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Useable in the loosest possible sense of the word since charging it would then take a few hours. By which point lack of daylight or a change in the weather woul
by VBprogrammer 7y ago
Useable in the loosest possible sense of the word since charging it would then take a few hours. By which point lack of daylight or a change in the weather would probably mean no more flying for the day. And even if that could somehow be made to work (perhaps with swappable batteries), it ignores the fact that anyone trained in flying an electric aircraft would be poorly equipped to fly a conventional light aircraft with issues like carburettor icing, shock cooling, leaning with altitude etc.
- iguy 7y agoI thought these were in use at flight schools already. With spare batteries being charged on the ground. Perhaps you can't practice quite everything, but as a cheaper way for people to get some of the hours it sounds great.
- VBprogrammer 7y agoI had a bit of a look, I found one flight school that had committed to buying some electric aircraft and had apparently trialed them before. No real indication of how it works practically. Bearing in mind that a Tesla battery pack weighs 500kg (1200lb) or so. Changing them over wouldn't be a simple operation.
- iguy 7y agoLooks like this is what I was remembering: https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/locations/#tab-id-2 https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/locations/#tab-id-2 https://www.dw.com/en/electric-flight-finds-its-wings-at-slovenian-startup-with-lightweight-alpha-electro/a-18610096 https://www.dw.com/en/electric-flight-finds-its-wings-at-slo... They have electric planes, and they have flight schools, but whether the two actually intersect or not isn't immediately clear.
- cjrp 7y agoI imagine there'd have to be swappable batteries, but you're absolutely right that you'd be missing out on learning all the other aspects of flying. Although by the time electric aircraft become mainstream for training I'd hope we'd seen the end of carbs!