7 ms·

Quantum Air buys Bye's electric airplanes

64 points by prostoalex 7y ago

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
Very cool. Now if we can keep corrupt local politicians from destroying our airports and turning the land over to developers (this means you, SANTA MONICA)... transportation might continue to advance.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Yes, you are right. Politicians have not realized yet that things are going to change. The main reason people don't like airports is pollution and noise. If you take that away, living close to an airport is actually quite nice since that means you can get in and out quickly. Santa Monica and similar airports are going to be ground zero for this because they have lots of rich people living near by that might opt for an electrical plane. Sounds like an awesome way to get around LA, which has quite a few nice small airports. Basically Bye and Eviation are launching products that are sort of hitting the sweet spot for general aviation. They have enough range that you can go somewhere at a small portion of the cost of a typical 100$ hamburger. Probably in about a decade, there will be enough of these things flying that regulation and politics will adapt. Many airports currently have landing limitations because of noise. I could see some exceptions being made for electrical planes or even some airports being limited to only electrical planes. I could even see how building new airports could become popular again; especially close to cities and especially for VTOL planes (need a lot less runway).
  - cagenut 7y ago
    Most of the things you mention in your last paragraph are addressed in this talk, you'll probably enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGUrXCBB1OI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGUrXCBB1OI
- appleshore 7y ago
  Context: They’re closing Santa Monica airport and turning it into luxury condos and fine dining.
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    Same with Reid Hillview in San Jose. Developers failed for years, then came up with the "leaded fuel omg" complaint, which worked. Nevermind the airport is adjacent to one of the the busiest freeways in the area.
FabHK 7y ago
They claim 4 hours endurance, which would give it nearly 400 NM range. Not bad, if it works. The 4 seater can carry 800 lbs. Wonder how long charging takes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Aerospace_Sun_Flyer_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Aerospace_Sun_Flyer_4
- rbanffy 7y ago
  Long charging times are only an issue if the batteries aren't removable. An electric plane with two sets of batteries on each end of its route can pretty much fly non-stop.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    This removing batteries thing comes up a lot on HN. People seem obsessed with it and are coming up with all sorts of theories as to how this is absolutely essential. It's not a thing for cars. It's not going to be a thing for planes. With rapid charging infrastructure, you can top batteries up in 30-45 minutes to about 80%. That's for a high end car. Probably it could be done faster with specialized equipment. Typically, you don't drain the battery to 0% and you don't charge to more than 80% unless you are planning to fly to the maximum range. Finally, charging times are non linear and it slows down the further you charge a battery. Also, people forget that airlines are on the ground quite long in between flights. Offloading and on-boarding passengers takes quite a bit of time. Programming the flight computers is quite fiddly. Running down checklists with dozens of items takes a lot of time. Waiting for engines to spin up and get to the right temperature, etc. 30-40 minutes is quite common. Plenty of time to top up some batteries. And waiting a bit longer for some cheap electricity is probably well worth the tonnes (literally) of fuel you are not going to be burning.
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      That's right - the "non-stop" part is usually an hour at the terminal at least between landing and next takeoff. It's still a non-trivial amount of energy (the total expenditure of the flight) to be loaded into the battery. For the kind of range we are talking these days, that's more or less the same average rate the battery gets discharged during flight. Swapping batteries would make more sense if we get to the point a full charge could allow a passenger plane to fly for many hours and charge speed would be limited by the total amount of power a terminal full of recharging planes would be requiring.
benj111 7y ago
I cant help but feel they could have found a more fun headline. Anyway, lithium sulphur is mentioned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_batte... Could anyone add more background? Is this something we're likely to be seeing in EVs any time soon?
- pattisapu 7y ago
  "Quantum Buy Bye in Electric Tech Urban Air Dare"
  - benj111 7y ago
    I was toying with "Quantum says good buy, and Bye says hello." I think it's a bit too high brow for a head line though.
leoedin 7y ago
I wonder what the life of the aircraft needs to be before the higher cost of the aircraft amortises into lower overall costs. I'd imagine that the running cost of a mainly solid state aircraft is significantly lower than a gasoline one, but the initial battery cost will be very significant. It would be nice if the rise of electric general aviation has the effect of reducing the cost of flying. However, I suspect then you'll run into other issues. I can't imagine LA can have too many air taxis flying around before they become a nightmare to manage. If the hourly cost of an air taxi is low enough that everyone can take one, the sky will become saturated. There's obviously a lot of space, but our systems for managing air traffic right now are designed around there being tens to hundreds of aircraft in the same area, not thousands. We'd need to introduce fully automated aircraft routing to have a hope of dealing with air taxis over dense cities if they became remotely popular.
- rbanffy 7y ago
  Being simpler than turboprop or piston, I assume maintenance is cheaper. That has a long term impact as airframes are used for decades before being deemed uneconomical or otherwise unfit for purpose. Battery prices can be offset by cheaper electricity and/or carbon taxes. Less noisy planes should also be able to operate in areas jets aren't, such as extremely desirable urban centers. eVTOL is even better in that, but developments that would make it rival fixed wing are coming, eventually. If a V-22 can do it, so can civilians. ATC is the choking point - we'll have to take a lesson from the phone system, which transitioned from having human operators routing calls to all of us recognizing dial-busy-ring tones and being able to dial numbers ourselves.
  - aedocw 7y ago
    No one who has ever flown a plane in moderately busy airspace (like desirable urban centers) would talk about transitioning ATC to something without humans. As it stands, in non-controlled airspace, it already works like this. Pilots announce their intentions and coordinate with each other. This only works in areas with very low traffic.
    - 7y ago
quickthrower2 7y ago
That was a hard headline to parse. First “Quantum air” when there is already Qantas. And then “buys Bye’s”. Eek!
cagenut 7y ago
I went down an electric-flight youtube rabbit hole a couple months ago and was genuinely shocked at how far things have already developed. If anyone else is curious, check out this set of presentations from the 2018 "sustainable aviation foundation" symposium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtqxcrPbJkSwI-ozYr1AiQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtqxcrPbJkSwI-ozYr1AiQ/vid... The 2019 symposium is coming up in october: https://www.sasymposium.com/ https://www.sasymposium.com/ Also Uber just had its "elevate summit" on its flight plans (all electric): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmVTG4mAK7nyJ7pu7pTd_7q29YUHvPZEt https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmVTG4mAK7nyJ7pu7pTd_... Basically, any question you have, someone has devoted the last few years of their career to and given a 45 minute presentation on.
- cagenut 7y ago
  Some more e-flight youtubes: This is the specific plane mentioned in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REdh3Q4cPuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REdh3Q4cPuE That guy did a great roundup video of electric flight a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIM3pgxHVIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIM3pgxHVIM He also did a tour of the Pipestrel plan a month ago where you get to see some "under the hood" stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfjCXDf9rhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfjCXDf9rhk
garethgriffiths 7y ago
Electric planes have very few parts and are easy to maintain. The main cost of flying is fuel. Electric will make it a lot cheaper. The battery as with all electric vehicles is still an issue, but for short air taxi distances it will be fine. Switch out the batteries on arrival and go again.
- Reason077 7y ago
  It's unlikely that switchable/swappable batteries will be a thing in aviation. Even in the smallest aircraft, the batteries weigh hundreds - or thousands - of kilograms, comprise the bulk of the aircraft's dry weight, and are likely to be tightly integrated with the rest of the airframe for structural and safety reasons. Most aircraft spend enough time on the ground between flights to make fast DC charging quite practical, and certainly much more so than swapping out huge batteries.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

64 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Very cool. Now if we can keep corrupt local politicians from destroying our airports and turning the land over to developers (this means you, SANTA MONICA)... transportation might continue to advance.

jillesvangurp 7y ago
Yes, you are right. Politicians have not realized yet that things are going to change. The main reason people don't like airports is pollution and noise. If you take that away, living close to an airport is actually quite nice since that means you can get in and out quickly. Santa Monica and similar airports are going to be ground zero for this because they have lots of rich people living near by that might opt for an electrical plane. Sounds like an awesome way to get around LA, which has quite a few nice small airports. Basically Bye and Eviation are launching products that are sort of hitting the sweet spot for general aviation. They have enough range that you can go somewhere at a small portion of the cost of a typical 100$ hamburger. Probably in about a decade, there will be enough of these things flying that regulation and politics will adapt. Many airports currently have landing limitations because of noise. I could see some exceptions being made for electrical planes or even some airports being limited to only electrical planes. I could even see how building new airports could become popular again; especially close to cities and especially for VTOL planes (need a lot less runway).
- cagenut 7y ago
  Most of the things you mention in your last paragraph are addressed in this talk, you'll probably enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGUrXCBB1OI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGUrXCBB1OI
appleshore 7y ago
Context: They’re closing Santa Monica airport and turning it into luxury condos and fine dining.
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  Same with Reid Hillview in San Jose. Developers failed for years, then came up with the "leaded fuel omg" complaint, which worked. Nevermind the airport is adjacent to one of the the busiest freeways in the area.

FabHK 7y ago

They claim 4 hours endurance, which would give it nearly 400 NM range. Not bad, if it works. The 4 seater can carry 800 lbs. Wonder how long charging takes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Aerospace_Sun_Flyer_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Aerospace_Sun_Flyer_4

rbanffy 7y ago
Long charging times are only an issue if the batteries aren't removable. An electric plane with two sets of batteries on each end of its route can pretty much fly non-stop.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  This removing batteries thing comes up a lot on HN. People seem obsessed with it and are coming up with all sorts of theories as to how this is absolutely essential. It's not a thing for cars. It's not going to be a thing for planes. With rapid charging infrastructure, you can top batteries up in 30-45 minutes to about 80%. That's for a high end car. Probably it could be done faster with specialized equipment. Typically, you don't drain the battery to 0% and you don't charge to more than 80% unless you are planning to fly to the maximum range. Finally, charging times are non linear and it slows down the further you charge a battery. Also, people forget that airlines are on the ground quite long in between flights. Offloading and on-boarding passengers takes quite a bit of time. Programming the flight computers is quite fiddly. Running down checklists with dozens of items takes a lot of time. Waiting for engines to spin up and get to the right temperature, etc. 30-40 minutes is quite common. Plenty of time to top up some batteries. And waiting a bit longer for some cheap electricity is probably well worth the tonnes (literally) of fuel you are not going to be burning.
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    That's right - the "non-stop" part is usually an hour at the terminal at least between landing and next takeoff. It's still a non-trivial amount of energy (the total expenditure of the flight) to be loaded into the battery. For the kind of range we are talking these days, that's more or less the same average rate the battery gets discharged during flight. Swapping batteries would make more sense if we get to the point a full charge could allow a passenger plane to fly for many hours and charge speed would be limited by the total amount of power a terminal full of recharging planes would be requiring.

benj111 7y ago

I cant help but feel they could have found a more fun headline. Anyway, lithium sulphur is mentioned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93sulfur_batte... Could anyone add more background? Is this something we're likely to be seeing in EVs any time soon?

pattisapu 7y ago
"Quantum Buy Bye in Electric Tech Urban Air Dare"
- benj111 7y ago
  I was toying with "Quantum says good buy, and Bye says hello." I think it's a bit too high brow for a head line though.

leoedin 7y ago

I wonder what the life of the aircraft needs to be before the higher cost of the aircraft amortises into lower overall costs. I'd imagine that the running cost of a mainly solid state aircraft is significantly lower than a gasoline one, but the initial battery cost will be very significant. It would be nice if the rise of electric general aviation has the effect of reducing the cost of flying. However, I suspect then you'll run into other issues. I can't imagine LA can have too many air taxis flying around before they become a nightmare to manage. If the hourly cost of an air taxi is low enough that everyone can take one, the sky will become saturated. There's obviously a lot of space, but our systems for managing air traffic right now are designed around there being tens to hundreds of aircraft in the same area, not thousands. We'd need to introduce fully automated aircraft routing to have a hope of dealing with air taxis over dense cities if they became remotely popular.

rbanffy 7y ago
Being simpler than turboprop or piston, I assume maintenance is cheaper. That has a long term impact as airframes are used for decades before being deemed uneconomical or otherwise unfit for purpose. Battery prices can be offset by cheaper electricity and/or carbon taxes. Less noisy planes should also be able to operate in areas jets aren't, such as extremely desirable urban centers. eVTOL is even better in that, but developments that would make it rival fixed wing are coming, eventually. If a V-22 can do it, so can civilians. ATC is the choking point - we'll have to take a lesson from the phone system, which transitioned from having human operators routing calls to all of us recognizing dial-busy-ring tones and being able to dial numbers ourselves.
- aedocw 7y ago
  No one who has ever flown a plane in moderately busy airspace (like desirable urban centers) would talk about transitioning ATC to something without humans. As it stands, in non-controlled airspace, it already works like this. Pilots announce their intentions and coordinate with each other. This only works in areas with very low traffic.
  - 7y ago

quickthrower2 7y ago

That was a hard headline to parse. First “Quantum air” when there is already Qantas. And then “buys Bye’s”. Eek!

cagenut 7y ago

I went down an electric-flight youtube rabbit hole a couple months ago and was genuinely shocked at how far things have already developed. If anyone else is curious, check out this set of presentations from the 2018 "sustainable aviation foundation" symposium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtqxcrPbJkSwI-ozYr1AiQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtqxcrPbJkSwI-ozYr1AiQ/vid... The 2019 symposium is coming up in october: https://www.sasymposium.com/ https://www.sasymposium.com/ Also Uber just had its "elevate summit" on its flight plans (all electric): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmVTG4mAK7nyJ7pu7pTd_7q29YUHvPZEt https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmVTG4mAK7nyJ7pu7pTd_... Basically, any question you have, someone has devoted the last few years of their career to and given a 45 minute presentation on.

cagenut 7y ago
Some more e-flight youtubes: This is the specific plane mentioned in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REdh3Q4cPuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REdh3Q4cPuE That guy did a great roundup video of electric flight a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIM3pgxHVIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIM3pgxHVIM He also did a tour of the Pipestrel plan a month ago where you get to see some "under the hood" stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfjCXDf9rhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfjCXDf9rhk

garethgriffiths 7y ago

Electric planes have very few parts and are easy to maintain. The main cost of flying is fuel. Electric will make it a lot cheaper. The battery as with all electric vehicles is still an issue, but for short air taxi distances it will be fine. Switch out the batteries on arrival and go again.

Reason077 7y ago
It's unlikely that switchable/swappable batteries will be a thing in aviation. Even in the smallest aircraft, the batteries weigh hundreds - or thousands - of kilograms, comprise the bulk of the aircraft's dry weight, and are likely to be tightly integrated with the rest of the airframe for structural and safety reasons. Most aircraft spend enough time on the ground between flights to make fast DC charging quite practical, and certainly much more so than swapping out huge batteries.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]