Future has arrived

Bars?Â* C'mon Mark.Â* Even you should be swayed by bars...

On 1/4/2020 10:12 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 08:09:19 -0800, markmocho53 wrote:

Yeah, I am really looking forward to a six day trip to New Zealand at
20,000 feet, through all of the lovely tropical storms over the Pacific.

Indeed, but probably not as high as 20,000 - I'd guess 8000 - 10,000 to
avoid presurised cabins, which are both heavy and need energy to compress
the incoming fresh air. OTOH, pax would most likely have bunks/bars/space
to move round rather than the less than wonderful seats I've travelled in
(apart from the A380, which has really nice seats even in cattle-class).

And helium is so plentiful, too!

True enough, though IIRC these beasts can transfer their helium between
lift bags and storage tanks, i.e. no valving off helium when they land,
and they do use a reasonable amount of aerodynamic lift as well as
gasbags. There are other similar projects, e.g.

http://aeroscraft.com/
https://www.varialift.com/

that will also use some aerodynamic lift and will look and fly quite like
the Airlander.

But, my main point was that something like these aircraft, but using
electric motors instead of the IC engines in the current prototypes, need
a lot less power stored in heavy batteries than anything that depends
entirely on aerodynamic lift.

Airbus and Rolls Royce are retrofitting a BA 146 as a test-bed for using
electric ducted fans as potential replacements for high bypass jet
engines, BUT they will be powering the fan(s) from a 2MW gas turbine
generator in the rear fuselage. It would take a shed load of batteries to
replace that generator, so its not at all clear where the electric energy
needed to power an all-electric Airbus 320 or Boeing 787 would be stored
or how it would be generated in flight. Portable fusion generator
anybody?



--
Dan, 5J

On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 10:54:28 -0700, Dan Marotta wrote:

Bars?Â* C'mon Mark.Â* Even you should be swayed by bars...

No Airlander is likely to be as well equipped for in-flight recreation as
the Bel Geddes Airliner No 4, but OTOH it is far more likely to be a
practical flying machine. For starters two of them have flown, while the
No 4 airliner was never built, but one can dream: bars, orchestra, deck
games area, restaurants, and individual bedrooms... what's not to like?

http://www.keiththomsonbooks.com/blog/4


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 10:37:26 AM UTC-5, kinsell wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_dnAD5TD-E


Makes you want to fit some floats on an Antares and give it a go!

Anybody recognise the flight venue?
Harbour Air is Vancouver based so my guess would be the Fraser river
delta, but assuming a late afternoon flight, sun in the SW,
I am unable to match the terrain with the google sat view.
John F

On 1/4/20 1:44 PM, john firth wrote:
On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 10:37:26 AM UTC-5, kinsell wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_dnAD5TD-E


Makes you want to fit some floats on an Antares and give it a go!

Anybody recognise the flight venue?
Harbour Air is Vancouver based so my guess would be the Fraser river
delta, but assuming a late afternoon flight, sun in the SW,
I am unable to match the terrain with the google sat view.
John F


It was Fraser River, but just after daybreak.

On 1/3/20 9:17 PM, wrote:
Let's talk about how much fuel it takes to get an airliner from Point A to Point B. You want to climb above the weather (30,000 ft. or more), you want to haul enough passengers and their stuff to pay the cost of doing business, the airplane, the crew, the maintenance, the insurance, and all the rest of what makes a business run and an airplane fly.

What are you going to use to make this happen? Jet-A1 (or JP-4 or Kerosene, or diesel, or whatever other petrochemical compound) with a sufficient energy density to lift its own weight plus the mass of the airplane and payload and keep it aloft until Point B is reached (with a significant fuel reserve because **** happens).

You want electric airplanes that will do the same thing? Not likely. The energy density of the most powerful battery bank is still nowhere near sufficient enough to allow an airplane (even Light Sport Aircraft) to take off, climb to altitude, cruise for long distance and carry anything but batteries.

Yes, battery technology is improving, and quickly. But the actual laws of physics take over and determine the maximum output and duration of every chemical battery.

"$200,000 worth of Tesla batteries, which collectively weigh over 20,000 pounds, are needed to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil." (from the Manhattan Institute study on the economic cost of "Green Energy."

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/...ear-impossible

As soaring pilots, we recognize, appreciate, analyze and utilize "free" atmospheric energy. But we also recognize the limitations of our technology when the energy suddenly (or gradually) diminishes or disappears. Trying to legislate and force an unreliable and wildly expensive form of unreliable energy on an energy dependent populace for political gain will doom a large portion of the world to starve to death in the dark.


I'm just not seeing the rapid progress in battery technology. Hardly
any improvement in Li-ion performance in the last ten years.

What has improved has been the imagination shown in the press releases.
IBM is claiming they'll be able to extract three mystery chemicals from
seawater and build a battery that beats the li-ion chemistries.

In Colorado, Bye Aerospace keeps designing electric planes that aren't
quite viable with current batteries, but don't worry in a couple years
some revolutionary battery will come along to make it all work. They've
been milking that story for as long as I can remember. They're claiming
electric planes similar to C172's will offer a breathtaking 80%
reduction in operating costs. Almost sounds too good to be true.

Almost sounds too good to be true.

If it came out of George Bye's mouth, it is definitely too good to be true.

"Almost sounds too good to be true."

George Bye's specialty.

On 1/4/20 8:09 PM, wrote:
Almost sounds too good to be true.

If it came out of George Bye's mouth, it is definitely too good to be true.


Yep. That Duckhawk with solar cells plastered on the wings is based a
few miles from where I live. Sure hasn't been generating any local buzz
that I've picked up on. But it stirred up the pundits on R.A.S., who
thought we'd all be flying self-launch motorgliders powered by solar
cells. The cold reality has fallen a bit short. Much like an
Electro-Taurus that showed up to a camp a few years ago, that had solar
cells plastered all over the trailer.