On Thursday, January 17, 2013 12:26:43 PM UTC-8, Roel Baardman wrote:
Can I briefly ask the naive question: What is wrong with a few lead

batteries? Weight? Installing/removing? The circuitry?

I've been running A123 cell packs for several years now. I built the packs myself in the days before you could just buy them. I also did some destructive testing to satisfy myself that the risk was acceptable.

There are several advantages other than the weight savings:

(1) The have a very flat voltage profile as they discharge.

(2) Their capacity is relatively insensitive to ambient temperature. So for long wave flights they are ideal, you get well over 80% of the rated capacity down to -10 °C IIRC.

(3) They don't have issues with "memory"

Chris
42DJ