Current conditions favorable for ElectraFlyer C's electric flight
By Ryan Block 
posted August 9th 2008 7:32AM
posted August 9th 2008 7:32AM
[Via Autopia, thanks Sam]
posted August 9th 2008 7:32AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Nice Post. this is a great blog...love it.. thanks
Busby SEO Challenge
damn i wanted to be first, and mock this post.
this thing will never get released, the big oil companies make up like 70% of the richest five companies in teh world, they wont let it happen. and seeing as they and banks own the US government, they gov wont let it happen either.
it wont happen = there will be no more innovation here.
It's a good thing there's a world outside the US, and hundreds of small companies which the oil industry take no interest in.
Well, as long as we continue to be a nation of sheep, like Mr. Chappelle here, always wanting to be first and to mock (even if it is an attempt at humor), then I'd say you're not too far off. Thank God for the others.
@Dave: 'cause a 5.6 kWh battery, one seat and an hour and a halfs worth of flight can carry 400 passengers from london to sydney...
Dave, your a yard. The oil industry is a energy industry, and when there is more bling to be had you can bet your black ass that they will be selling batteries, natual gas and maybe even unicorn power too!
This hopefully means we'll have our electric flying cars by 2010.
By the way, I saw this page without comments. I'm probably not first, but just thought it'd be cool
Turns out the first comment was about as relevant to the article as the Pope is to "can it play doom" jokes.
Cool! Would be even cooler with a video :)
Wow. The first time in a while engadget put up something with real world relevance very few people comment.
This will never get off the ground (pun intended) simply because electric is unrealistic for air travel. Air travel needs the utmost reliability and plent of contingency. Thats just not available on current generation electric battery technology.
This is a modified glider though, which isn't supposed to have an engine at all. So assuming the pilot is an experienced glider-pilot, having the engine stop shouldn't be anything more than a minor hassle.
Most planes will glide, granted not as well as a glider. My Dad's friend once told me that if I ever learned to fly I should start with gliders. Maybe it should be a mandatory step in getting your pilots license. At the very least it would reduce the amount of crashes when landing in unfavorable mechanical circumstances.
Also, I really want to hear what this plane sounds like.
Unless the wings break off mid-flight, I don't think there's going to be much of a problem.
There _is_ a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRVQuuYUk6I&watch_response
Enjoy.
ooohhhh....there is electricity in the air.....hmm...maybe Bill Gates can help fund this environmentally friendly technology....
I wonder if you could do a mid-air refueling by towing a long wire into thunderstorms. Any volunteers?
This is a modified glider.
Do YOU want to fly a glider into the middle of a thunderstorm? Because I don't.
lol calm down dude it was a joke. but that would be a freaking awesome ass way to "refuel" one lighting strike and you have a full battery!
cool. with a clear cockpit, i wonder if my iphone's gps will be able to follow onto areas not covered in maps.
*ahem* IPHONE
LIEK ZOMG U CANT COMPARE DIS TO AN IPHONE ETC!!11!!!1!!
Was it good for you too? :D
Hmm. If the areas aren't covered by maps (forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think areas like this exist any more) then what use would your GPS be? nothing to translate your co-ordinates onto. Probably too bad a data signal for Google Maps to work properly too.
hmm im starting think that when people mention the iphone that they actually get off to it.
To Phoenix: GPS is still useful to track how you're moving around, map or no map. As long as you can see what direction you're going, and where you're coming from (and if the line behind you on the screen is going in circles, chances are you're doing something wrong).
I used a GPS in a boat long before they started putting maps on them, because it was still rather useful. We also had maps made of papers back then too ;)
@ Dave
Look, normally I don't point things like this out, but this is just ridiculous.
Oil companies make up 70% of teh [sic] richest companies in the world, eh?
I didn't think that it was that difficult to do percentages out of 5, but I suppose it is. Listen closely here. The percentages are as follows: 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and then, of course, 100.
Even paranoid people have enemies.
45.354% of statistics can be made to say 70% of anything.
50% of the time.
i dont understand.. you can have any percentage number 66% 49% so umm what are you saying
(in all honestly im just curious now to what you meant)
ian:
"the big oil companies make up like 70% of the richest five companies in teh world"
there are five companies. therefore, the oil companies can either be 0/5, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, or 5/5 of these "richest companies"
those percentages correspond to 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%
not 70%.
OOOO that makes sense.. i knew i was missing something there
@Dave: 'cause a 5.6 kWh battery, one seat and an hour and a halfs
worth of flight can carry 400 passengers from london to sydney...
This simply isn't terribly exciting. Attaching a big battery to a motor is hardly a new idea, or new technology. As far as innovation and future development go, its something of a non-starter. Battery technology is being worked on, but we haven't seen any breathtaking jumps in lithium ion for a few years now. Short of putting a bigger battery in the plane there is no direct prospect of flying it further.
One should remember also just how much more energy it would take to move a jet plane than it would take to move this thing. For instance, gliders of this speed usually move at exactly the same speeds that this was quoted as doing - average cruise of 60knots and max out at something over 100knots for normal use.
Finally, a 5.7kwh lithium ion battery is hardly environmentally friendly in itself, given the processes involved in the mining of the raw materials and the production and recycling.
Why so much criticism on what is OBVIOUSLY a baby step into the potential of an electric aircraft?
Is it so hard to understand that even the first gas airplane wasn't a damn 747? It took DECADES to get to that step.
Are you really comparing a guy who stuck an electric motor and prop onto a glider to the Wright Brothers?
Agreed, this is about equivalant to a internal combustion plane from quite a time after they were invented
I saw this one flying at the Oshkosh air show. Amazingly quiet!
Think this is a great thing. Obviously newsworthy since it is something that is new in this form. Of course the idea is 'old' but just like 'hey let's fly to Mars' it is easier said then done...
I like the idea a lot and it is an impressive example how far we got (engine and battery wise). On top of this, if the economics behind that are corrects (about $9.10 per 1.5 hours of operation) this is actually quite cheap!
Looking forward to see how this stuff develops :)
"Presumably close to silently"
Propellers' tips travel at transonic velocities, creating a pressure wave similar to a sonic boom on each rotation, so the propeller will sound like a propeller on a piston or turbofan engine. Still very noisy.
Turboprop, not turbofan :)
You're close. Most of the noise from a/c is from their interaction with the air, namely from the prop in this case. However, though the tips of the prop travel faster, you certainly don't want them to go supersonic.
Sorry RB, maybe you should edit your comment on this article - this plane wouldn't be silent, it would sound just like a regular prop a/c to the lay man.
I'm correct, see below.
OMG, I hope Engadget just misinformed us. ...What kind of idiot would use old-school Lithium instead of the better/newer LiPo?
Let's thikn about this... ALL MODEL PLANES use LiPo because they're lighter, smaller, charge faster, etc. etc. etc. ....Physics are the same for planes of all sizes, this should use LiPo.
Aside from the fact that all model tweakers know LiPo is the way to go, the iPhone uses LiPo. ...And at this point, considering all the idiots out there, most people should just copy the iPhone without questioning it.
Electric Flyer used either what they had or what was cost effective at the time. You seen what Dewalt wants for an a single 18V replacement LiPo? Like $150.
Ok, I just confirmed the editors are idiots. This DOES use a LiPo battery. What kind of a blog is this again? ...Not that I'd expect the editor to understand the subject matter. :\
I just confirmed, this is NOT a lithium ion battery, it's LiPo. ...Which is what model tweakers have been using for a while. It's light weight, and they might be able to make it do some pretty amazing stuff.
Naughty me, the two posts below regarding LiPO showed up after my first reply.
Price? The hang glider-plane tops out at 18k on their site. If this baby can be had for even double that, I see it as being commercially viable. Who wouldn't want a personal aircraft?
The problem here is not only is that bad battery life for such a small plane but with an electric motor the aircraft would have to use a propeller which limits speed anyway.
I think I will wait till they start putting on something else like ion thrusters or something. For now all the comercial and industrial flights will be jet aircraft
OK, so the next step is to add solar panels from Nanosolar (www.nanosolar.com). They shouldn't change the flight surface at all, are flexible (so you can put them on almost the entire skin of the plane) and would just give you that much more flight time...
I love where all this technology is going. I'm excited to see what will be happening in the next 5 years ;-)
^This^
I was going to post the same thing. With all that wing and body area, I would think flexible solar panels would extend the battery life considerably. Not to mention, in between flights it would sit there recharging itself in spades, so much so you could probably recharge your Tesla off it too :-)
Sorry if this is a re-post, but it doesn't look like my other comment got submitted...
Now they need to start adding panels from Nanosolar (www.nanosolar.com). I don't think they would effect the flight surface much (if at all) and they'd have the potential to add a good amount of flight time.
I love seeing more and more things like this. The technology is advancing by leaps and bounds and I can't wait to see what we'll have available in 5 or 10 years. :-)