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Electric Powered Aircraft
Norway aviation firm orders 60 electric planes tipped to be “Tesla” of flight
https://thedriven.io/wp-content/uplo...32-800x450.jpg The Bye Aerospace eFlyer. Source: OSM Aviation A Norwegian aviation group has ordered 60 all-electric eFlyer2 planes, built by Colorado-based Bye Aerospace, with the intention of training a future generation of pilots in electric flight. The order was announced on Thursday (overnight, Australian time) by OSM Aviation, which specialises in the training and supply of aircrew and which says the electric aircraft will be used at its flight training centres to qualify pilots. With aviation accounting for around 12% of all global transport emissions, the order is a step towards a sustainable future for OSM Aviation and Norway’s goal to shift all short-haul routes to electric flight by 2040. “We’re proud to take the lead in the future of green aviation.” said OSM Aviation Group CEO Espen Høiby in a statement. “This is the largest order for commercial electric planes to date. “It’s important that the airline industry steps up to the challenge of developing more environment-friendly transport. At OSM Aviation, we’re committed to pursuing a socially responsible and sustainable business,” Høiby said. “We’re training the next generation of pilots, and are determined to attract the best candidates. “We offer a forward-looking education which they can be proud to take part in. This order for 60 all-electric aircraft is a key step in that respect,” said Bjørn Granviken, managing director of the OSM Aviation Academy. The eFlyer, formerly the Sun Flyer, is a 2-seater electric fixed wing plane that has been described by Bye Aerospace’s Norwegian partner Elfly AS as a game changer for the aviation industry. “I think [Bye Aerospace] will be the first to mass produce a certified FAR 23 and EASA 23 all-electric airplane,” said Eric Lithun, CEO of Elfly AS in a statement. “This is the game changer of aviation for small airplanes. The Bye Aerospace eFlyer will be the Tesla of the general aviation industry.” So far, Bye Aerospace say it has received almost 300 orders for the eFlyer2, which completed its first successful test at Centennial Airport, south of Denver, Colorado in February this year and is kitted with electric propulsion from Siemens. With electric flight offering not only reduced carbon emissions but also noise pollution, as well as superior speed and altitude performance according to Høiby, he says that the electrification of the aviation industry is inevitable. This opinion is echoed by Ketil Solvik Olsen, former Norwegian minister for transport and communications and now responsible for establishing the OSM Aviation Academy. “The state-owned Avinor company, which operates most of Norway’s civilian airports, made headlines last year when it piloted test flights with an electric plane,” Solvik Olsen noted in a statement. “This made more people aware of the potential for green aviation. Now OSM shows that the business community is ready to take charge and move the industry further along this positive trend.” OSM Aviation joins other short-haul airlines beginning to switch to electric flight , such as Hawaiian Mokulele Airlines which plans to offer converted electric Cessnas for flight by 2021. Link to article: https://thedriven.io/2019/04/12/norw...sla-of-flight/ |
Is it powered by a lithium ion battery? I suspect the weight would prevent any decent payload for a serious commercial operation. |
I would be a lot more impressed if there was mention of Horsepower, Battery capacity etc. At the moment this just comes across as a ‘puff piece’. |
There was a live broadcast from Malmi airfield on a Finnish channel, maybe last summer but perhaps the one before, of a chap who flew a circuit in an electric airplane. I was quite impressed. Can't remember much more. |
These guys are currently just round the corner from me at Staverton - https://electro-flight.com/
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Originally Posted by KiloB
(Post 10446177)
I would be a lot more impressed if there was mention of Horsepower, Battery capacity etc. At the moment this just comes across as a ‘puff piece’.
Bye were quoting 65 orders 3 years ago, but AFAIK only one example has flown to date. |
If they are interested in utilising an electric aircraft and considering the number of lakes in Norway. I believe a better fit would be this Norwegian amphibian.
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So using their own figures, it has an endurance of about 26 min at 75% cruise, not counting taxi and takeoff! |
Originally Posted by KiloB
(Post 10446177)
I would be a lot more impressed if there was mention of Horsepower, Battery capacity etc. At the moment this just comes across as a ‘puff piece’. - 440 lb payload (subtracting projected EW of 1460 lbs including batteries, from projected GTOW of 1900 lbs) - 3.5 hours endurance - 92 kWh total battery capacity, in 6 packs. - Siemens SP70D motor - max. output 90kW, continuous output 70kW, obviously "throttled" to less than that to obtain projected endurance - 135 kts max speed - engine weight 57 lbs - $3 per hour operating costs Note the engine and battery suppliers have changed since Dave's 2016 specs. It flies - remains to be seen how fast, for how long, and how far. |
Brilliant Idea
OSM are indeed ahead of the pack.
3,5 hrs endurance , now that is good. Considering the total world pollution from Aviation IS 2% and OSM CLAIMS it is 12% I for one would like dobbelcheck any and all numbers that comes out of that outfit. Tok litt vell mye Møllers Tran der du. ( "Overdosed slightly on the Codliver Oil " as the add goes in Norway!) Aviation Pollution is NOT a problem in the world, at 2 %! If it was 12% I would agree it needs fixing. It aint broke Why fix it. Mind you there will eventually be some elec planes around, and training is for sure the place to start. Need a bit more then 26 min endurance me thinks Regards Cpt B |
Horizon Flyer
Now that was cool!
Not sure I would fly that thing especially on water! The wings are to low and close on landing so any roll/bank and I suspect it is game over, but that is the pessimist and the old floatpilot in me. If put into production it definitely has potential. Lots of plastic fantastic stuff out there and combined with elec and amfib is indeed cool |
Car battery (varta e44 77Ah) Weight 18 kg. Usable energy stored 2.21MJ. 18 kg Jet A1 or gasoline: 803MJ of usable energy.
Going any fancy battery (lithium ion) will do x2 energy x10 price for the same weight. Best commercial battery in the world x3 energy, x100 price. I know you don't believe me, but these are the facts. You need roughly 100 times the weight in fuel (because electric engines extract energy from batteries roughly 2x better than piston engines from fuel). So if you load 120kg of gas in your cessna 172 to do a trip, you would need 12000kgs (yes, 12 tons) of batteries to do the same trip. Only now of course you need an A318 to lift the batteries. To sum it up, if you retrofit an airbus 318 with half a million $ worth of batteries (12000kg) and you find someone to donate two electric engines with enough thrust, you end up with a theoretical range of 57km. As of today, we produce electricity basically burning stuff. In cars, regen braking and all, you produce the same CO2 with an electric car than with a petrol one. They make a little sense because you take pollution away from city center. But in planes, where wheels do not happily cancel the weight penalty at constant speed, the idea is crazy beyond belief. Completely derailed. |
I was hired to conduct a design review toward approval of an electric refit for a 172. The plans had merit, but where it lost traction was that for a half to an hour of flying, there would be a many hour recharge period. Either the aircraft would be out of service for most of the rest of the day charging, or it would be necessary to change out heavy battery packs multiple times; meaning owning several, and then inevitable damage to the airframe handling such a heavy weight in and out or around regularly. The time will come, but right now the investment in a costly aircraft which must sit idle and change hours per minutes of flying is difficult to justify for a working plane.
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Originally Posted by Pilot DAR
(Post 10446417)
The time will come, but right now the investment in a costly aircraft which must sit idle and change hours per minutes of flying is difficult to justify for a working plane.
e.g. for fastest charging in the case of a Tesla you use a DC supply that bypasses the internal Charger(s) in the vehicle. 400 V DC as I recall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipistrel_Alpha_Trainer "It has energy for one flight hour plus reserves, and can recharge in 45 minutes or have its batteries replaced in 5 minutes" https://electrek.co/2018/11/08/porsc...harging-250kw/ "Porsche claims that the 800V chargers can charge the battery pack to 80% in about 15 minutes" I suspect that you need to slow down for the last bit as the batteries approach full charge. The deal is done. Another deal - Tesla recently bought Maxwell Technologies - "Maxwell claims this could boost battery capacity to 300 Wh/kg, a 20% jump over the best available electric-car batteries." They say it just needs productionised. This is interesting - Blown wing to reduce stall speed and allow much higher wing loading for cruise efficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan Also the Pipistrel above "has 277 pounds (126 kg) of LiPo cells, however the water cooled electric motor weighs 11 kg". This allows much more power to be available for a short time for a small weight penalty. e.g. At present a twin engine helicopter carries around a spare gas turbine all the time for the case where one engine fails. A spare engine in the Pipistrel would only weigh 11 kg! (Of course perhaps an 80hp gas turbine only weighs 11kg - I am not sure?). There seems the possibility of hybrid aircraft where say gas turbines are used for cruise and electric propulsion added for take-off and landing. A lot of development going on for sure. |
With so many getting into it now an advancements it’s only a matter of time. Perfdct for its Mission - https://www.magnix.aero/ |
Yeah, dream all you want. BTDT. When you have 400 times less energy per kg, all things considered, no amount of politics will make it a viable alternative for airborne trasport. Period.
You can reduce it to a 40 times worse by using the best batteries, and the best engines and the best engine drivers and then bending the numbers up to their ultimate tensile strength, but there you hit a wall. That 300wh/kg of that fantanstic battery from maxwell (which I totally not believe) means a total 1.08Mj/kg. Gas has 46.4Mj/kg. Except that the former is ideal conditions and the latter is always. Usual problems nobody tells you until it's too late: - You cannot extract all the energy from a battery, no matter at which rate you do it. - You cannot extract any energy from a battery if it is freezing. - The energy you get from a battery is inversely proportional to how fast you discharge it and how cold it is. - You may trade energy density at the cost of power density, so never pay attention to a number without the other. - After each cycle, battery stores less and less energy. A typical bad case scenario (typical bad load profile, typical bad temperature, typical bad wear...) is several times worse that the ideal. Only you need to guarantee the range in any sort of vehicle in typical bad scenarios. Gas is not affected by any of that, LI-ON is. Many politicians have been fooled already and many more will, but this is a dead end until somebody invents a 40x better battery. |
Originally Posted by horizon flyer
(Post 10446259)
If they are interested in utilising an electric aircraft and considering the number of lakes in Norway. I believe a better fit would be this Norwegian amphibian.
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Originally Posted by ecto1
(Post 10446571)
Yeah, dream all you want. BTDT. When you have 400 times less energy per kg, all things considered, no amount of politics will make it a viable alternative for airborne trasport. Period.
You can reduce it to a 40 times worse by using the best batteries, and the best engines and the best engine drivers and then bending the numbers up to their ultimate tensile strength, but there you hit a wall. That 300wh/kg of that fantanstic battery from maxwell (which I totally not believe) means a total 1.08Mj/kg. Gas has 46.4Mj/kg. Except that the former is ideal conditions and the latter is always. Usual problems nobody tells you until it's too late: - You cannot extract all the energy from a battery, no matter at which rate you do it. - You cannot extract any energy from a battery if it is freezing. - The energy you get from a battery is inversely proportional to how fast you discharge it and how cold it is. - You may trade energy density at the cost of power density, so never pay attention to a number without the other. - After each cycle, battery stores less and less energy. A typical bad case scenario (typical bad load profile, typical bad temperature, typical bad wear...) is several times worse that the ideal. Only you need to guarantee the range in any sort of vehicle in typical bad scenarios. Gas is not affected by any of that, LI-ON is. Many politicians have been fooled already and many more will, but this is a dead end until somebody invents a 40x better battery. But in certain applications, electric doesn't just make sense, it's highly preferable- such as training which this aircraft is aimed at. Another is self launching/ sustainer engines for gliders, there are already several commercially available. |
Something doesn't add up
Originally Posted by ecto1
(Post 10446571)
Yeah, dream all you want. BTDT. When you have 400 times less energy per kg, all things considered, no amount of politics will make it a viable alternative for airborne trasport. Period.
You can reduce it to a 40 times worse by using the best batteries, and the best engines and the best engine drivers and then bending the numbers up to their ultimate tensile strength, but there you hit a wall. That 300wh/kg of that fantanstic battery from maxwell (which I totally not believe) means a total 1.08Mj/kg. Gas has 46.4Mj/kg. Except that the former is ideal conditions and the latter is always. Usual problems nobody tells you until it's too late: - You cannot extract all the energy from a battery, no matter at which rate you do it. - You cannot extract any energy from a battery if it is freezing. - The energy you get from a battery is inversely proportional to how fast you discharge it and how cold it is. - You may trade energy density at the cost of power density, so never pay attention to a number without the other. - After each cycle, battery stores less and less energy. A typical bad case scenario (typical bad load profile, typical bad temperature, typical bad wear...) is several times worse that the ideal. Only you need to guarantee the range in any sort of vehicle in typical bad scenarios. Gas is not affected by any of that, LI-ON is. Many politicians have been fooled already and many more will, but this is a dead end until somebody invents a 40x better battery. |
I believe that electric flight could be privately explored for research purposes. And probably we need test pilots, and we need to train them and this may be a good plane to do it. So far so good, as long as I don't pay.
But I don't swallow the "almost there" mantra, nor that this aircraft is the TESLA of general aviation. I don't agree if you say training for gas flight is better done in an electric trainer (I'm not sure you said that, I'm sorry if you didn't). And specially not that electric flight offers "superior speed and altitude performance". It makes me sad to see that people manipulates the truth with such impunity. If cessnas necessitated superior speed and altitude performance, regardless of the rest of factors such as price or measuring endurance in hours or minutes, they would simply use a couple cylinders more and 10 times less fuel. |
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