I really hope this will catch on for once, it could be a great solution for all those people who insist they have to do domestic flights… (in countries like Germany which aren’t that big comparatively speaking)
Yeah unfortunately this is only viable for extremely short flights 100-200 miles as the article says. Batteries are just too heavy and planes needs too much power for anything more.
These would be the perfect private jet for the ultra rich who take a jet to work a few minutes away, or to go shopping, but for commercial flights they’re basically not an option until we have a huge breakthrough in battery tech. We need the mythical “coming next year” for the last 20 years “solid state batteries”.
It looks great for small commercial flights between islands and such, even just for urgent freight, fuel has more complicated logistics and avgas has lead in it.
IIRC take off and landing is using a huge portion of the fuel needed in regular planes. If you can use this new technology to do those manoeuvres, it would also be a big win for general flights.
I really hope this will catch on for once, it could be a great solution for all those people who insist they have to do domestic flights… (in countries like Germany which aren’t that big comparatively speaking)
Yeah unfortunately this is only viable for extremely short flights 100-200 miles as the article says. Batteries are just too heavy and planes needs too much power for anything more.
These would be the perfect private jet for the ultra rich who take a jet to work a few minutes away, or to go shopping, but for commercial flights they’re basically not an option until we have a huge breakthrough in battery tech. We need the mythical “coming next year” for the last 20 years “solid state batteries”.
It looks great for small commercial flights between islands and such, even just for urgent freight, fuel has more complicated logistics and avgas has lead in it.
Yeah that’s it. It’s not a matter of “catching on”, it’s a matter of better battery tech emerging which is more affordable.
Personally I think high speed rail is a better bet. All the tech already exists and the weight of the batteries is less problematic.
IIRC take off and landing is using a huge portion of the fuel needed in regular planes. If you can use this new technology to do those manoeuvres, it would also be a big win for general flights.
Yes and hopefullybreduce pollution and noise levels around airports