7 ms·

First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

238 points by arman0 7y ago

jascii 7y ago
The title is a little misleading: This is not a commercial flight, currently the plane in question is licensed by the FAA as "experimental" specifically excluding commercial flights. Still cool! I think electric might have a great future in short-hop flights.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Licensed by the FAA in Canada?
  - jascii 7y ago
    Good point. I based myself on an NPR story I heard this morning, I suspect they were referring to its Canadian equivalent.
  - nbrempel 7y ago
    I believe the FAA and TCCA have a bilateral agreement so it very well could be the FAA. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilateral_agreements/baa_basa_listing/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilatera...
- dang 7y ago
  The title is now different above because we changed the URL from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983.
bzudo 7y ago
Off topic and stupid, but could an electric plane be outfitted with lightning rods and/or lightning rockets to attract lightning strikes in order to charge the batteries?
- SigmundA 7y ago
  Utilizing the energy in lightning is hard, the voltage involved are hard to contain without damaging equipment and you can't charge batteries directly from the strike so it must be buffered somewhere.
  - jsjohnst 7y ago
    And if you have the ability to buffer tens of gigawatts of power, if even for a fraction of a second, in the air while flying, why bother with batteries? (Hints of sarcasm, but some truth there too)
- starpilot 7y ago
  They have static discharge wicks to let the lightning pass through. Newer carbon aircraft integrate copper mesh to conduct the current through the hull. The aircraft must be flyable following a strike, the ones I worked on were basically only able to protect the crew and land safely in that event. After that, it was expected the aircraft would be fully torn down, inspected, and rebuilt.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Even if you could, how could that even be useful?
  - mrlala 7y ago
    >to charge the batteries Free power?
    - newnewpdro 7y ago
      Carrying around substantial unnecessary systems only potentially useful a tiny portion of the time isn't exactly what planes are known for.
    - roywiggins 7y ago
      You can't use it to extend the range because you'd have to budget for not getting any top-ups, and it's extra weight.
giarc 7y ago
I suspect this would be much, much quieter than a regular gasoline engine correct? These smaller planes are loud.
- bittercynic 7y ago
  Much of the noise from small planes is from the propeller(s), so it might not help much.
  - darksaints 7y ago
    For retrofits like this, the noise will go down a bit because the engines are inside the fuselage.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Not necessarily - a gas engine operates at a different RPM and has a gearbox to the prop while these are direct drive.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  I believe the real benefit of electric planes is the maintenance cost. Most small planes require that the engine be torn down and inspected / parts replaced on a regular (per flight hour) basis. An electric motor may have a longer service life than an engine, and is almost certainly much less expensive to service.
scottmsul 7y ago
Still seems a bit far from replacing jet engines? This article was going on about fuel emissions in the entire aviation industry, this is just an electric propeller. Anyone know how far we are from electric jets? Is such a thing even possible?
- squilliam 7y ago
  A modern jet engine is just a shrouded propeller that happens to be powered by a jet turbine. An electric ducted fan would be the battery-powered equivalent.
  - aphextron 7y ago
    >A modern jet engine is just a shrouded propeller that happens to be powered by a jet turbine. No, it's not. A propellor creates thrust by slicing the air and creating lift just like a wing, but in a forward direction. A jet engine's fan blades create no thrust in themselves. They provide the compression needed for combustion to occur within the engine, and thrust is created by the expelling of hot exhaust gasses.
    - throwawaysea 7y ago
      The bypass part of a turbofan does generate thrust.
    - agurk 7y ago
      That is a description of a turbojet - the earliest type of aero jet engines[0]. GP is referring to modern turbofans which are defined by having a bybass - i.e. air that is compressed and then expelled rearwards without passing through the main turbine body[1]. This is done to trade the high speed of the jet exhaust for a larger amount of air moving more slowly. Making the speed of the jet plume closer to the true airspeed of the aircraft makes it more efficient. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbojet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbojet [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan
      - 7y ago
seabrookmx 7y ago
I look at the Harbour Air planes out my office window! Super neat project, although I agree with other commenters that "fully-electric commercial flight" is misleading. If I walk down there and book a flight, I'm not going to be in an e-plane. It's still very much experimental.
- ghostpepper 7y ago
  If you can see the seaplane terminal in downtown Vancouver from your office then, IMHO, you have one of the best views in the city. Enjoy :-)
  - james_pm 7y ago
    I would get no work done in that office. When in Vancouver, I spend a good amount of my down time sitting at the Convention Centre watching the comings and goings in the harbour.
  - seabrookmx 7y ago
    Victoria actually!
- deepspace 7y ago
  Yes, when you start digging into the details, it turns out that they filled the plane, a de Havilland Beaver, to the gills with batteries. The batteries physically consume all the interior space, leaving no room for passengers, and they bring the takeoff weight to the max that the (electric) engine can manage. With all that, the range is 15 minutes, with a 25 minute reserve. That is not even enough to reach Nanaimo, which is the closest town the planes could potentially serve. So, neat demonstrator but a long, long way off from viable commercial operation.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    This isn't true. If you want to keep making these claims, you're going to have to provide a source. For instance, there's plenty of space behind the pilot that is empty. There's plenty of interior space as the batteries are placed below. Additionally, they are using bulletproof flight-certified batteries which are much lower than the typical good lithium ion batteries used in, say, a Tesla. They're just for the prototype. "“These are batteries that NASA is using, but they’re not batteries that we’d use if we were going to try and make it economical to fly today, because they’re very low in watt-hours per kilogram,” explained McDougall." The electric motor (not an engine) is 560kW, almost twice the original 336kW radial motor, so it's not in the least underpowered (as you imply).
semi-extrinsic 7y ago
You can do small aircraft like this, no problem. The trouble is you can't scale it up, due to how quickly the power and energy demands go up. This thing is 560 kW and gets a range of 86 nmi; an A320 is around 40 000 kW and has a range of 3 500 nmi, while an A380 is around 80 000 kW and has a range of 8 500 nmi. Going from this DHC-2 to the A380 requires an increase in energy storage by a factor of around 14 000x, while the max takeoff weight ratio between the two planes is only 250. Airbus is developing a hybrid electric jet, the E-Fan X. They've done the math. When their CTO was asked about the possibility of an all-electric A320, the response was """ Assuming for a moment that we’d be able to rely on batteries 30 times as energy dense as that of today, an A320 would be able to fly with half of its payload for one-fifth of its current range, 500nm max. So, assuming a battery which today does not exist... It doesn’t work, purely electrical will not work. """
- darksaints 7y ago
  Fuel cells are a possibility. There is some pretty high power densities (2.5kw/kg for SOFCs, 10kw/kg for less efficient PEMs). Electric motors are now reaching 15kw/kg. For comparison, a GE90 is about 10kw/kg, and older turbofans down to 2kw/kg. Running on liquid hydrogen presents some problems that are definitely solvable, but SOFCs can run on pretty much any hydrocarbon fuels at extremely high efficiencies (50-60%, 80% with combined cycles, compared to the ~45% that jet engines get). I actually think the future may be a lot more simple than we're making it out to be. With some slight modifications to design, we could run existing turbofans on liquid hydrogen fuel. The biggest objection that most people have is the storage of hydrogen...but liquid hydrogen doesn't actually need to be stored in cryo tanks as long as the fuel is being used at faster rates than it evaporates. That's not a problem with jet engine consumption rates...low tech insulation may be sufficient.
  - avmich 7y ago
    There reportedly is an additional threat to the climate coming from inversion traces (modifies enough of Earth albedo?), so if we're delivering water to high altitudes, it's still not good. Electrical motors would solve this; if we'd be able to avoid dispersing water from fuel cells up high, that could work. LH2 has storage - and safety - issues still not solved. Toyota Mirai approaches it from a different angle, with some other shortcomings.
nuccy 7y ago
I'm a big fan of renewable energy (solar, wind), electric cars and likely electric planes (not yet available, so hard to say). But my biggest concern is that all this will eventually lead to people decisions being affected by rather this hipe, than common sense (like with nuclear power, which is the greenest currently available peak/off-peak source of energy). Something similar can also happen, as with Saturn 5/Apollo, after some time we will lose the technology, because people retire, workshops are disassembled. We can loose technology of efficient piston and jet engines, nuclear reactors, ultrasonic flight, et al. This by itself is fine, batteries work fine obviously, though one can imagine conditions where it is not the case: Antarctica, Mars, Moon, space, etc. Just look at Juno space probe, which instead of small RTG uses huge solar arrays, which produce just few hundreds of watts on Jupiter orbit, while being capable or producing kilowatts on Earth one.
lemmox 7y ago
Adding a little context: Harbour Air is a short-hop seaplane operator working out of downtown Vancouver. Most of their flights are ~ 100km across the Georgia Straight to Victoria and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Trips are ~ 30 minutes IIRC. There is no bridge to this island and the alternative is a fairly large commute involving a ferry. It's quite convenient to have a direct connection between downtown Vancouver and downtown Victoria. Fuel is quite pricey here, they might end up saving a couple hundred dollars per hour in fuel and engine upkeep costs.
- novok 7y ago
  The island cluster around victoria, vancouver and seattle is pretty much a perfect use case for electric airplanes today too. Making a bridge would be incredibly expensive and be a lot of firsts in bridge making, so it's not worth it: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-reports-and-reference/reports-studies/vancouver-island/fixed-link https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transporta...
jonawesomegreen 7y ago
I found this article by the CBC more informative then the one linked: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electric-seaplane-float-plane-test-flight-harbour-air-1.5390816 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electric-sea... > "It's a prototype for sure," said McDougall, "but in every way it's a high-tech piece of equipment, which is kind of ironic considering the airframe that it's attached to is actually one year younger than me — 62 years old." > McDougall's flight is the first exercise in what is expected to be a two-year process to get the e-plane certified for commercial use. For some context Harbour Air is a scheduled floatplane airline operating primarily between Vancouver and Victoria in BC. Since there is no bridge connecting the capital Victoria to the largest city Vancouver, they offer short flights on seaplanes that connect downtown to downtown as an alternative to ferries or larger airplanes that arrive at the airports further outside of the downtown core of either city. In this constrained context it seems like an electric airplane could work really well and provide fuel savings and a quieter ride. They also seem to have some ambition with these electric aircraft to provide other short range flights. > MagniX CEO Roei Ganzarski said Dec. 10, 2019, will go down in history as the start of the electric aviation age, and believes the e-plane will eventually revolutionize how people travel by making short- to mid-range flights more economical than driving. "It means you can stop driving for three, five, seven hours to get to a destination because there's no other way to get there," he said. "It means you can fly in a small aircraft from a small airport to a small airport.... It's faster, cheaper and more convenient than any other method of travel, including going with a standard airline."
- dang 7y ago
  Ok, we'll change to that from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983. Thanks!
  - goodcanadian 7y ago
    I feel ever so slightly ripped off :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760768
awkward 7y ago
I wonder if the limitations of electric flight will impact the infrastructure - big, dense networks of airports to support short range flights across the world.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Carbon neutral biofuel or fuel made via excess solar/wind should probably be the goal. Fuel cells might be viable too and the regulated commercial nature of planes probably means that hydrogen's storage and pumping headaches wouldn't suffer the consumer problems. But biofuels are probably the way to go for now. There are probably hybrid airship designs with solar panels that could do lower cost shipping. All that extra surface area from the blimp can be covered in solar panels or those fancy solar paints.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  https://www.varialift.com/page/specification-arh-50 https://www.varialift.com/page/specification-arh-50 200mph at altitude... well, with the jetstream it seems. Also, could electromag catapults help with takeoff?
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  Oh, and another thing, while long haul flights won't be impacted, self-driving cars and trucks will obliterate overland short hop flights, and for trucking probably medium range (1000miles) as well. 12 hours of driving 7pm to 7am overnight at 50mph average is 600 miles, and at 70mph with some convergent infrastructure would be 840 miles.
ska 7y ago
Some perhaps useful context: Harbour air operates the worlds largest sea plane service, the majority of it between Vancouver (city) and Vancouver Island (mostly Victoria). They are a perfect test bed for this, as the in air time is about 15-20 min for most routes. (less 100km/60m ). So while electric is a long way from long haul domestic routes, let alone international, I could see it taking over specific services like this fairly quickly, at least relatively speaking. I can see why they are experimenting with it. Apparently they plan to have certification for this aircraft in the next 2 years, but early days yet.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  I'm waiting to see if Eviations Alice actually fly's and meets spec's. They're claiming 600 miles of range at around $200/hr. If they can hit that then they are not only competitive in existing markets. But new ones.
- pedalpete 7y ago
  I wouldn't count out international so quickly. Once they've got Victoria sorted, it would be great to see them extend down to Everett, Washington to link up Seattle. It's 68 miles from Vancouver to Victoria, 98 Miles Vancouver to Everett. Theoretically, they could fly out of White Rock to reduce that distance as well.
  - ska 7y ago
    Yes I didn’t mean to exclude short haul international.
- m-i-l 7y ago
  Logan Air are also planning on "the the world's first electric–powered commercial passenger flights" in 2021[0] using a converted Britten-Norman Islander. It is similarly for an island hopping service, with the shortest flight just 1.7 miles (typically around 1 minute) which it sounds like this converted DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver should be able to manage. [0] https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/islands/1893676/electric-plane-plan-for-islands-receives-uk-government-cash/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/islands/1893676/el...
rconti 7y ago
Tangential; I took a Kenmore Air seaplane flight from Seattle (South Lake Union) to Victoria this summer, and it was absolutely amazing. I loved every second of it, and can't recommend it highly enough. 45 minutes flying time, so quick and convenient. We walked to and from hotels on both end. When I lived in the northwest, it was trivial to drive+ferry to Victoria, even though it was very slow. I always thought the Clipper hydrofoil, let alone flying, were unfathomably expensive luxuries. But as a tourist without a car and on a limited schedule, suddenly the Clipper (hydrofoil passenger-only ferry from downtown) and flying seem like reasonable options versus having to rent a car, pay for fuel, take a car ferry, drive a bunch on both ends, pay for parking, etc. In the end, I think Kenmore cost less than 2x what the Clipper would have cost us. Not cheap, but absolutely worth it for a novel one-time experience. One passenger even remarked that the seaplane flight was cheaper than flying from Sea-Tac to Victoria airport, before even factoring in the fact that neither airport is near the major city you're coming from or going to.
pi-rat 7y ago
I'm pretty sure we beat you guys to the the first electric plane able to water land here in Norway[1], or google translate[2]. :P [1]: https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/elfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pilot-matte-nodlande-i-arendal-1.14660687 https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/elfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pil... [2]: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fsorlandet%2Felfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pilot-matte-nodlande-i-arendal-1.14660687 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
Patrick_Devine 7y ago
I've seen a lot of skeptics and nay-sayers talking about this project, but I feel like there is a fundamental mis-understanding of why this is significant. No, it's not going to compete with jet airliners even in the remotely near future. High-bypass turbofan engines have enormous cost advantages over traditional piston engines. It's almost always more economical to use a turbofan engine to power aircraft in anything more than a short hop. I see this being a classic case of something like Mainframes vs. PCs however. Most people don't equate flying with General Aviation because GA has traditionally been so cost prohibitive, much the same way that mainframes were so cost prohibitive in the 60's and 70's. There are a few airlines, like Harbour Air, and Mokulele, that currently offer a short haul flights (usually over water) where people are willing to pay a lot more money. There are benefits like frequency of flights, but the big ones for me are not having to queue up for security, and being able to bring liquids on board. My wife once brought a can of soup on board Mokulele. Try doing that on Hawaiian. If this can bring down the cost of short haul flights, particularly those around 200-250 miles, it could be extremely appealing, especially when coupled with ride hailing. I would much rather take a 45 minute flight and get Lyft on the other side, than spend 3 hours sitting in a car stuck in traffic. GA can fly out of smaller terminals and smaller airports. San Carlos (SQL) to South Lake Tahoe is a 40ish minute flight in a GA aircraft, but can be 5+ hours in traffic on I-80.
- MagnumPIG 7y ago
  I know nothing about planes, but an interesting detail is that everyone owns a PC now. If tiny airplanes got cheap, who knows...
draklor40 7y ago
sounds kinda weird. IC engine planes get more efficient with lower fuel (lower weight)whereas with Electric ones, you still have to carry the weight around with lower power.
dazlari 7y ago
While the title may have it right, later in the article they state that this is the first electric aircraft... well they've been flying in WA for some time now https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/aussie-first-electric-plane-takes-to-wa-skies/ https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/aussie-first-electric-p...
floki999 7y ago
Apparently not quite the first to get there https://www.h55.ch/ https://www.h55.ch/
- chinathrow 7y ago
  "first seaplane"
exabrial 7y ago
For three minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells are likely the right answer using current technology
- davedx 7y ago
  TU Delft is looking at this. https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2019/lr/delft-student-team-takes-to-the-air-on-liquid-hydrogen/ https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2019/lr/delft-student-team-takes-t...
rbanffy 7y ago
I know using an already certified airframe saves money, but I'd love if it looked more modern.

238 points by arman0 7y ago

The title is a little misleading: This is not a commercial flight, currently the plane in question is licensed by the FAA as "experimental" specifically excluding commercial flights. Still cool! I think electric might have a great future in short-hop flights.

CalChris 7y ago
Licensed by the FAA in Canada?
- jascii 7y ago
  Good point. I based myself on an NPR story I heard this morning, I suspect they were referring to its Canadian equivalent.
- nbrempel 7y ago
  I believe the FAA and TCCA have a bilateral agreement so it very well could be the FAA. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilateral_agreements/baa_basa_listing/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilatera...
dang 7y ago
The title is now different above because we changed the URL from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983.

bzudo 7y ago

Off topic and stupid, but could an electric plane be outfitted with lightning rods and/or lightning rockets to attract lightning strikes in order to charge the batteries?

SigmundA 7y ago
Utilizing the energy in lightning is hard, the voltage involved are hard to contain without damaging equipment and you can't charge batteries directly from the strike so it must be buffered somewhere.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  And if you have the ability to buffer tens of gigawatts of power, if even for a fraction of a second, in the air while flying, why bother with batteries? (Hints of sarcasm, but some truth there too)
starpilot 7y ago
They have static discharge wicks to let the lightning pass through. Newer carbon aircraft integrate copper mesh to conduct the current through the hull. The aircraft must be flyable following a strike, the ones I worked on were basically only able to protect the crew and land safely in that event. After that, it was expected the aircraft would be fully torn down, inspected, and rebuilt.
roywiggins 7y ago
Even if you could, how could that even be useful?
- mrlala 7y ago
  >to charge the batteries Free power?
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Carrying around substantial unnecessary systems only potentially useful a tiny portion of the time isn't exactly what planes are known for.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    You can't use it to extend the range because you'd have to budget for not getting any top-ups, and it's extra weight.

giarc 7y ago

I suspect this would be much, much quieter than a regular gasoline engine correct? These smaller planes are loud.

bittercynic 7y ago
Much of the noise from small planes is from the propeller(s), so it might not help much.
- darksaints 7y ago
  For retrofits like this, the noise will go down a bit because the engines are inside the fuselage.
throwawaysea 7y ago
Not necessarily - a gas engine operates at a different RPM and has a gearbox to the prop while these are direct drive.
nordsieck 7y ago
I believe the real benefit of electric planes is the maintenance cost. Most small planes require that the engine be torn down and inspected / parts replaced on a regular (per flight hour) basis. An electric motor may have a longer service life than an engine, and is almost certainly much less expensive to service.

scottmsul 7y ago

Still seems a bit far from replacing jet engines? This article was going on about fuel emissions in the entire aviation industry, this is just an electric propeller. Anyone know how far we are from electric jets? Is such a thing even possible?

squilliam 7y ago
A modern jet engine is just a shrouded propeller that happens to be powered by a jet turbine. An electric ducted fan would be the battery-powered equivalent.
- aphextron 7y ago
  >A modern jet engine is just a shrouded propeller that happens to be powered by a jet turbine. No, it's not. A propellor creates thrust by slicing the air and creating lift just like a wing, but in a forward direction. A jet engine's fan blades create no thrust in themselves. They provide the compression needed for combustion to occur within the engine, and thrust is created by the expelling of hot exhaust gasses.
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    The bypass part of a turbofan does generate thrust.
  - agurk 7y ago
    That is a description of a turbojet - the earliest type of aero jet engines[0]. GP is referring to modern turbofans which are defined by having a bybass - i.e. air that is compressed and then expelled rearwards without passing through the main turbine body[1]. This is done to trade the high speed of the jet exhaust for a larger amount of air moving more slowly. Making the speed of the jet plume closer to the true airspeed of the aircraft makes it more efficient. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbojet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbojet [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan
    - 7y ago

seabrookmx 7y ago

I look at the Harbour Air planes out my office window! Super neat project, although I agree with other commenters that "fully-electric commercial flight" is misleading. If I walk down there and book a flight, I'm not going to be in an e-plane. It's still very much experimental.

ghostpepper 7y ago
If you can see the seaplane terminal in downtown Vancouver from your office then, IMHO, you have one of the best views in the city. Enjoy :-)
- james_pm 7y ago
  I would get no work done in that office. When in Vancouver, I spend a good amount of my down time sitting at the Convention Centre watching the comings and goings in the harbour.
- seabrookmx 7y ago
  Victoria actually!
deepspace 7y ago
Yes, when you start digging into the details, it turns out that they filled the plane, a de Havilland Beaver, to the gills with batteries. The batteries physically consume all the interior space, leaving no room for passengers, and they bring the takeoff weight to the max that the (electric) engine can manage. With all that, the range is 15 minutes, with a 25 minute reserve. That is not even enough to reach Nanaimo, which is the closest town the planes could potentially serve. So, neat demonstrator but a long, long way off from viable commercial operation.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  This isn't true. If you want to keep making these claims, you're going to have to provide a source. For instance, there's plenty of space behind the pilot that is empty. There's plenty of interior space as the batteries are placed below. Additionally, they are using bulletproof flight-certified batteries which are much lower than the typical good lithium ion batteries used in, say, a Tesla. They're just for the prototype. "“These are batteries that NASA is using, but they’re not batteries that we’d use if we were going to try and make it economical to fly today, because they’re very low in watt-hours per kilogram,” explained McDougall." The electric motor (not an engine) is 560kW, almost twice the original 336kW radial motor, so it's not in the least underpowered (as you imply).

semi-extrinsic 7y ago

You can do small aircraft like this, no problem. The trouble is you can't scale it up, due to how quickly the power and energy demands go up. This thing is 560 kW and gets a range of 86 nmi; an A320 is around 40 000 kW and has a range of 3 500 nmi, while an A380 is around 80 000 kW and has a range of 8 500 nmi. Going from this DHC-2 to the A380 requires an increase in energy storage by a factor of around 14 000x, while the max takeoff weight ratio between the two planes is only 250. Airbus is developing a hybrid electric jet, the E-Fan X. They've done the math. When their CTO was asked about the possibility of an all-electric A320, the response was """ Assuming for a moment that we’d be able to rely on batteries 30 times as energy dense as that of today, an A320 would be able to fly with half of its payload for one-fifth of its current range, 500nm max. So, assuming a battery which today does not exist... It doesn’t work, purely electrical will not work. """

darksaints 7y ago
Fuel cells are a possibility. There is some pretty high power densities (2.5kw/kg for SOFCs, 10kw/kg for less efficient PEMs). Electric motors are now reaching 15kw/kg. For comparison, a GE90 is about 10kw/kg, and older turbofans down to 2kw/kg. Running on liquid hydrogen presents some problems that are definitely solvable, but SOFCs can run on pretty much any hydrocarbon fuels at extremely high efficiencies (50-60%, 80% with combined cycles, compared to the ~45% that jet engines get). I actually think the future may be a lot more simple than we're making it out to be. With some slight modifications to design, we could run existing turbofans on liquid hydrogen fuel. The biggest objection that most people have is the storage of hydrogen...but liquid hydrogen doesn't actually need to be stored in cryo tanks as long as the fuel is being used at faster rates than it evaporates. That's not a problem with jet engine consumption rates...low tech insulation may be sufficient.
- avmich 7y ago
  There reportedly is an additional threat to the climate coming from inversion traces (modifies enough of Earth albedo?), so if we're delivering water to high altitudes, it's still not good. Electrical motors would solve this; if we'd be able to avoid dispersing water from fuel cells up high, that could work. LH2 has storage - and safety - issues still not solved. Toyota Mirai approaches it from a different angle, with some other shortcomings.

nuccy 7y ago

I'm a big fan of renewable energy (solar, wind), electric cars and likely electric planes (not yet available, so hard to say). But my biggest concern is that all this will eventually lead to people decisions being affected by rather this hipe, than common sense (like with nuclear power, which is the greenest currently available peak/off-peak source of energy). Something similar can also happen, as with Saturn 5/Apollo, after some time we will lose the technology, because people retire, workshops are disassembled. We can loose technology of efficient piston and jet engines, nuclear reactors, ultrasonic flight, et al. This by itself is fine, batteries work fine obviously, though one can imagine conditions where it is not the case: Antarctica, Mars, Moon, space, etc. Just look at Juno space probe, which instead of small RTG uses huge solar arrays, which produce just few hundreds of watts on Jupiter orbit, while being capable or producing kilowatts on Earth one.

lemmox 7y ago

Adding a little context: Harbour Air is a short-hop seaplane operator working out of downtown Vancouver. Most of their flights are ~ 100km across the Georgia Straight to Victoria and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Trips are ~ 30 minutes IIRC. There is no bridge to this island and the alternative is a fairly large commute involving a ferry. It's quite convenient to have a direct connection between downtown Vancouver and downtown Victoria. Fuel is quite pricey here, they might end up saving a couple hundred dollars per hour in fuel and engine upkeep costs.

novok 7y ago
The island cluster around victoria, vancouver and seattle is pretty much a perfect use case for electric airplanes today too. Making a bridge would be incredibly expensive and be a lot of firsts in bridge making, so it's not worth it: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-reports-and-reference/reports-studies/vancouver-island/fixed-link https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transporta...

jonawesomegreen 7y ago

I found this article by the CBC more informative then the one linked: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electric-seaplane-float-plane-test-flight-harbour-air-1.5390816 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electric-sea... > "It's a prototype for sure," said McDougall, "but in every way it's a high-tech piece of equipment, which is kind of ironic considering the airframe that it's attached to is actually one year younger than me — 62 years old." > McDougall's flight is the first exercise in what is expected to be a two-year process to get the e-plane certified for commercial use. For some context Harbour Air is a scheduled floatplane airline operating primarily between Vancouver and Victoria in BC. Since there is no bridge connecting the capital Victoria to the largest city Vancouver, they offer short flights on seaplanes that connect downtown to downtown as an alternative to ferries or larger airplanes that arrive at the airports further outside of the downtown core of either city. In this constrained context it seems like an electric airplane could work really well and provide fuel savings and a quieter ride. They also seem to have some ambition with these electric aircraft to provide other short range flights. > MagniX CEO Roei Ganzarski said Dec. 10, 2019, will go down in history as the start of the electric aviation age, and believes the e-plane will eventually revolutionize how people travel by making short- to mid-range flights more economical than driving. "It means you can stop driving for three, five, seven hours to get to a destination because there's no other way to get there," he said. "It means you can fly in a small aircraft from a small airport to a small airport.... It's faster, cheaper and more convenient than any other method of travel, including going with a standard airline."

dang 7y ago
Ok, we'll change to that from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50738983. Thanks!
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  I feel ever so slightly ripped off :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760768

awkward 7y ago

I wonder if the limitations of electric flight will impact the infrastructure - big, dense networks of airports to support short range flights across the world.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

Carbon neutral biofuel or fuel made via excess solar/wind should probably be the goal. Fuel cells might be viable too and the regulated commercial nature of planes probably means that hydrogen's storage and pumping headaches wouldn't suffer the consumer problems. But biofuels are probably the way to go for now. There are probably hybrid airship designs with solar panels that could do lower cost shipping. All that extra surface area from the blimp can be covered in solar panels or those fancy solar paints.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago
https://www.varialift.com/page/specification-arh-50 https://www.varialift.com/page/specification-arh-50 200mph at altitude... well, with the jetstream it seems. Also, could electromag catapults help with takeoff?
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Oh, and another thing, while long haul flights won't be impacted, self-driving cars and trucks will obliterate overland short hop flights, and for trucking probably medium range (1000miles) as well. 12 hours of driving 7pm to 7am overnight at 50mph average is 600 miles, and at 70mph with some convergent infrastructure would be 840 miles.

ska 7y ago

Some perhaps useful context: Harbour air operates the worlds largest sea plane service, the majority of it between Vancouver (city) and Vancouver Island (mostly Victoria). They are a perfect test bed for this, as the in air time is about 15-20 min for most routes. (less 100km/60m ). So while electric is a long way from long haul domestic routes, let alone international, I could see it taking over specific services like this fairly quickly, at least relatively speaking. I can see why they are experimenting with it. Apparently they plan to have certification for this aircraft in the next 2 years, but early days yet.

Gibbon1 7y ago
I'm waiting to see if Eviations Alice actually fly's and meets spec's. They're claiming 600 miles of range at around $200/hr. If they can hit that then they are not only competitive in existing markets. But new ones.
pedalpete 7y ago
I wouldn't count out international so quickly. Once they've got Victoria sorted, it would be great to see them extend down to Everett, Washington to link up Seattle. It's 68 miles from Vancouver to Victoria, 98 Miles Vancouver to Everett. Theoretically, they could fly out of White Rock to reduce that distance as well.
- ska 7y ago
  Yes I didn’t mean to exclude short haul international.
m-i-l 7y ago
Logan Air are also planning on "the the world's first electric–powered commercial passenger flights" in 2021[0] using a converted Britten-Norman Islander. It is similarly for an island hopping service, with the shortest flight just 1.7 miles (typically around 1 minute) which it sounds like this converted DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver should be able to manage. [0] https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/islands/1893676/electric-plane-plan-for-islands-receives-uk-government-cash/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/islands/1893676/el...

rconti 7y ago

Tangential; I took a Kenmore Air seaplane flight from Seattle (South Lake Union) to Victoria this summer, and it was absolutely amazing. I loved every second of it, and can't recommend it highly enough. 45 minutes flying time, so quick and convenient. We walked to and from hotels on both end. When I lived in the northwest, it was trivial to drive+ferry to Victoria, even though it was very slow. I always thought the Clipper hydrofoil, let alone flying, were unfathomably expensive luxuries. But as a tourist without a car and on a limited schedule, suddenly the Clipper (hydrofoil passenger-only ferry from downtown) and flying seem like reasonable options versus having to rent a car, pay for fuel, take a car ferry, drive a bunch on both ends, pay for parking, etc. In the end, I think Kenmore cost less than 2x what the Clipper would have cost us. Not cheap, but absolutely worth it for a novel one-time experience. One passenger even remarked that the seaplane flight was cheaper than flying from Sea-Tac to Victoria airport, before even factoring in the fact that neither airport is near the major city you're coming from or going to.

pi-rat 7y ago

I'm pretty sure we beat you guys to the the first electric plane able to water land here in Norway[1], or google translate[2]. :P [1]: https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/elfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pilot-matte-nodlande-i-arendal-1.14660687 https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/elfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pil... [2]: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fsorlandet%2Felfly-med-avinor-sjefen-som-pilot-matte-nodlande-i-arendal-1.14660687 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Patrick_Devine 7y ago

I've seen a lot of skeptics and nay-sayers talking about this project, but I feel like there is a fundamental mis-understanding of why this is significant. No, it's not going to compete with jet airliners even in the remotely near future. High-bypass turbofan engines have enormous cost advantages over traditional piston engines. It's almost always more economical to use a turbofan engine to power aircraft in anything more than a short hop. I see this being a classic case of something like Mainframes vs. PCs however. Most people don't equate flying with General Aviation because GA has traditionally been so cost prohibitive, much the same way that mainframes were so cost prohibitive in the 60's and 70's. There are a few airlines, like Harbour Air, and Mokulele, that currently offer a short haul flights (usually over water) where people are willing to pay a lot more money. There are benefits like frequency of flights, but the big ones for me are not having to queue up for security, and being able to bring liquids on board. My wife once brought a can of soup on board Mokulele. Try doing that on Hawaiian. If this can bring down the cost of short haul flights, particularly those around 200-250 miles, it could be extremely appealing, especially when coupled with ride hailing. I would much rather take a 45 minute flight and get Lyft on the other side, than spend 3 hours sitting in a car stuck in traffic. GA can fly out of smaller terminals and smaller airports. San Carlos (SQL) to South Lake Tahoe is a 40ish minute flight in a GA aircraft, but can be 5+ hours in traffic on I-80.

MagnumPIG 7y ago
I know nothing about planes, but an interesting detail is that everyone owns a PC now. If tiny airplanes got cheap, who knows...

draklor40 7y ago

sounds kinda weird. IC engine planes get more efficient with lower fuel (lower weight)whereas with Electric ones, you still have to carry the weight around with lower power.

dazlari 7y ago

While the title may have it right, later in the article they state that this is the first electric aircraft... well they've been flying in WA for some time now https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/aussie-first-electric-plane-takes-to-wa-skies/ https://particle.scitech.org.au/tech/aussie-first-electric-p...

floki999 7y ago

Apparently not quite the first to get there https://www.h55.ch/ https://www.h55.ch/

chinathrow 7y ago
"first seaplane"

exabrial 7y ago

For three minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells are likely the right answer using current technology

davedx 7y ago
TU Delft is looking at this. https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2019/lr/delft-student-team-takes-to-the-air-on-liquid-hydrogen/ https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2019/lr/delft-student-team-takes-t...

rbanffy 7y ago

I know using an already certified airframe saves money, but I'd love if it looked more modern.