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Old 10th Jul 2019, 02:29
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Pilot DAR
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 63
Posts: 5,615
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Certification of electric planes will happen. This one....? I remain to be convinced. I still worry about the wing low slipped crosswind landing. $200 per hour direct operating cost - maybe, but amortizing the cost of the plane while it sits not producing any revenue while it recharges is a cost too. And, that looks like kind of high wing loading, it still will be required to be able to glide to a safe landing. But I bet they'll have some kind of automated system using instant differential power to prevent a pilot groundlooping it, taildragger experience not required!

For my work with electric plane certification planning, I know that there will be a breadth of thinking, and innovative system design opportunities which seem hardly imaginable to us now. The certification standards will need updating, as there are some standards which simply never envisioned an electric plane. The authorities are eager to work to create new standards, and there are industry working groups doing work in the background. What we lack at this point, is the massive investment in thinking and standard creation which came from military specification experience to support the civil initiative. Many of the present and recent design standards were based upon military experience, which the civil manufacturers probably could not afford back then. That military experience is probably not there this time, so it's up to the civil industry, but the inertia is there. It's going to happen, it's just a matter of time.
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