Given the $billions pouring into electric aircraft via SPACs, etc., I expected to see huge progress compared to 2019. Instead, the airshow featured a functional Volocopter quietly doing maneuvers that fellow German Hanna Reitsch did indoors in the 1930s and a California Opener Blackfly (never let an engineer name the product!) that failed after 1 out of 3 planned flights (ignominiously towed away).
The kids’ favorite vertical lift innovation? A DART bike rack for the AStar (note how the black helicopter fooled the normally brilliant iPhone camera software):
If certified electric aircraft are going to be available Real Soon Now, it is tough to understand why there aren’t a lot of practical experimental electric aircraft.
Related;
- Transitioning to electric flight (lectures at Oshkosh) from 2018, in which Uber said that they planned to launch (so to speak) in 2023
Two theories, one cynical-as-hell (CAH), the other only cynical-as-heck (CAh):
CAH: I get the sense these electric air mobility people don’t want to visit shows like Oshkosh and show off their new functional prototypes to create buzz and interest so much as they want to keep it all under wraps and show teasingly little while talking to potential rich investors totally in private to structure their deals so everyone makes out like a bandit even if they never fly an aircraft.
CAh: There’s a lot of competition and none of them want to tip their hands and show off their technology too prematurely.
I do like the bike rack for the Ecureuil – the idea is for heli-biking which heli-ski resorts can offer in the off-season.
Anyone bothering to do quick back-of-envelope calulations pretty much realizes that 5x improvement in specific energy density of batteries is needed to make electrical a/c competitive with gas-powered in terms of payload/ range.
This is beyond even the wildest battery tech innovation claims.
“This is beyond even the wildest battery tech innovation claims.”
It is beyond Lithium Ion batteries, but not Aluminum Air batteries. It is just that those batteries have to be re-manufactured rather than recharged, and this require some infrastructure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery
And the point of this remanufacturing process ia? It is easier to sythesize hydrocarbons.
Let’s mandate Tesla coil – style powered electric aircraft. It will fight CO2 poisoning in several ways 🙂