RE: Rolls-Royce confirms 1,000hp electric plane
Discussion
El stovey said:
Fury1630 said:
dvs_dave said:
Electric aircraft will be designed and configured very differently to fossil fueled aircraft. Electric propulsion systems will allow for more efficient airframe designs with much less drag, and other significant efficiency improvements over fossil fueled aircraft....for example, elimination of the high capacity onboard power generation systems that a modern airliner requires.
How so? On a modern airliner the fuselage shape is defined by the people, their luggage & the need to pressurise, the wing is shaped to provide the right lift at the right speed, the engine pods by the fan size required to provide thrust & the tail by the stability requirements.There's nothing there that'll change if it's electric powered. OK you can eliminate the power gen systems & APU, but you'll need batteries to store the energy they create, plus back-up systems, so the weight & space will still be used.
Fossil fuelled aircraft could be much more efficient, for example by using a flying wing design, but other requirements - like getting all the passengers off in 90 seconds & hanging the engines in pods for easy maintenance make that impossible.
I don’t profess to have the in depth solutions as to how to do this right now, but we’re not solving for now. I don’t think that as a future concept though that this is at all unreasonable.
The wings are already used as integral fuel tanks, can you imagine the weight of the wing if you included enough batteries for "x" range?
An A380 wing flexes 6ft or 12ft (I can't remember if its 6ft e/w from nominal or 6ft total) if I remember correctly from parked to inflight, jet fuel is obviously a liquid mass that can be moved from tank - tank - fuselage, etc, to help with ballast, batteries couldn't; huge engineering challenges ahead!
An A380 wing flexes 6ft or 12ft (I can't remember if its 6ft e/w from nominal or 6ft total) if I remember correctly from parked to inflight, jet fuel is obviously a liquid mass that can be moved from tank - tank - fuselage, etc, to help with ballast, batteries couldn't; huge engineering challenges ahead!
I can't see electric long-haul transport in the foreseeable future : energy density being the critical problem.
However, there are enough short-haul and recreational uses to make electric flight commercially viable, and I expect to see more in the near future.
An electric 4-seater with 300 km range and a cruising speed of 200 kph would sell if priced right, and that's not a million miles from this RR project.
Edit to add more seats.
However, there are enough short-haul and recreational uses to make electric flight commercially viable, and I expect to see more in the near future.
An electric 4-seater with 300 km range and a cruising speed of 200 kph would sell if priced right, and that's not a million miles from this RR project.
Edit to add more seats.
Edited by AW111 on Wednesday 9th January 11:06
I always wonder when reading threads like this (and I know I can be guilty of it myself at times) is why we as a group of intelligent people challenge these new ideas coming from companies that have some of the world's best experts in the area looking/investigating it.
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
ikarl said:
I always wonder when reading threads like this (and I know I can be guilty of it myself at times) is why we as a group of intelligent people challenge these new ideas coming from companies that have some of the world's best experts in the area looking/investigating it.
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
It's the internet and middle aged male privilege. They always know better than the experts.Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
ikarl said:
I always wonder when reading threads like this (and I know I can be guilty of it myself at times) is why we as a group of intelligent people challenge these new ideas coming from companies that have some of the world's best experts in the area looking/investigating it.
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
Well, you'll see on the other thread that a genuine 'expert' Max Torque' is questioning the validity of the project too.Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
...but often it can be to draw out the stuff that we're not being told. In51ght in particular has a habit (understandably, since he's involved with the project) of 'toeing the party line' with his responses. From the multiple Bloodhound threads, often the real answer was (paraphrasing) 'it's a crap solution and I wouldn't have done it that way myself, but the decision was made by others', or 'we didn't have the money to do it properly, and this was the best bodge we could afford', but he takes some badgering to admit either!
Edited by Equus on Wednesday 9th January 12:44
ikarl said:
I always wonder when reading threads like this (and I know I can be guilty of it myself at times) is why we as a group of intelligent people challenge these new ideas coming from companies that have some of the world's best experts in the area looking/investigating it.
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
I think RR can make an electric light aircraft but the technology is unsuitable for larger aircraft at this time and possibly for decades to come. Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
Perhaps RR do too and are just demonstrating technology or just getting some publicity?
There’s all kinds of people from different backgrounds on PHs so there’s certainly a chance some might know more than RR about the viability of different technologies. There’s a load of Boeing 787s with Rolls Royce engines grounded all around the world as they’re suffering from corrosion. There was B787s grounded because Boeing put lithium batteries that caught fire on them and got the design certified. There was a new Boeing 737max that crashed the other day because it had new anti stall technology that the crew weren’t adequately made aware of.
Aviation, awesome as it is, is full of mistakes and designs and technologies that didn’t work that well because humans are designing them.
ikarl said:
I always wonder when reading threads like this (and I know I can be guilty of it myself at times) is why we as a group of intelligent people challenge these new ideas coming from companies that have some of the world's best experts in the area looking/investigating it.
Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
Because we are smart enough not to take everything we are told at face value!Why does the collective 'PH' question the experts in the field as if we know something that they don't.. or haven't thought about?
It's called peer review and it's critical to our current and continued mastery of science and technology.
So, if you make a claim, i'm going to ask you to prove it. Simple really.
(and if you can prove it, with facts and physics, hey great, i'll back you 100% all the way !!!)
Lord.Vader said:
The wings are already used as integral fuel tanks, can you imagine the weight of the wing if you included enough batteries for "x" range?
An A380 wing flexes 6ft or 12ft (I can't remember if its 6ft e/w from nominal or 6ft total) if I remember correctly from parked to inflight, jet fuel is obviously a liquid mass that can be moved from tank - tank - fuselage, etc, to help with ballast, batteries couldn't; huge engineering challenges ahead!
Indeed they are, but no reason why batteries can’t be in there instead of liquid fuel. And think how much simpler things would be without having to have a vastly complex fuel management and distribution system because of the dynamic nature of the fuel quantity. No such problems with batteries. They’re a total constant in that respect. I don’t consider flexible battery packs to be any particular engineering challenge either. They’re made up of many smaller interconnected elements, so therefore are flexible by nature.An A380 wing flexes 6ft or 12ft (I can't remember if its 6ft e/w from nominal or 6ft total) if I remember correctly from parked to inflight, jet fuel is obviously a liquid mass that can be moved from tank - tank - fuselage, etc, to help with ballast, batteries couldn't; huge engineering challenges ahead!
Weight is of course and concern, but as mentioned, unlike liquid fuel, it’s a fixed non-dynamic mass within the airframe so it’s easily handled. This is also heavily mitigated by the fact that due the superior propulsive efficiency of electric systems over fossil fueled systems, (approx 80% vs 30%) you only need to carry around 40% of the energy that a fossil fueled aircraft needs to carry in its fuel load to achieve the same result.
Max_Torque said:
Because we are smart enough not to take everything we are told at face value!
It's called peer review and it's critical to our current and continued mastery of science and technology.
So, if you make a claim, i'm going to ask you to prove it. Simple really.
(and if you can prove it, with facts and physics, hey great, i'll back you 100% all the way !!!)
So why are you missing the point of this project then? That is the issue with people reading a press release and thinking they have an opinion. That is not peer reviewing anything. You do not have access to their entire research data, therefore your analysis of what they are trying to achieve is going to be unsound.It's called peer review and it's critical to our current and continued mastery of science and technology.
So, if you make a claim, i'm going to ask you to prove it. Simple really.
(and if you can prove it, with facts and physics, hey great, i'll back you 100% all the way !!!)
Perhaps I’ve missed what’s going on here, are people saying RR can’t produce a viable electric aircraft or that it can’t be scaled up in the near future to an electric larger say 200 seat aircraft?
I thought this was just an electric small aircraft a sort of technology demonstration type of project? Which sounds great and is fantastic to see this kind of innovation happening.
I thought this was just an electric small aircraft a sort of technology demonstration type of project? Which sounds great and is fantastic to see this kind of innovation happening.
El stovey said:
Perhaps I’ve missed what’s going on here, are people saying RR can’t produce a viable electric aircraft or that it can’t be scaled up in the near future to an electric larger say 200 seat aircraft?
I thought this was just an electric small aircraft a sort of technology demonstration type of project?
Exactly. This is an interesting project for GA. It has little relevance to the commercial aviation sector and isn't meant to.I thought this was just an electric small aircraft a sort of technology demonstration type of project?
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