Frank Olson wrote:
wrote:
Larry Dighera wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:52:16 GMT, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote in
:

"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
...
my tailwind requires 74hp to cruise at 120 knots.
it takes me two days to fly across australia.
Of course, the typical light airplane flight probably does not even involve
X-country flight. A 2-hour electric airplane would be just fine for the typical
1 to 1.5 hour training mission. Of course, that same plane would need to be
ready to fly the next training student/renter within 20 or 30 minutes. Given
what we know about today's battery technology, time required for recharging may
be a big problem.

Vaughn


Fortunately, in that service multiple battery packs could be used to
overcome down time due to recharging.

Yeah, right.

The typical car battery pack costs about $3k to $5k, do you think an
airplane battery pack will be cheaper?

How many battery packs do you think the typical FBO is going to be able
to buy?

The best of batteries only last about 5 years, so every 5 years or
so the FBO has to replace all those batteries.

Real economic winner there.




Actually, the cost of replacing the battery packs (after five years)
will run around $5000.00.

Since car packs are $3k to $5k, what makes you think an airplane rated
pack will be the same price?


That's $1000.00 a year plus the cost for
multiple recharges @$.60 per charge... If you put 100 hours on the old
"Hobbs" every year that's the equivalent of paying about $10.30 an hour
for fuel... What's a gallon of 100/130 down your way??

Except you pay for fuel on a continuous basis over time.

You have to buy and pay for the batteries in one lump, right now.

Oh, sure, you could take out a loan and spread the payments over 5 years,
but now you've added interest on the loan to the cost of the batteries.

Then there's
the savings on maintenance... The prop is a composite material with no
time life.

Irrelevant.

Composite props already exist and are already used on conventional
gas engines.

The "engine" (electric motor) doesn't have a TBO rating.

Nonsense, an electric motor has a life limit. It may turn out to be
longer than a gas engine, but that is unknown at this time.

When you factor all the costs of operating a typical two place single
(like a Cessna 152), a $5000.00 battery pack is "peanuts".

Do you pay no attention to what you write?

You were talking about FBO's and having swap out battery packs to keep
the airplanes in the air.

So it isn't A $5000 battery pack, it is 3 or 4 $5000 battery packs.

What's more,
if you put more time on the machine and use a trickle charger which
won't stress the battery, your operating cost will only increase by the
number of charges (@ $.60 per)...

And using a trickle charger means you need even more battery packs at
$5000 per copy to keep the airplanes flying.

So let's say you "double" the number
of hours in the air... The "fuel" cost factored over 200 hours now
drops to $5.30 an hour. Yikes!!! :-)

Yikes!!! indeed.

--
Jim Pennino

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