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Old 15th Jan 2018, 10:15
  #66 (permalink)  
Slatye
 
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Originally Posted by Ultralights
I would imagine an aircraft engine would be on the lower end of that scale, magneto ignition, most are carburettors, or rudimentary fuel injection, no quad valve engines, no constant mixture and timing adjustments via real time computer management systems... etc etc.
On the other hand, they tend to operate in colder environments (at higher altitude) and use very high-grade fuel - both of which allow for efficiency improvements.

I agree that Piper's figures are probably not quite correct. I'm sure that the fuel consumption figure is right (because people use that for flight planning, and would notice if it was off by 30%+) but nobody really cares what percentage of rated power the engine is producing.

Probably the best person to solve this is mcoates - what is the fuel consumption of the petrol-powered Alpha, at the same weight and same cruise speed as the electric model? And what power is the electric motor using for that cruise?

StickWithTheTruth - prop loss should be the same for electric and avgas models, so it does not need to be considered.

Derfred - absolutely agree, eventually electric (of some form) is going to catch up to ICE. I think mcoates mentioned a fuel-cell aircraft that Pipistrel is working on, a neat stepping-stone between the two in that it uses "fuel" but drives an electric motor.

Give it 10 or 20 years, and I expect that a combination of better batteries and rising fuel prices will mean that electric planes are really giving avgas-powered ones a lot of competition - at least in the GA space. However, for now, avgas (or avtur for those that can use it) remains the only real option for reasonably long range.
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