3 Alisport Silent 2 Electros for sale in Wings and Wheels.

There are 16 Silent 2 Electros in the FAA Registration Data Base. 3 are for sale and are all low time. Any thoughts? Are they uncomfortable, poor penetration, what?

Charles Zabinski wrote on 12/11/2020 1:48 PM:
There are 16 Silent 2 Electros in the FAA Registration Data Base. 3 are for sale and are all low time. Any thoughts? Are they uncomfortable, poor penetration, what?

Call the owners and talk to them. The Electro owner I know likes to talk about his, but he also
flies it a lot. Here is his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend. I'm friends with the IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of one of the owners who flies it. I've seen it fly twice and he seems to have a good bit of fun with it.

On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8:17:42 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend. I'm friends with the IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of one of the owners who flies it. I've seen it fly twice and he seems to have a good bit of fun with it.

Here is a review of the Silent 2:
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/ind...ctric-gliders/

My take on it is you can self-launch and do one low save. If you want to self-retrieve you will need to get an aerotow to maintain a fully charged battery. Even then, retrieve distance is quoted as cruising at level flight w/o a headwind. If you have to climb to clear a mountain range, for example, you will exhaust your batteries and may not even clear the range. This happened to one pilot at Ely last summer. Faced with that dilemma, he used his battery capacity to search for a suitable landing field. He was fortunate and got a weak cell phone signal to send his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely. They left the airport in the dark and returned at about 2 am.

Other considerations a
1. Is the launching altitude specified at max gross weight (the GP15 is not)? If not, what is the launch altitude at the weight you will be flying it? Will you fly with water ballast?
2. How high do you typically launch to where you fly?
3. Do you have hills or mountains that you will have to clear on a self retrieve?
4. Do you even care about self retrieving?
5. The battery safety at this time has a big question mark (I consider it unproven and will not fly one).
6. How are you going to recharge the battery on field (you will need a dedicated 20A circuit). Most remove the batteries and take them to a suitable circuit at the hangar or motel or home.

Tom

2G wrote on 12/12/2020 12:31 PM:
On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8:17:42 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend. I'm friends with the IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of one of the owners who flies it. I've seen it fly twice and he seems to have a good bit of fun with it.

Here is a review of the Silent 2:
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/ind...ctric-gliders/

My take on it is you can self-launch and do one low save. If you want to self-retrieve you will need to get an aerotow to maintain a fully charged battery. Even then, retrieve distance is quoted as cruising at level flight w/o a headwind. If you have to climb to clear a mountain range, for example, you will exhaust your batteries and may not even clear the range. This happened to one pilot at Ely last summer. Faced with that dilemma, he used his battery capacity to search for a suitable landing field. He was fortunate and got a weak cell phone signal to send his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely. They left the airport in the dark and returned at about 2 am.

Other considerations a
1. Is the launching altitude specified at max gross weight (the GP15 is not)? If not, what is the launch altitude at the weight you will be flying it? Will you fly with water ballast?
2. How high do you typically launch to where you fly?
3. Do you have hills or mountains that you will have to clear on a self retrieve?
4. Do you even care about self retrieving?
5. The battery safety at this time has a big question mark (I consider it unproven and will not fly one).
6. How are you going to recharge the battery on field (you will need a dedicated 20A circuit). Most remove the batteries and take them to a suitable circuit at the hangar or motel or home.

Tom

The review was very limited, with no remarks from users of the Silent Electro. That's
important, because the reviewer would have learned that Silent owners rarely end up 100 miles
from home, needing a retrieve. Shucks, that rarely (once every 5 years?) happens to me, and I
fly an ASH 26E. The Electro's lower performance means the pilot turns around not as far from
home, and ends up needing to retrieve only 50 miles out while Al is 100 miles out. And, since
the pilot knows how much retrieve distance he has, he can makes his decisions accordingly.

Again, any pilot considering one should definitely talk to owners that fly them a lot. Jeff
Banks is the Electro pilot I know who has had a lot of good flights in the Parowan/Richfield
area, and usually self launching. Take a look at his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497

Tom's remarks are more useful than the review, I think, and point out that where you fly could
make a big difference in the amount of motor duration you will need. Nevada and Utah are going
to be much more demanding than Kansas and Florida, for example.

One point from Tom's remarks I disagree with: Jeff did not use a dedicated 20A circuit to
charge his batteries while he was at RIchfield, but just a standard 15A socket in the lounge of
the FBO.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation" h
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 12:31:21 -0800, 2G wrote:

He was fortunate and got a weak cell phone signal to send
his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely.

Not strictly on the subject of electro-flight but bjut on-topic for
retrieves, so...

Its worth knowing that, if the mobile signal at a landout site is very
poor - drops out or unintelligible voice call, a text message has a
better chance of getting through than a voice call. This is because the
bandwidth needed to send a text is less than for voice and a phone will
keep trying to send a text message until either it gets through id the
battery goes flat.

There is an example of thius working: a while back a car left the road in
a hilly part of NZ. The people in it were trapped in the car and, because
it was in a gully, the signal barely worked: it was too poor for an
understandable voice call, so they tried texting and that did the trick.



--
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On 12/12/20 2:56 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 12/12/2020 12:31 PM:
On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8:17:42 PM UTC-8,
wrote:
I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend.
I'm friends with the IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of
one of the owners who flies it. I've seen it fly twice and he seems
to have a good bit of fun with it.

Here is a review of the Silent 2:
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/ind...ctric-gliders/


My take on it is you can self-launch and do one low save. If you want
to self-retrieve you will need to get an aerotow to maintain a fully
charged battery. Even then, retrieve distance is quoted as cruising at
level flight w/o a headwind. If you have to climb to clear a mountain
range, for example, you will exhaust your batteries and may not even
clear the range. This happened to one pilot at Ely last summer. Faced
with that dilemma, he used his battery capacity to search for a
suitable landing field. He was fortunate and got a weak cell phone
signal to send his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely. They left
the airport in the dark and returned at about 2 am.

Other considerations a
1. Is the launching altitude specified at max gross weight (the GP15
is not)? If not, what is the launch altitude at the weight you will be
flying it? Will you fly with water ballast?
2. How high do you typically launch to where you fly?
3. Do you have hills or mountains that you will have to clear on a
self retrieve?
4. Do you even care about self retrieving?
5. The battery safety at this time has a big question mark (I consider
it unproven and will not fly one).
6. How are you going to recharge the battery on field (you will need a
dedicated 20A circuit). Most remove the batteries and take them to a
suitable circuit at the hangar or motel or home.

Tom

The review was very limited, with no remarks from users of the Silent
Electro. That's important, because the reviewer would have learned that
Silent owners rarely end up 100 miles from home, needing a retrieve.
Shucks, that rarely (once every 5 years?) happens to me, and I fly an
ASH 26E. The Electro's lower performance means the pilot turns around
not as far from home, and ends up needing to retrieve only 50 miles out
while Al is 100 miles out. And, since the pilot knows how much retrieve
distance he has, he can makes his decisions accordingly.

Again, any pilot considering one should definitely talk to owners that
fly them a lot. Jeff Banks is the Electro pilot I know who has had a lot
of good flights in the Parowan/Richfield area, and usually self
launching. Take a look at his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497


Tom's remarks are more useful than the review, I think, and point out
that where you fly could make a big difference in the amount of motor
duration you will need. Nevada and Utah are going to be much more
demanding than Kansas and Florida, for example.

One point from Tom's remarks I disagree with: Jeff did not use a
dedicated 20A circuit to charge his batteries while he was at RIchfield,
but just a standard 15A socket in the lounge of the FBO.


I agree the article was not not very in-depth.

Interesting that the June 4 flight had a landout after a meandering
flight, 122 km scoring distance, no points due to late submission. If
he had been in a gas powered glider, it would have been an easy
self-retrieve.

One thing about the electric gliders, battery voltage isn't constant at
all, you are likely to get a couple minutes of good climb rate, then
significantly less with continued motor use.

I'm sure some people have fun flying those things, but others get
frustrated with the lack of power they pack in the batteries. I suppose
there were 17 registered in the U.S. until that Silent 2 went through
the roof in Connecticut, making international news. Apparently you
don't always have as much energy left as the little computer display
says you do.

-Dave

On 12/12/2020 5:09 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 12:31:21 -0800, 2G wrote:

He was fortunate and got a weak cell phone signal to send
his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely.

Not strictly on the subject of electro-flight but bjut on-topic for
retrieves, so...

Its worth knowing that, if the mobile signal at a landout site is very
poor - drops out or unintelligible voice call, a text message has a
better chance of getting through than a voice call. This is because the
bandwidth needed to send a text is less than for voice and a phone will
keep trying to send a text message until either it gets through id the
battery goes flat.

There is an example of thius working: a while back a car left the road in
a hilly part of NZ. The people in it were trapped in the car and, because
it was in a gully, the signal barely worked: it was too poor for an
understandable voice call, so they tried texting and that did the trick.

Yup. Also, people who are stuck without the ability to recharge their
phone, whether following a hurricane or a landout, with the prospect of
a long wait, should know that the way to get the most communications out
the battery is to turn the phone completely off, and periodically (say
every 30 minuets) turn it on, check for (or send) text messages, then
turn it completely off again. Besides stretching the battery, since
those texts don't need much bandwidth, they are more likely to get
through post-disaster when the still-working cell towers are overwhelmed
with demand. Too bad that text messages, unlike emails, don't have date
and time stamps, so AFAIK you can't tell when they were sent. When you
turn the phone on (or get it out of "airplane mode", or finally get a
signal) the text comes in and gets stamped with the time it arrived -
semi-useless info.

kinsell wrote on 12/12/2020 3:22 PM:
On 12/12/20 2:56 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 12/12/2020 12:31 PM:
On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8:17:42 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend. I'm friends with the
IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of one of the owners who flies it. I've seen
it fly twice and he seems to have a good bit of fun with it.

Here is a review of the Silent 2:
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/ind...ctric-gliders/


My take on it is you can self-launch and do one low save. If you want to self-retrieve you
will need to get an aerotow to maintain a fully charged battery. Even then, retrieve
distance is quoted as cruising at level flight w/o a headwind. If you have to climb to clear
a mountain range, for example, you will exhaust your batteries and may not even clear the
range. This happened to one pilot at Ely last summer. Faced with that dilemma, he used his
battery capacity to search for a suitable landing field. He was fortunate and got a weak
cell phone signal to send his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely. They left the airport
in the dark and returned at about 2 am.

Other considerations a
1. Is the launching altitude specified at max gross weight (the GP15 is not)? If not, what
is the launch altitude at the weight you will be flying it? Will you fly with water ballast?
2. How high do you typically launch to where you fly?
3. Do you have hills or mountains that you will have to clear on a self retrieve?
4. Do you even care about self retrieving?
5. The battery safety at this time has a big question mark (I consider it unproven and will
not fly one).
6. How are you going to recharge the battery on field (you will need a dedicated 20A
circuit). Most remove the batteries and take them to a suitable circuit at the hangar or
motel or home.

Tom

The review was very limited, with no remarks from users of the Silent Electro. That's
important, because the reviewer would have learned that Silent owners rarely end up 100 miles
from home, needing a retrieve. Shucks, that rarely (once every 5 years?) happens to me, and I
fly an ASH 26E. The Electro's lower performance means the pilot turns around not as far from
home, and ends up needing to retrieve only 50 miles out while Al is 100 miles out. And, since
the pilot knows how much retrieve distance he has, he can makes his decisions accordingly.

Again, any pilot considering one should definitely talk to owners that fly them a lot. Jeff
Banks is the Electro pilot I know who has had a lot of good flights in the Parowan/Richfield
area, and usually self launching. Take a look at his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497

Tom's remarks are more useful than the review, I think, and point out that where you fly
could make a big difference in the amount of motor duration you will need. Nevada and Utah
are going to be much more demanding than Kansas and Florida, for example.

One point from Tom's remarks I disagree with: Jeff did not use a dedicated 20A circuit to
charge his batteries while he was at RIchfield, but just a standard 15A socket in the lounge
of the FBO.


I agree the article was not not very in-depth.

Interesting that the June 4 flight had a landout after a meandering flight, 122 km scoring
distance, no points due to late submission.* If he had been in a gas powered glider, it would
have been an easy self-retrieve.

One thing about the electric gliders, battery voltage isn't constant at all, you are likely to
get a couple minutes of good climb rate, then significantly less with continued motor use.

I'm sure some people have fun flying those things, but others get frustrated with the lack of
power they pack in the batteries.* I suppose there were 17 registered in the U.S. until that
Silent 2 went through the roof in Connecticut, making international news.* Apparently you don't
always have as much energy left as the little computer display says you do.

-Dave

I don't know how general this is, but I've read the last 20% or so of the battery charge can
only produce a significantly reduced climb power. It was in reference to FES systems. Perhaps
an FES owner can be more specific about the power available at lower charge levels.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 2:31:33 PM UTC+10, Eric Greenwell wrote:
kinsell wrote on 12/12/2020 3:22 PM:
On 12/12/20 2:56 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
2G wrote on 12/12/2020 12:31 PM:
On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8:17:42 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I actually helped put one of those three into a hangar last weekend. I'm friends with the
IA who just inspected it and an acquaintance of one of the owners who flies it. I've seen
it fly twice and he seems to have a good bit of fun with it.

Here is a review of the Silent 2:
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/ind...ctric-gliders/


My take on it is you can self-launch and do one low save. If you want to self-retrieve you
will need to get an aerotow to maintain a fully charged battery. Even then, retrieve
distance is quoted as cruising at level flight w/o a headwind. If you have to climb to clear
a mountain range, for example, you will exhaust your batteries and may not even clear the
range. This happened to one pilot at Ely last summer. Faced with that dilemma, he used his
battery capacity to search for a suitable landing field. He was fortunate and got a weak
cell phone signal to send his situation to fellow pilots back at Ely. They left the airport
in the dark and returned at about 2 am.

Other considerations a
1. Is the launching altitude specified at max gross weight (the GP15 is not)? If not, what
is the launch altitude at the weight you will be flying it? Will you fly with water ballast?
2. How high do you typically launch to where you fly?
3. Do you have hills or mountains that you will have to clear on a self retrieve?
4. Do you even care about self retrieving?
5. The battery safety at this time has a big question mark (I consider it unproven and will
not fly one).
6. How are you going to recharge the battery on field (you will need a dedicated 20A
circuit). Most remove the batteries and take them to a suitable circuit at the hangar or
motel or home.

Tom

The review was very limited, with no remarks from users of the Silent Electro. That's
important, because the reviewer would have learned that Silent owners rarely end up 100 miles
from home, needing a retrieve. Shucks, that rarely (once every 5 years?) happens to me, and I
fly an ASH 26E. The Electro's lower performance means the pilot turns around not as far from
home, and ends up needing to retrieve only 50 miles out while Al is 100 miles out. And, since
the pilot knows how much retrieve distance he has, he can makes his decisions accordingly.

Again, any pilot considering one should definitely talk to owners that fly them a lot. Jeff
Banks is the Electro pilot I know who has had a lot of good flights in the Parowan/Richfield
area, and usually self launching. Take a look at his OLC logbook for the 2020 season:

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....t=olc&pi=10497

Tom's remarks are more useful than the review, I think, and point out that where you fly
could make a big difference in the amount of motor duration you will need. Nevada and Utah
are going to be much more demanding than Kansas and Florida, for example.

One point from Tom's remarks I disagree with: Jeff did not use a dedicated 20A circuit to
charge his batteries while he was at RIchfield, but just a standard 15A socket in the lounge
of the FBO.


I agree the article was not not very in-depth.

Interesting that the June 4 flight had a landout after a meandering flight, 122 km scoring
distance, no points due to late submission. If he had been in a gas powered glider, it would
have been an easy self-retrieve.

One thing about the electric gliders, battery voltage isn't constant at all, you are likely to
get a couple minutes of good climb rate, then significantly less with continued motor use.

I'm sure some people have fun flying those things, but others get frustrated with the lack of
power they pack in the batteries. I suppose there were 17 registered in the U.S. until that
Silent 2 went through the roof in Connecticut, making international news. Apparently you don't
always have as much energy left as the little computer display says you do.

-Dave
I don't know how general this is, but I've read the last 20% or so of the battery charge can
only produce a significantly reduced climb power. It was in reference to FES systems. Perhaps
an FES owner can be more specific about the power available at lower charge levels.
--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

Once I get to about 40% remaining, I can only get ~15kW instead of 22kW. Around 30% it warns me to reduce power below 8kW to prevent battery damage, but doesn't prevent me from continuing. I need about 3.5kW for level flight and 8kW is a ~200ft/min climb. Haven't discharged past 20% yet but it was still able to achieve 8kW at that level.
The default charger is 1200W, so even at 110v 10A should be fine, I also purchased a small 600W 'travel' charger that fits more comfortably in the cockpit with me if I outland at a remote airfield and wanted to recharge overnight, or to tour with.