight conditions is half your training time wasted I'm not familiar with flight terminology or flight training, so could you elaborate on the meaning of that sentence?
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
  ICE = Internal Combustion Engine.
- sooper 9y ago
  ICE = Internal combustion engine Off the top of my head: - At certain temperatures and pressures you have to consider icing in the carburettor, which will block air flow into the engine. - You have to tune (lean) the fuel input to reduce fuel consumption and prevent spark plug fouling, but not lean it too much that you overheat the engine. Some more in-depth examples at http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/engine-management http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/engine-management
  - mpweiher 9y ago
    And when descending, you have to be sure not to shock cool it etc. Airplane gasoline engines are a mess, the technology is ~1950s at best and just hasn't advanced at all, with a few exceptions that, pardon the pun, never really took off.
    - mnw21cam 9y ago
      A lot of that "mess" is due to a couple of critical requirements. Namely, low engine weight and reliability.
      - pdelbarba 9y ago
        At this point it's mostly certification cost and liability insurance cost that's keeping the tech back. You can easily modify modern aircraft engines to be more reliable and efficient (PMAGs) but you need an STC (certification procedure) to make the switch so the experimental home builders are the only ones who actually benefit.
    - cjrp 9y ago
      Rotax seem to be doing pretty well, they're used in a lot of popular trainers
    - sokoloff 9y ago
      Shock cooling as a concern for cylinder cracking is a fairly well debunked myth at this point, IMO, short of crashing your airplane into a cold lake. Agreed the tech is old, but the uncommanded in-flight shutdown rate for pistons is also very low. Part of that is driven by high maintenance demands (some of which introduces failures themself), but a lot is due to the simplicity and redundancy. Would I like variable spark timing (beyond impulse couplers for starting)? Would I like more automated starting, especially for hot starts? Would I like thermostatic cooling of cylinders? Yes, but not if they came with any substantial increase in failure modes. When I'm taking the family 700 miles at night in a single-engine airplane to grandma's for christmas, I'll suffer with arcane checklists and having to manually manage the engine if it reduces the chance of an uncommanded shutdown by even 5%.
tjoff 9y ago
Wasted? Isn't that exactly among the things you need to learn?
- willvarfar 9y ago
  So you can have an electric plane for primary training, and ICE as the next step? Lots of people learn to drive automatics and not manuals. Perhaps electric planes will become viable enough that many people will never need to progress to ICE?
  - tjoff 9y ago
    Sure, but that hardly means it is wasted. And perhaps that is true, but hardly the case in the near future.
gruturo 9y ago
Unfortunately that defeats the purpose of a trainer, because "real" planes, which the trainer is supposed to prepare you for, won't be electric for quite a bit, so you do need to learn all about the intricacies and issues which can crop up on those planes. Even assuming a rather speedy pace of improvement in battery tech, the power/weight ratio won't be there for quite a while. Batteries also don't get lighter as their energy is consumed, like fuel does, and many planes cannot even land with the same weight they are allowed to take off with.
- grecy 9y ago
  Of course, this means a student can start in this electric trainer, and focus on learning the flying right off the bat. When a student has that down, they can graduate up to a trainer with an ICE, and then learn all of that stuff. Exactly like learning to drive a car in an automatic first, then once you have the actual vehicle control/traffic/etc down, you graduate up to a stick shift.
  - rowyourboat 9y ago
    Except that in countries where stick shift dominates, you start off learning to drive a stick right away.
    - mrob 9y ago
      Unlike airplanes, cars have no stall speed. You first lesson involves driving at very low speeds, away from traffic. If you have any trouble shifting you can just stop. Airplanes are less forgiving.
      - pdelbarba 9y ago
        Electric vs ICE trainers won't have much in the way of differences. The main procedural differences will be engine start (just follow the checklist) and low power conditions where carb heat is required (becoming slightly less common now that fuel injection is available and relatively cheap). The most common trainer is the C172 which is high wing and therefore doesn't need an electric fuel pump or tank switching so that's about it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

snt 9y ago

While doing circuit training, a student pilot can do 5 training circuits of 6 mins each using 30 minutes of battery. They'll probably be so overwhelmed and fatigued afterwards (well, I was anyway) that their day's training is over. That's five or six exhausted student pilots per exhausted battery. :)

princekolt 9y ago

> I didn't read the whole article You should have stopped right there.

D_Alex 9y ago

They mentioned 83 kWhr battery, a peak power usage of 80 kW, and a "normal flight", whatever that means, usage of around 20 kW. I should note that a conventional airplane rarely cruises at less than 50% power, 65-75% would be more common. But even an hour endurance, plus reserves, is okay for a trainer airplane, so this product is pretty decent already, and your outrage over the waste of your precious time probably was not warranted. If this thing can recharge in ~30 mins, then it would be a pretty good option for a flying school, where pre-flight briefings and checks will consume a part of this time. And given the pre-orders and options, it seems the flying schools in fact agree that this is a pretty good product.