Alpha Propellerhead wrote:
On Oct 19, 9:35Â*am, wrote:

Sorry, but these links only show pathetic crap.

True, perhaps, but electric airplanes are coming. Folks are building
them. Folks I know who build airplanes and also electric trucking
equipment are waiting for battery technology to come up a little. For
example, NiCad batteries are obsolete. Lithium ion is obsolete.
Lithium polymer (LiPo) is awesome, but, if you've ever seen one of
those things overheat and go incendiary, you'll never put one in an
airplane.

Turns out if you yank out your Lycoming, all of the fuel systems, oil
systems, fuel tanks, fuel, oil, etc, you end up with a really light
aircraft, a vacant space on each wing for batteries, plenty of room
for an electric motor/gearbox, a spare battery by the firewall to use
as your reserve and provide the ballast eliminated by the internal
combustion engine.

Ten years ago you'd have been called a treehugger or dreamer out here
for suggesting such a thing might exist, but, ten years ago LiPo was
something obese people had done. Stuff is happening and it's
comforting that the people I know who are telling me about it are out
flying their home built airplanes waiting for the next generation of
batteries hit the industry.

And absent some astounding unforseen breakthrough in battery technology
they are going to grow old and die waiting for a production battery
system that will power a practical airplane other than a motor glider.

The range of pure electric cars is crap and the price makes them toys for
the "eco aware" rich.

The only pure electric car in production with anything like a useful range
is on the order of $100,000 and does not have to meet any of the requirements
that an airplane does.

Care to guess what an electric 172 with the range of a conventional 172
would cost?

The Cessna proof of concept electric 172 is shooting for a whole hour on a
charge, which gives it a legal range of about a half hour of flight before
"refueling".


--
Jim Pennino

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