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The first post seems like an advertisment for a magazine with that article in it.
I like the thoughts of electric aircraft, but have some reservations.
Energy storage is one that has been mentioned. An endurance of <3 hours isn't enough. Any electric aircraft that I've heard about has a relatively slow speed (100mph or less). I would never be comfortable planning a flight with less than 1 hour reserves, which means I'd be limited to <200 miles.
On top of this, electric motors seem to slow down as fuel supply gets lower, rather than running normally until exhaused like combustion engines.
A second issue is shrinking fuel tanks! We all know that our laptops run for shorter and shorter periods on batteries as they get older. I don't know if aircraft batteries are the same technology, but I'd be uncomfortable with 'fuel tanks' that were getting smaller as time goes one.....exactly how much fuel do I have before I take off?
However the biggest one for me would be refueling. If I want to go somewhere beyond 100 miles, and return home afterwards, or go further than 200 miles in a single day, then I need to either exchange or recharge the batteries.
Recharging the batteries will take hours, which isn't really acceptable.
Exchanging the batteries means that you are taking on a battery of unknown quality, and unknown fuel content (back to shrinking tanks...how much has this one shrunk by?)
If you never fly more than 80 miles away, then most of these problems aren't for you, but would you really buy an aircraft with such a range limitation?
dp
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