7 ms·

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 pr

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%.
  - needusername 9y ago
    > carburettor Excuse me? Carburettor? In 2017? > 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. Can't the engine management software take care of this?
    - charlesdenault 9y ago
      Most flight schools have much older aircraft-- think 70s and 80s-- that have carbs. Newer aircraft are fuel injected, but often more expensive per hour.
      - needusername 9y ago
        VW Golf are fuel injected since 1975.
        Govindae 9y ago
        But they've only been able to fly since 2016.
        DonaldFisk 9y ago
        Cars are different, though you could have pointed out that the Messerschmitt BF-109 had fuel injection in the 1930s.
    - chipsa 9y ago
      An average car company makes millions of cars. Probably millions of a given model. Cessna has made ~44k 172 Skyhawks. It's one of the most produced aircraft, and it's been in production largely unchanged since 1956. I think Tesla is going to make more Model 3s this year than Cessna is going to make Skyhawks.
      - needusername 9y ago
        Don't they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? Surely you're going to find an engine manufacturer that can build you an engine that's not half a century old.
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]

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%.
- needusername 9y ago
  > carburettor Excuse me? Carburettor? In 2017? > 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. Can't the engine management software take care of this?
  - charlesdenault 9y ago
    Most flight schools have much older aircraft-- think 70s and 80s-- that have carbs. Newer aircraft are fuel injected, but often more expensive per hour.
    - needusername 9y ago
      VW Golf are fuel injected since 1975.
      - Govindae 9y ago
        But they've only been able to fly since 2016.
      - DonaldFisk 9y ago
        Cars are different, though you could have pointed out that the Messerschmitt BF-109 had fuel injection in the 1930s.
  - chipsa 9y ago
    An average car company makes millions of cars. Probably millions of a given model. Cessna has made ~44k 172 Skyhawks. It's one of the most produced aircraft, and it's been in production largely unchanged since 1956. I think Tesla is going to make more Model 3s this year than Cessna is going to make Skyhawks.
    - needusername 9y ago
      Don't they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? Surely you're going to find an engine manufacturer that can build you an engine that's not half a century old.

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]