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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 08 2018, @01:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the electric-everywhere dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Australia's first electric aircraft has begun test flights at Perth's Jandakot Airport, amid hopes the plane will be flying to nearby Rottnest Island within months.

The two-seater single-engine Pipistrel Alpha Electro has two batteries that can keep the plane in the air for an hour, with an extra 30 minutes in reserve.

The team behind the plane says while there are environmental benefits in doing away with jet fuel, electric planes are also safer and easier to fly.

"Electric propulsion is a lot simpler than a petrol engine," Electro.Aero founder Joshua Portlock said. "Inside a petrol engine you have hundreds of moving parts. "In this aircraft you have one switch to turn the aircraft on and one throttle lever to fly."

The engine is powered by two lithium-ion batteries, similar to those used in the Tesla electric car. There is no gear box or multiple moving engine parts —instead the plane's motor attaches directly to the propeller. Rather than a fuel gauge, a panel tells the pilot the amount of power left in the battery, and estimated minutes of flight time, based on the throttle position.

The batteries are re-energised in about an hour by a supercharger based at the Jandakot airfield.

[...] In mid-January Mr Bodley will begin training local pilots to fly the single-engine electric plane, with registered pilots required to complete a familiarisation flight before flying solo.

Mr Portlock said the group had held discussions with the Rottnest Island Authority to install a supercharger to tap into its solar array, allowing pilots to fly the plane to the island.

Future plans include electric air-taxis capable of carrying up to five people to the holiday destination.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @03:26PM (3 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 08 2018, @03:26PM (#619526)

    The other thing to consider is that, even on a bright sunny day, solar panels on every available surface wouldn't even provide 2% of the power used for level cruise - as you say, most of the power they would provide would be going toward keeping their excess weight aloft, and on rainy days or at night they're just a liability.

    Most people seem to think that a square meter of solar panel provides power like burning a liter of gasoline per hour, when in reality:

    if your solar panel was 1 square meter in size, then it would likely only produce around 150-200W in good sunlight.

    Gasoline (petrol) 34.2 (MJ/L) or 9.5KWh/l

    it takes about 50 square meters of solar panel, in good sunlight, to equate to burning 1L/h of petrol.

    Cut that power to 50% when your sun-angle is 30 degrees (the ~2 hours before sundown and after sunrise).

    And... a Cessna 172 at 75% power standard cruise burns about 32 liters per hour, not your most energy efficient light plane, just say that we only need 20 liters per hour for a really efficient light plane - that's 1000 square meters of solar panels, where a 172 has a wing area of just a touch over 16 square meters. Let's cover the whole damn thing in solar cells and give it credit for 25 square meters of solar intercept... now we're cookin' with 2.5% of the required power for cruise, in an aircraft that's 50% more efficient than the 172.

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  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday January 08 2018, @04:22PM (2 children)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Monday January 08 2018, @04:22PM (#619553) Journal

    Solar Airship.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @05:26PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 08 2018, @05:26PM (#619586)

      If the winds cooperate, then, sure, blimp away. But, they're slow and have well known limits.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:45PM (#620112)

      If you have a large carrying-capacity airship, it may as well carry heavy load of batteries for a long range trip.