In article
,
Alpha Propellerhead wrote:

On Oct 19, 9:35*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 Lithium ion is obsolete.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.



I'm sorry, but battery technology will never get there! It like carrying
all the air you use in an IC engine (IOW, a rocket), rather than just
the fuel and gathering the air as you go (present method).

At 15:1 air/fuel ratio, you would have to carry 90# of air for every
gallon of fuel, so a battery equivalent would have to weigh (50
gallons*6# + 50*90# air = 4800#) -- just in equivalent energy.

Lycoming + prop = 450# + 300# fuel = 750#

This is assuming that you can get equivalent energy storage, which is a
LONG way off!