[Graeme]

Electric aircraft are on the way: Stylish Airbus plane makes its first flight

While electric vehicles are gaining popularity in the automotive world, the aviation industry is also looking into ways to clean up its act.

French firm Airbus is best known for its large passenger jets — including the double-deck Airbus A380 — but its latest project is rather smaller.

The E-FAN is a small experimental aircraft powered entirely by electricity.

It’s small, much quieter than a typical combustion-engined light aircraft, and cuts the cost of an hour-long flight from around $55 to just $16 — so it has the same economic benefits as its electric road-going cousins.

According to Inhabitat, it uses 120 lithium-ion polymer battery cells. These are stored in the wings, freeing up space in the cabin, while propulsion is handled by two electric ducted fans mounted either side of the tail.

Each of these develops around 30 kilowatts, so the aircraft’s combined power output is around 80 horsepower, enough for a 136 mph top speed.

computermagazine

[Plantagenet]

I'm impressed with the E-FAN airplane. The prototype is a pure EV, can carry a pilot and one passenger, and will fly for about an hour, giving it a range of about 100 miles. The next version should carry up to 3 passengers, and by adding a jet-fuel powered engine and turning it into a hybrid, it should be able to fly up to 3 hours.

However, its interesting to compare it to a high speed electric train---the train goes much faster, carries thousands of times more passengers and freight, and can travel for days.


I'm a fan of the E-FAN electric airplane --- but high speed rail makes more sense.

[Serial_Worrier]

I'm not convinced. These batteries are highly explosive, plus a top speed 3x slower than a Lear Jet? No thanks.

[sparky]

.
electric planes are a technical absurdity ,

[Paulo1]

Commercial pilot for over 20 years, here. This is a effing joke. It has the payload of 1/2 a super cub, 1/4 the range, and probably a million times the cost.

There is absolutely no market for this toy nor can it be scaled up.

Paulo

[Paulo1]

I meant if was an effing joke, not a....

[eastbay]

Oh, please. It's just another toy for the wealthy. The future of transportation is already here. A hundred mile bicycle ride takes around ten hours and is nearly free.

[dinopello]

For the military, electric engines on UAS's are preferred due to their quiet operation compared to combustion engines. The Stalker by Lockmart has 2-3 hour endurance with Lithium Ion battery and about 8 hours with a fuel cell option Stalker-XE. Their fuel cell is fueled by propane though so it sort of explicitly shows that the energy source (vs power source) of electric vehicles may still be fossil fuels.

[Paulo1]

Hey Pstarr,

Maybe it is just me, but my wrist is sprained from turning off the tube whenever I see Bono hobnobbing with ex-presidents and other millionaires. Something doesn't ring true with it. I laughingly tried to get my wife to christen me a one namer while doing a parody of Edge and Flea, finally had to stop as the laughter was too much. I thought Prawn sounded good, but it lacks something. Fish had connotations of prison.

Your post made me laugh. No...no hate intended. I guess I needed a coffee.

Paul S

[dinopello]

For the military, electric engines on UAS's are preferred due to their quiet operation compared to combustion engines. The Stalker by Lockmart has 2-3 hour endurance with Lithium Ion battery and about 8 hours with a fuel cell option Stalker-XE. Their fuel cell is fueled by propane though so it sort of explicitly shows that the energy source (vs power source) of electric vehicles may still be fossil fuels.

So how do you propose converting The Stalker to passenger service?

Scaling the stalker up may prove challenging. It has a 3 lb payload capacity so I would propose shrinking the passengers to a few ounces each so you could accommodate about a dozen in that way. Any more questions ?

[efarmer]

Dino, I was with you for most of this, but then I just could not bring myself to believe that they would use a sharp tweezers like that to load the aircraft.
Are those the real tweezers?

Do you know if each passenger gets one honey roasted peanut in a shiny bag to eat during the flight?

How many laxatives does it take so Bono can ride too?

Those are my questions at this time, and thank you for asking!
EF

[SeaGypsy]

http://www.google.com/search?q=electric ... 24&bih=768

Yeah electric flight sucks.

(I'm not even going to bother spelling out how nifty these gizmos are for mountainous regions. You cynics can walk.)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1_uttk219pk

[Graeme]

E-fan flew at Berlin Air Show.

"Impossible" Electric Airplane Takes Flight

The fully electric E-Fan aircraft, engineered by Airbus Group, made one of its first public demonstrations here last week following it's first-ever flight in France on March 11.

The novel two-seater aircraft was designed from the outset for electrical propulsion, from its energy management system to safety features. In developing this technology, Airbus aims to one day reduce the aerospace industry's carbon dioxide emissions by an order of magnitude.

"It's a very different way of flying," said Jean Botti, chief technical and innovation officer at Airbus Group, "absolutely no noise, no emissions."

scientificamerican

[EdwinSm]

The market Airbus is going for with the end e-plane seems to the training sector:

Last week, the E-Fan electric trainer airplane developed by the Airbus Group made its first public flight before a collection of French dignitaries. Currently a demonstrator for electric aircraft technology, Airbus says that is will be used as the basis for building a new pair of electric training aircraft models.

http://www.gizmag.com/e-fan-airbus-electric-plane/31823/

Maybe this will not scale up to large planes, but (with improvements) there might be a niche for it.

[Outcast_Searcher]

However, its interesting to compare it to a high speed electric train---the train goes much faster, carries thousands of times more passengers and freight, and can travel for days.

This is exactly what I was thinking upon reading the original article.

If we're heading toward electric vehicles, why not be efficient and productive about it? High speed rail seems to have this beat all around except for possible rescue missions to hard to reach areas or things of that ilk.

Why even bother if this is unlikely to scale up to commercial level flying?

[Graeme]

Pratt & Whitney say Electric Aircraft Require Innovations Not Yet Invented

Though electric aircraft technology continues to improve, an engineer at Pratt & Whitney says the technology must make revolutionary leaps before being applicable to commercial or military aircraft.

P&W has looked into electric aircraft and determined that three technological “miracles” must occur before electric flight goes mainstream, Alan Epstein, P&W's vice president of technology and environment, tells reporters.

First, battery technology must improve by 50 to 100 times, says Epstein, noting that a commercial aircraft like a Boeing 737 require about 10MW of energy during cruise.

Battery-powered aircraft could be viable with current technology only “If you want to fly one-hundredth of the distance in the same size airplane,” says Epstein, who made his comments during a question and answer session at the company’s Connecticut headquarters earlier this week.

P&W has also spoken with engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about developing an electric engine capable of powering large aircraft.

Such powerplants could be built, they determined, but would require new, complex superconductivity technology. Also, engineers would need to remove the engine’s magnetic shielding to reduce its weight.

That is a problem, Epstein says, because without magnetic shielding the engine would “kill the people sitting next to the motors.”

electric-vehiclenews