6 ms·
From the video: Range: 125 miles all electric 500 miles with hybrid system (electric + conventional turbo prop)
by kooi 15d ago
From the video:
Range: 125 miles all electric
500 miles with hybrid system (electric + conventional turbo prop)
- ajross 13d ago[flagged]
- runako 13d ago> 500 miles with hybrid system > the grueling two hour drives What country are you in, and perhaps more importantly, what roads are you driving on?
- ajross 13d agoTo repeat: the market is filled with fuel-driven turboprops. This only wins if it's better, and it's only better if it's cheaper. Is it cheaper? If it's cheaper they should say, and not spend time talking about "all electric" range in a regime that doesn't want aircraft at all. And sure, there are places in the world that don't have limited access highways. But the 125 mile range is already served very well by piston-driven lightplanes! Again, who's going to buy one of these vs. just continuing to run their 40+ year old Beavers or Caravans or whatever? Also: if the only market for your high tech electric superplane startup is backcountry work in Alaska, you're probably never going to get funded to begin with.
- MBCook 13d agoIsland hoppers? Very few highways between the Hawaiian islands. Or Caribbean. Probably plenty of other places. There are tons of places in the world with short haul flights today, even if good highways exist. Every one of those planes is a potential target for replacement. You’re arguing most short haul flights shouldn’t exist. Maybe do, but they do.
- notahacker 13d agoI mean, for the all-electric distances it's pretty much a given that it's cheaper: fuel consumed is the largest item on airlines' expenditure. The bigger question is at what distance you start having to burn more fuel than if you weren't lugging batteries round with you. If it's [eventually] commercially competitive at 400m range it's going to be useful on a variety of routes currently operated by ATR-42s and Saab 340s etc, the sort of thing that's definitely not operated by 40 year old 9-seaters. If it isn't... well islands still exist, they're just a fairly small niche
- patapong 13d agoIt might be cheaper when internalizing the externalities of CO2 emissions. Once/If we start properly taxing the impact of these emissions, this plane could offer much cheaper flights then fossil fuel driven competition.
- runako 13d ago> If it's cheaper they should say I think you would be pleased at the very first selling points on their website, as well as on the product page. It seems they have at least considered the most obvious issue in their product space.
- RajT88 13d agoGotta be Germany and the Autobahn. The questions really are: What car are you driving? How are you not dead?
- ajross 13d agoBoth of you are misunderstanding the point: I was responding (pretty clearly I thought!) to the ridiculous "all electric" range. Yes, it can go farther if you burn fuel. But so can a Dash-8, very effectively. No one is interested in hybrid range per se, only if the hybrid mode is more efficient.
- jillesvangurp 13d agoI live in Germany. 500 miles is more than essentially all domestic flights in Germany. Two hours driving by car from Berlin gets you nowhere all that interesting. You'd probably spend close to an hour just getting out of the city. Two hours might get you as far as Magdeburg or Dresden when traffic is mild. Good luck with that on a busy weekday. Dresden would be about 200km. Magdeburg is a bit closer to 160km. And much of the way you'd be facing speed limits. And traffic jams.
- RajT88 13d agorunako was making a joke about someone's grueling drive of 500 miles in 2 hours. ...Which would mean you're driving at 250mph.
- bryanlarsen 13d agoAccording to the video, 2/3rds of that range is for loiter and divert capability. It's illegal to fly a route without the capability to loiter and divert. You need 30-60 minutes of loiter + 100 miles of divert. This plane cannot be used on any route longer than about ~200 miles. Which can be driven in 2 hours, although obviously the OP was referring to the 120 mile electric range.
- arjie 13d ago> This plane cannot be used on any route longer than about ~200 miles. Which can be driven in 2 hours. Huh, perhaps then it wouldn’t be suited to places where people drive at that speed. In the US I doubt people drive 200 miles routinely in 2 hours. It would be closer to 3.5 h I think going by the routine 6 h it takes SF to LA which is about 350 mi. I think if you have very high speed road/rail transportation that dominates this across fixed routes. Road at 100 mph average definitely wins for flexibility.
- bryanlarsen 12d agoThere's a small but real market for < 120mile flights where geography makes a road between the two destinations impossible. "Puddle jumpers" is the standard term. However, the real market is for connecting flights to nearby small cities. For a transfer, you're already at the airport, you're already through security and you don't have your car. I'd never fly from Ottawa to Montreal (200km), but I do that flight quite regularly when I'm going to Europe.
- frollogaston 12d agoProbably half the people in this thread imagine LAX to SFO vs taking the 5 when thinking about long trips.
- mikeweiss 13d agoI feel as a civilization we are further behind in battery technology than we should be at this point.
- ajross 13d agoIt's chemistry, not technology. Motive engines that can suck ~70% of their reactant mass from the atmosphere have a horrifyingly unfair advantage.
- the_gastropod 13d agoI'm far too dumb to understand the intricacies of such technology, but the continued research into Lithium-air batteries seems incredibly inspiring. If we can figure that technology out, seems like it'd unlock a whole host of battery-powered transportation options.
- bdamm 13d agoI'm pretty excited for the hybrid airplane. Use battery charge to get up to altitude. Hybrid power during cruise and top off the battery with the leftover power. Far less power requirements, far less fuel use, better climb performance, and can use the most efficient engine rather than hugely inefficient but power dense turbines. And as a bonus, put the prop power anywhere you want. Designs that distribute props across the leading endge, or right on the leading edge of the rudder, are exciting. What an age to witness.
- rbanffy 13d ago> Designs that distribute props across the leading endge, or right on the leading edge of the rudder, are exciting From a purely aesthetic point of view, pusher props are way cooler. If the wings are far back and the plane has canards, even cooler.
- bdamm 12d agoTractor props have the benefit of creating an airstream over the wings which lets you generate lift at lower speeds - this is why leading-edge props are so interesting. Pushers can’t use that bonus feature of the airstream.
- rbanffy 10d agoI know, but pushers look so much cooler… Think of the Piagio Avanti, the various Rutan designs, or the Velocity planes. IIRC, they also allow quieter cabins.
- pkulak 13d agoCan I be the one to make the obligatory train comment? Moving hundreds of people 500 miles in comfort, using only electricity, is also a VERY solved problem.
- chrishare 13d agoTrains are great, but they can only go where tracks go. Planes are faster, too, noting that boarding times can dilute that. Trains are perfect for freight and super frequent routes, though.
- tmtvl 13d agoCommercial passenger planes can generally only lift off and on at dedicated facilities, though.
- jryle70 13d agoSo both can coexist? what's the issue? Why does HN waste energy on pointless pissing contests?
- tmtvl 12d agoYep, both can coexist perfectly well, in fact rail + flight + water + cycling should be good enough to account for the vast majority of mobility requirements.
- 7952 13d agoThose facilities can be much more modest and can scale up and down depending on location. Particularly for smaller short haul aircraft.
- pkulak 13d agoMaybe. But they can almost never be in places where people actually need to be; like central cities.
- chrishare 13d agoThe video cites the large number of existing flights that are short enough for the electric. I am not sure they should be judged based on whether they make air travel more appealing overall - making it cheaper and lower emission is plenty.
- dang 13d agoCan you please not be snarky in HN comments and not post shallow dismissals of other people's work? Both of these are in the site guidelines, as you must know: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. There's room for thoughtful skepticism and critique, but not dismissive sarcasm, nor supercilious putdowns like "Yeah...", "just a joke", "yet another high wing puddle jumper". All that is exactly what we ask commenters to avoid on this site. As the guidelines say, "A good critical comment teaches us something." Your account unfortunately has a long history of breaking the site guidelines—enough, I'm afraid to say, that I instinctively brace myself when I see your username. We've asked you about this multiple times over the years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29222114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29222114 (Nov 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697507 (Jan 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21094881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21094881 (Sept 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20314315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20314315 (June 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19469358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19469358 (March 2019) If you wouldn't mind taking the intended spirit of this site more to heart and really correcting this pattern, we'd appreciate it. You're obviously knowledgeable and a good commenter apart from this, but it's a problem.
- ajross 13d agoFair enough. I'd view it as "florid" vs. "shallow", but it's not my opinion that matters and I fully agree that there's a spectrum between "strongly held" and "offensive" and you have to put the boundary somewhere. I'm going to push back on one bit though, which I suspect is just a misunderstanding on your part: "yet another high wing puddle jumper" is not remotely dismissive or trivializing! Being "high wing" is purely descriptive, and correct, and a "puddle jumper" is a widely used term for short-range passenger aircraft (like the Dash 8, which I also mentioned), here's a great reddit thread for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/rs7i4m/what_is_the_origin_of_the_term_puddle_jumper_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/rs7i4m/what_is_t... I'm not saying this to make the designers feel bad verbally. I'm literally saying they've produced an aircraft that competes poorly in the market with something DeHavilland was selling in the 1980's. My first sentence was almost 100% sarcasm though and I'll take the hit on that.
- yoavm 13d agoIn the video he explains that the goal of the hybrid system is mainly to be used when for some unexpected reason the airplane cannot land at its original destination.
- Gibbon1 13d agoThere are maybe some advantages to a hybrid system. The higher reliability of electric. Losing an turbine engine doesn't mean asymmetrical thrust. Plane still flies normally. Losing an engine on takeoff you still have full power. Electric motors spin up faster than turbines. Which means faster throttle response. Which you need when hit with a wind shear on landing. Take off and landing under electric power means much less noise. Efficiency, you can increase the number of props or fans to get a much higher bypass ratio. Worth noting the plane in the video has four props.
- newsclues 13d agoI’ve been tinkering with the idea of a hybrid system where the ICE system is its own bolt on component to an electric aircraft that is used for takeoff and altitude before it detaches and returns to the airfield before the aircraft cruiser on electric power. Could even have a rocket launch version for cargo
- coredog64 13d agoSeparating in flight is a very tricky problem that requires massive amounts of testing and can go very wrong.
- newsclues 13d agoThey had fuel drop tanks made of paper in WW2. Cool drones can test and validate the solution without risking a pilot!
- rotringlvr 13d ago[dead]
- gonzalohm 13d agoYou can use some kind of catapult for that
- detourdog 13d ago