On Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 9:09:17 PM UTC-8, Surge wrote:
On Wednesday, 10 January 2018 02:51:12 UTC+2, Renny wrote:
We have definitely come a long way in the past 10 years, so just think where we will "be" 10 years from now!

Now, Nick...What you really need is more snow to fall in Telluride! (Maybe tonight!)
Thanks - Renny

I think electric is the way to go but I'm very sceptical about the improvements in battery technology.
I don't think we have come a long way in the past 10 years. All that is happening now is multiple manufactures are getting into the electric game using old, proven battery technologies.
Glider manufacturers are using lithium-ion or lithium-ion polymer battery technologies both of which where invented and developed in the 1970's and 1980's and then commercialized in the 1990's. There have been small improvements along the way but nothing ground breaking in the last 20 years.

Wake me up when someone manages to double or triple the specific energy (Joules/kg) of our current battery technologies.
The only promising technology I see on the horizon is rechargable, lithium metal batteries which MIT are busy working on.

Current electric self launchers are getting 10-15 minutes climb. Gas self launchers more like 60 - 90 minutes. So to match gas duration, you would need a 6x improvement in battery capacity. Now you only need what you need, but the gas tanks in gas self launchers weren't made extra large for fun.