What will recreational flying be like in a few decades?
All these electrically powered assumptions do depend on battery performance 10x that of today. That may happen next January or never.
Lots of people are working on it, there is no physical law that says it's impossible, there is a LOT of money to be made and the world to be saved so I would guess sooner rather than later/never.
Lots of people are working on it, there is no physical law that says it's impossible, there is a LOT of money to be made and the world to be saved so I would guess sooner rather than later/never.
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Pace.
Yes static is a powerful thing in thunderstorm volumes but can it be collected, stored, dump the excess over the side etc? If it involves frying all the avionics to get a recharge it's not much help but a waste of an awfull lot of energy, any fisix people comment? It would be the answer if it could be used safely. No batteries, just engage the collector and off you go, day or night.
Yes static is a powerful thing in thunderstorm volumes but can it be collected, stored, dump the excess over the side etc? If it involves frying all the avionics to get a recharge it's not much help but a waste of an awfull lot of energy, any fisix people comment? It would be the answer if it could be used safely. No batteries, just engage the collector and off you go, day or night.
Sorry but thunderstorm/static power will not work. There are not enough thunderstorms, the lightning is difficult/impossible to collect and the static electricity floating about would provide microwatts as apposed to the 10s to hundreds of kilowatts required for an aircraft.
Apart from anything else have you noticed the lack of devices powered by static electricity etc ....
Do a search on "energy harvesting" for the sorts of things that can be done with "free" sources, the best is solar power.
Apart from anything else have you noticed the lack of devices powered by static electricity etc ....
Do a search on "energy harvesting" for the sorts of things that can be done with "free" sources, the best is solar power.
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Romeo Tango.
I agree with that, however this is based on "now" technology. As I said I'm no expert just a thinker. I mentioned in an earlier post that 100+ years ago no one would believe that my grass would be cut with a length of plastic string, "it will bend out of shape, you would have to drive it at impossible revs etc"
Just because we can't use static today doesn't prove that it will never happen. Suppose a laser or two projected ahead of the a/c could cause the mini thunderstorm. Daft ideas department yes.
Years ago, 60s again, Royal Navy, I was issued with a life jacket containing a "sea cell" powered lamp which only worked when in sea water, I don't think it was any use in rivers. What happened to any development of stuff like that?
I'm a firm believer in "we don't know what we don't know".
I agree with that, however this is based on "now" technology. As I said I'm no expert just a thinker. I mentioned in an earlier post that 100+ years ago no one would believe that my grass would be cut with a length of plastic string, "it will bend out of shape, you would have to drive it at impossible revs etc"
Just because we can't use static today doesn't prove that it will never happen. Suppose a laser or two projected ahead of the a/c could cause the mini thunderstorm. Daft ideas department yes.
Years ago, 60s again, Royal Navy, I was issued with a life jacket containing a "sea cell" powered lamp which only worked when in sea water, I don't think it was any use in rivers. What happened to any development of stuff like that?
I'm a firm believer in "we don't know what we don't know".
The trouble is the energy is not there to collect so no amount of new technology will help.
Of course there is straight mass conversion to energy (e=Mc^2) but if we find a way of doing that all bets are off.
Sea cells are still around, I dismantled a defunct life jacket the other day, there was one there. The trouble is these cells satisfy a specific requirement in that they must be light, have a long shelf life and when they are required there is guaranteed to be lots of spare water. They simply do not suit many other applications.
Of course there is straight mass conversion to energy (e=Mc^2) but if we find a way of doing that all bets are off.
Sea cells are still around, I dismantled a defunct life jacket the other day, there was one there. The trouble is these cells satisfy a specific requirement in that they must be light, have a long shelf life and when they are required there is guaranteed to be lots of spare water. They simply do not suit many other applications.
Last edited by Romeo Tango; 8th Dec 2015 at 17:35.
Electric? Rubbish! Green dreaming. Ecological navel-gazing. Pie-in-the-sky stuff. About as feasible as the hydrogen-fuelled hypersonic transport Lockheed's Skunk works examined - and abandoned. Did the Skunk Works ever look at electric aeroplanes? I am not aware of any, but with those guys you never know.
Nothing has the energy-density of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Nothing that can be pumped into a tank at atmospheric pressures and ordinary temperatures. Nothing. Storage, energy-density and ease-of-handling at the point of sale are critically important and liquid hydrocarbons win on all three, hands-down.
A bankrupt nation called Germany,losing a war, industrially ravaged and with a chaotic transport system still managed to produce synthetic oil and fuel and that was back in 1944. They just couldn't make enough of it. It's simple organic chemistry and hydrogenation at high temperatures and pressures, easily obtained these days.
Recreational flying in the future? Synthetic fuel and synthetic oil - and that goes for pretty much everything else as well. It is the path of least resistance - and that is how large corporations (who own and control the development of all the technologies) will go.
Nothing has the energy-density of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Nothing that can be pumped into a tank at atmospheric pressures and ordinary temperatures. Nothing. Storage, energy-density and ease-of-handling at the point of sale are critically important and liquid hydrocarbons win on all three, hands-down.
A bankrupt nation called Germany,losing a war, industrially ravaged and with a chaotic transport system still managed to produce synthetic oil and fuel and that was back in 1944. They just couldn't make enough of it. It's simple organic chemistry and hydrogenation at high temperatures and pressures, easily obtained these days.
Recreational flying in the future? Synthetic fuel and synthetic oil - and that goes for pretty much everything else as well. It is the path of least resistance - and that is how large corporations (who own and control the development of all the technologies) will go.
Recreational flying in the future? Synthetic fuel and synthetic oil - and that goes for pretty much everything else as well.
I agree that for useful forms of aviation its going to be a very long time before liquid hydrocarbon fuel is really displaced, if ever. Even if neglecting synthetic fuel, existing reserves are only slowly being depleted, with emphasis on the slow part, and aircraft benefit disproportionately from energy dense fuel. If everything else that moves goes electric, aircraft will benefit from reduced competition for the oil.
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We have discussed the powering of aircrafts in 2050 we have discussed computerisation!
We have not discussed the form of aircraft ?
VTOL ? Flying cars ? Or whatever
We already know you can go into a store and buy these amazing toys with cameras fitted which you can hover around looking at all manner of things
Will the modern plane have two wings a tail and trycycle undercarriage or be something else
Pace
We have not discussed the form of aircraft ?
VTOL ? Flying cars ? Or whatever
We already know you can go into a store and buy these amazing toys with cameras fitted which you can hover around looking at all manner of things
Will the modern plane have two wings a tail and trycycle undercarriage or be something else
Pace
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The bottom line is, the inputs to manufacture synthetic fuel and oil are so huge, it makes the cost of synthetic fuel and oil prohibitive. You can't change the laws of physics.
We currently use hydrocarbon fuels because we have had no cost inputs into their manufacture, just the cost of extracting it from the Earth and transporting it and storing it.
These costs are regularly increasing and will never go down, so hydrocarbon fuels are already on the back foot.
Solar energy harvesting is increasing in leaps and bounds, and so is electrical storage ability. We already have flexible solar panels that can be produced in sheets.
The potential is there to have solar panel cladding on an aircraft, providing a constant recharge ability to the batteries powering it.
The amount of universities and research organisations working on battery development is substantial.
Within a few short years, new-style battery developments utilising new technologies will make lithium-ion batteries look like the equivalent of candles for lighting.
Future batteries coming soon that charge in seconds, last for months
We currently use hydrocarbon fuels because we have had no cost inputs into their manufacture, just the cost of extracting it from the Earth and transporting it and storing it.
These costs are regularly increasing and will never go down, so hydrocarbon fuels are already on the back foot.
Solar energy harvesting is increasing in leaps and bounds, and so is electrical storage ability. We already have flexible solar panels that can be produced in sheets.
The potential is there to have solar panel cladding on an aircraft, providing a constant recharge ability to the batteries powering it.
The amount of universities and research organisations working on battery development is substantial.
Within a few short years, new-style battery developments utilising new technologies will make lithium-ion batteries look like the equivalent of candles for lighting.
Future batteries coming soon that charge in seconds, last for months
A transport expert looked at the situation in Melbourne at the beginning of the 20th Century and confidently predicted "if the current rate of horse usage continues, by 1930 the streets of Melbourne with be three feet deep in horse manure." As the late Peter Wright pointed out in "Spycatcher", on the big issues the experts are almost invariably wrong.
Synthetic oils are expensive simply because we dont produce vast quantities of them. When they are produced in billions of barrels per year instead of a few paltry million, the price will adjust itself accordingly. Just like petrol today, if you have a need for it, you will pay whatever is asked for it...and the oil companies have known this for decades.
When recreational aeroplanes by the thousands are totally electrically-powered, with enough endurance to fly six hours without "re-energising" whatever power-source they use (batteries, fuel-cells, or as-yet undeveloped or undiscovered technologies), they'll all look like pigs - and fly like 'em too.
Liquid hydrocarbons will remain the preferred fuel. The alternatives are the nastier rocket-fuels (monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, and their ilk) and they have a host of handling and storage issues you really don't need to have to deal with.
I'd really like to see all the spark-ignition aero-engines fall by the wayside, as the compression-ignition units are more economical and efficient, but weight is a real issue. I see a future of recreational aircraft powered by compression-ignition engines burning a basic kerosense/jet A1 type of fuel. Avgas really is an anachronism we could mostly do without.
Synthetic oils are expensive simply because we dont produce vast quantities of them. When they are produced in billions of barrels per year instead of a few paltry million, the price will adjust itself accordingly. Just like petrol today, if you have a need for it, you will pay whatever is asked for it...and the oil companies have known this for decades.
When recreational aeroplanes by the thousands are totally electrically-powered, with enough endurance to fly six hours without "re-energising" whatever power-source they use (batteries, fuel-cells, or as-yet undeveloped or undiscovered technologies), they'll all look like pigs - and fly like 'em too.
Liquid hydrocarbons will remain the preferred fuel. The alternatives are the nastier rocket-fuels (monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, and their ilk) and they have a host of handling and storage issues you really don't need to have to deal with.
I'd really like to see all the spark-ignition aero-engines fall by the wayside, as the compression-ignition units are more economical and efficient, but weight is a real issue. I see a future of recreational aircraft powered by compression-ignition engines burning a basic kerosense/jet A1 type of fuel. Avgas really is an anachronism we could mostly do without.
Synthetic oil (or cheap "natural" oil) is all very well but you still have to put it through a horrible dirty, unreliable, inefficient, heavy, IC engine. At the moment oil is the obvious thing to use because of the low energy density of alternatives.
If/when energy can be stored in a battery at densities comparable to avgas/jet fuel then electric propulsion has so many advantages it will take over very quickly.
It all depends on battery tech. You can say pah! it will never happen .... but, personally, I would not make too many long term investments in oil (natural or synthetic).
If/when energy can be stored in a battery at densities comparable to avgas/jet fuel then electric propulsion has so many advantages it will take over very quickly.
It all depends on battery tech. You can say pah! it will never happen .... but, personally, I would not make too many long term investments in oil (natural or synthetic).
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they'll all look like pigs - and fly like 'em too
We have not discussed the form of aircraft ?
VTOL ? Flying cars ? Or whatever
VTOL ? Flying cars ? Or whatever
Look up the NASA puffin, the GL10 or the e-volo for examples. The puffin annoys me because I was in the process of building an r/c canard version of something similar.
The other advantage of VTOL is that you can size the wing for the cruise which brings huge increases in efficiency and/or cruise speed.
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criticalmass The future is electric has to be. If you follow the research on batteries there are lots of new chemistries being tried but the break point is 2.5 to 3.0 kw/kg to compete with liquid fuels. The charging standard for cars already can support up to 240kw per hour. The other type of battery type that may win is called flowline these can be recharged with a liquid or bulk metal anode which would over come recharge waiting times.
With the internet it would be possible to preorder, even in flight a drop shipment exchange battery at you destination which would be delivered by the time you arrived for the exchange battery idea.
I believe the future will be nuclear fusion but not the stupid tomark magnetic confinement designs only very expensive water heaters with lots of intensive radiation problems when running and long term radioactive waste.
The best design so far is to fuse Boron and Hydrogen with direct conversion to electricity plus very low radiation when running and no hot waste, will be cheap to build and run. This idea can already produce 4 times the neutron density when running hydrogen hydrogen for the per unit of energy input compared to the best government funded ideas and they have only spent 3 million and 3 years against several billion dollars and 60 years for the government .
All the technology to go electric for aircraft is in place except the 3kw/kg battery which is coming, so when it does will be quick to introduce. guess 10 to 20 years to go.
If you would like to see what people who own Volts think of them see www.gm-volt.com
it has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any car.
With the internet it would be possible to preorder, even in flight a drop shipment exchange battery at you destination which would be delivered by the time you arrived for the exchange battery idea.
I believe the future will be nuclear fusion but not the stupid tomark magnetic confinement designs only very expensive water heaters with lots of intensive radiation problems when running and long term radioactive waste.
The best design so far is to fuse Boron and Hydrogen with direct conversion to electricity plus very low radiation when running and no hot waste, will be cheap to build and run. This idea can already produce 4 times the neutron density when running hydrogen hydrogen for the per unit of energy input compared to the best government funded ideas and they have only spent 3 million and 3 years against several billion dollars and 60 years for the government .
All the technology to go electric for aircraft is in place except the 3kw/kg battery which is coming, so when it does will be quick to introduce. guess 10 to 20 years to go.
If you would like to see what people who own Volts think of them see www.gm-volt.com
it has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any car.
Last edited by horizon flyer; 9th Dec 2015 at 21:06.
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The future of GA development will be determined by the old rule of supply and demand.
If there is no or little demand in 2050 there will be little in the form of advanced technology supply, if there is high demand there will be wonders
so much will determine that demand from politics to regulations to airport availability and much more. My instincts are that there will still be demand for corporate business aircraft, then a void based on cost and airport availability and light GA will be confined to sport flying from small strips and airfields with no approved approach and landing aids so yes electric will probably be popular for buzzing around the local area and then plugging in for the following weekend foray
Car development has a demand in the millions so yes there will be spin offs into GA from developments from the car industry
Pace
If there is no or little demand in 2050 there will be little in the form of advanced technology supply, if there is high demand there will be wonders
so much will determine that demand from politics to regulations to airport availability and much more. My instincts are that there will still be demand for corporate business aircraft, then a void based on cost and airport availability and light GA will be confined to sport flying from small strips and airfields with no approved approach and landing aids so yes electric will probably be popular for buzzing around the local area and then plugging in for the following weekend foray
Car development has a demand in the millions so yes there will be spin offs into GA from developments from the car industry
Pace
If the Volt has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any car (source??) then I wouldn't mind betting the axe has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any hand-tool.
The point about supply and demand is irrefutable whilst ever the world economy is predicated on large multi-national corporations making profits and exploiting natural resources.
To implement a world economy based on non-explotation of finite resources and on ruthlessly recycling existing materials would probably require a reduction of world population from the current level to perhaps as few as a billion, or a billion and a half at most.
Convenience of handling, energy-density and availability are the keys to future energy-requirements and power-systems. Show me a battery-powered aeroplane that can fly for 8 hours at 100 knots without stopping, carrying two people and weighing less than 540Kg at MTOW and I might be interested. That's what my current aeroplane can do on existing fossil fuel, and that's what it would still do if it were powered by a synthetically-produced fossil fuel with a 95 RON rating or greater. Show me the batteries that can equal that in the same airframe?
Apologies for being a sceptic but I have seen far too many dreamers pitching wildly impractical ideas to be taken in by a word of it and even I, with my significantly impaired sense of smell, can recognise the characteristic odour of "Grade-A Triple-Refined Snake-Oil" when someone pops the cork on it.
3Kw/Kg isn't going to make it. Show me 300Kw/Kg and maybe you have something. It's all about the Megajoules per unit mass, and liquid hydrocarbons have it in spades. Nothing else does. Is it easier to grow vegetable oils as feedstocks for hydrogenation plants or to rape the earth for rare metals to make exotic alloys for high-tech batteries?
The point about supply and demand is irrefutable whilst ever the world economy is predicated on large multi-national corporations making profits and exploiting natural resources.
To implement a world economy based on non-explotation of finite resources and on ruthlessly recycling existing materials would probably require a reduction of world population from the current level to perhaps as few as a billion, or a billion and a half at most.
Convenience of handling, energy-density and availability are the keys to future energy-requirements and power-systems. Show me a battery-powered aeroplane that can fly for 8 hours at 100 knots without stopping, carrying two people and weighing less than 540Kg at MTOW and I might be interested. That's what my current aeroplane can do on existing fossil fuel, and that's what it would still do if it were powered by a synthetically-produced fossil fuel with a 95 RON rating or greater. Show me the batteries that can equal that in the same airframe?
Apologies for being a sceptic but I have seen far too many dreamers pitching wildly impractical ideas to be taken in by a word of it and even I, with my significantly impaired sense of smell, can recognise the characteristic odour of "Grade-A Triple-Refined Snake-Oil" when someone pops the cork on it.
3Kw/Kg isn't going to make it. Show me 300Kw/Kg and maybe you have something. It's all about the Megajoules per unit mass, and liquid hydrocarbons have it in spades. Nothing else does. Is it easier to grow vegetable oils as feedstocks for hydrogenation plants or to rape the earth for rare metals to make exotic alloys for high-tech batteries?
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Show me a battery-powered aeroplane that can fly for 8 hours at 100 knots without stopping, carrying two people and weighing less than 540Kg at MTOW and I might be interested
As for your argument about growing veg oil or mining, yes I can see that argument - but that is a different argument from the main one you have been making.
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This is electric development, now - electric car VS the fastest current V8's.
Just compare the electric cars of even 20 years ago, and imagine the development in another 20 years - particularly with a vastly-increased level of research and innovation, as is happening today.
The advances in technology for electric cars will transfer across to aircraft.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/6eGhjhx8O9M (for those who can't spare 6 mins, all the action is at 1.30 and 3.50)
There will be the same level of development with batteries and electric power in the near future, as has happened with electronics in the last 30 years.
When you carried your "brick" analogue phone around in 1990, did you ever envision that your phone of 2015 would only weigh 150-180 grams, have a huge colour screen, be coupled to the internet, take superb photos and videos, and give you the ability to go for days without charging?
Just compare the electric cars of even 20 years ago, and imagine the development in another 20 years - particularly with a vastly-increased level of research and innovation, as is happening today.
The advances in technology for electric cars will transfer across to aircraft.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/6eGhjhx8O9M (for those who can't spare 6 mins, all the action is at 1.30 and 3.50)
There will be the same level of development with batteries and electric power in the near future, as has happened with electronics in the last 30 years.
When you carried your "brick" analogue phone around in 1990, did you ever envision that your phone of 2015 would only weigh 150-180 grams, have a huge colour screen, be coupled to the internet, take superb photos and videos, and give you the ability to go for days without charging?
3Kw/Kg isn't going to make it. Show me 300Kw/Kg and maybe you have something.
Lithium-air batteries or possibly fuel-cells are the only chemistries I can see working and even with multi-billion dollar investment in R&D I don't think you can guarantee progress. I'm very optimistic about the prospects for hybrid aircraft though.
I presume the hybrid electric aeroplane takes off using a fossil-fuel engne, cruises on electrics and lands on whatever it most appropriate, or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick? Or are there multiple types of hybrids?