Aesquire
Well-Known Member
After all this time, I think I can confidently say the Thread Title is Wrong.
It's probably Right, today, depending upon your definition of significant.
I'm going to propose using the Olde idea of airplane range.
New York/Philadelphia/D.C. Urban corridor to Chicago.
DC-3 range. There's a reason Chicago is the Air Transport Hub. Inertia. That's a 1930s system, and it won't change as long as Illinois has Senators. No one today would pick a crud weather location for a hub.
But that early airliner range gives us a fair metric for useful flight distances.
For commercial use!
Recreational flying doesn't have the time constraints, the urgency, nor the time bound schedule aspects, usually.
It's not a big change in customer inconvenience to get off a plane at gate 6 & trot to gate 2. The airplane you just ran away from can then get sanitized, cleaned, and restocked with stale pretzels in tiny bags, while it's recharged/refueling. The hours of downtime the Airline has to factor into their schedules can be transparent to customers. ( except in ticket price )
I'll point out that if the plane will spend 4 hours on the charger, there's no excuse NOT to pay a team to vacuum & wipe up & deodorize. I'd argue a dirty E-Bus airline can't be trusted to care about your health in smells or maintenance.
But private flying you aren't swapping airplanes at lunch and urination breaks. You are in the same quandary as Tesla owners. You need to go from charger to charger. And wait.
Or leave the plane/wait while a paid service person drives a truck with a diesel generator to your plane. ( or car ) Rich people can do that. They can also pay to have precharged cars/planes waiting for them. I'm not on that Venn diagram. But if you consider Bugattis as impulse buys, you enjoy.
I'll speculate that until an Electric airliner, ( Fokker size, not 747 ) has the range to do JFK-ORD they'll be boutique toys for self absorbed virtue signalling. I'll be less rude about private pilots with Electric light planes. You might be just a fellow tech nerd with money. ( unlike me, who doesn't ) And I'm all in favor of electro -fleas and Black Fly and motor glider applications.
In time, things will change.
On a theoretical question. We talk energy density. Btu/watts/etc. per Pound/Kilo.
But what if they develop a battery with, say, 3 times the Kwh per Kilogram of a current ( Tesla/phone ) chemistry battery, but 3 times the Volume? Not Aerogel light, but much less than gasoline or Lithium Polymer?
I'd think you'd try to fill the wing or the front 1/3 with battery.
It's probably Right, today, depending upon your definition of significant.
I'm going to propose using the Olde idea of airplane range.
New York/Philadelphia/D.C. Urban corridor to Chicago.
DC-3 range. There's a reason Chicago is the Air Transport Hub. Inertia. That's a 1930s system, and it won't change as long as Illinois has Senators. No one today would pick a crud weather location for a hub.
But that early airliner range gives us a fair metric for useful flight distances.
For commercial use!
Recreational flying doesn't have the time constraints, the urgency, nor the time bound schedule aspects, usually.
It's not a big change in customer inconvenience to get off a plane at gate 6 & trot to gate 2. The airplane you just ran away from can then get sanitized, cleaned, and restocked with stale pretzels in tiny bags, while it's recharged/refueling. The hours of downtime the Airline has to factor into their schedules can be transparent to customers. ( except in ticket price )
I'll point out that if the plane will spend 4 hours on the charger, there's no excuse NOT to pay a team to vacuum & wipe up & deodorize. I'd argue a dirty E-Bus airline can't be trusted to care about your health in smells or maintenance.
But private flying you aren't swapping airplanes at lunch and urination breaks. You are in the same quandary as Tesla owners. You need to go from charger to charger. And wait.
Or leave the plane/wait while a paid service person drives a truck with a diesel generator to your plane. ( or car ) Rich people can do that. They can also pay to have precharged cars/planes waiting for them. I'm not on that Venn diagram. But if you consider Bugattis as impulse buys, you enjoy.
I'll speculate that until an Electric airliner, ( Fokker size, not 747 ) has the range to do JFK-ORD they'll be boutique toys for self absorbed virtue signalling. I'll be less rude about private pilots with Electric light planes. You might be just a fellow tech nerd with money. ( unlike me, who doesn't ) And I'm all in favor of electro -fleas and Black Fly and motor glider applications.
In time, things will change.
On a theoretical question. We talk energy density. Btu/watts/etc. per Pound/Kilo.
But what if they develop a battery with, say, 3 times the Kwh per Kilogram of a current ( Tesla/phone ) chemistry battery, but 3 times the Volume? Not Aerogel light, but much less than gasoline or Lithium Polymer?
I'd think you'd try to fill the wing or the front 1/3 with battery.
