Bill Daniels wrote:
"Doug Haluza" wrote in message
oups.com...
Fuel cells will soon be available for laptops, and are being appoved
for use on airliners. Could we be using fuel cells for our gliders soon
too?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4794920.stm


Interesting question.

Fuel cells use oxygen from the ambient atmosphere which reacts with fuel
such as hydrogen or hydrogen derived from ethanol to produce electricity.
The question I'm interested in is whether there enough O2 available at
soaring altitudes for the fuel cell reaction to work. If so, this is an
interesting solution to the ever increasing power demands.

Fuel cells to run our radios? My thought was power for electric
motorgliders. The batteries we've got for powering instruments are quite
satisfactory, and making them smaller and/or lighter would have only the
slightest impact on what we do. But, double the energy per pound for
batteries in an electric self-launcher at the same or lower cost and Wow!

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Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"