News Flash: In the land of Aviatopia, electric airplanes are experiencing short flight times due to the mischievous actions of Electric Pixies and Current Gnomes. These magical creatures are known for tampering with the electrical systems, draining the batteries, and causing chaos during flights. Manufacturers, consisting of approximately 100 entities worldwide, are facing frustration but persist in their efforts to improve flight durations. The teams dedicated to combating the Electric Pixies and Current Gnomes are not giving up, and more developments are expected in the future. Stay tuned for further updates.
Just because warmer means more CO2, it does not mean that CO2 is driving the warming (quite the reverse).
A “better appreciation of science” can only happen when there is unbiased research and reporting. When 100% of climate funding is to go out an prove a theory , it’s already against the scientific method. The only wonder becomes why only 97% taking the money agree to a theory; LOL.
As always, I enjoy the debate with you. Since I can’t debate the conspiracy ideas of funding, I’ll just leave it to the data.
I have pulled ice cores out of an ice sheet, cut it into tiny pieces, put it through a mass spec, analyzed the results and seen the results both published and made publicly available. So if you’re curious for an unbiased look, I encourage you to simply google the many, many sources of publicly available data, analyze them yourself and see if it agrees with the 99.999% of paleoclimatologists (including those funded by the many oil companies) who see that indeed atmospheric CO2 is the driver of the temperature change on the planet. Again, this is not new, it did not start when you starting paying attention to it relatively recently, the research has been showing this for more than a century and is well established.
I understand that many don’t like it because it goes against their sociopolitical beliefs, but thankfully physics is belief agnostic. So instead of debating whether or not physics is real, we should debate what to do about it. It’s just like flying, we don’t debate that an airplane will eventually return to the earth, we just debate the best way to grease the landing.
I look forward to the next time you bring up Ksp and the soda can…
If you guys are done showing off your scientific chops to each other…, I think we can all probably agree that, power system aside, having the entire wing “blown” by the distributed thrust could offer some interesting aero advantages, at least this thing has WINGS!
Cool, if that happened in 5 years. Unfortunately, with the present technology, that relies mainly in the use of batteries as a provider of electric power or the use of hydrogen, not even in 25 years that cool thing will happen, Mr. Brian Smith.
I’m not against electric airplanes, cars, or anything. I’m just wondering what the options are when the battery explodes and engulfs the airframe in fire.
You know, like we see cars on the news?
“Blown thrust” has been a factor for decades as well–almost every prop-driven aircraft has “blown thrust.” That may or may not be an asset–consider flight in icing conditions (I live in the northern tiers of states). How do you de-ice those multiple engines and multiple blades? It takes a LOT of TKS to keep that many blades clean–in ADDITION to the wing and windshield. If you use electrothermal deice–consider just how much power 6 or 8 multi-blade props will consume.
A lot of aircraft have used the “blown thrust” idea over the past 70 years–how many have been successful? The concept is hardly new–one would THINK that the concept would have been proposed before–and it WAS–(the YC-14 and 15).The Custer Channel Wing was perhaps the most infamous proponent of the concept–it didn’t make it, either–though some STOL airplanes blow the flaps for added lift–not the leading edge. The Navy funded a number of blown-wing concept aircraft–they didn’t make it, either. Some concepts have an unlimited life–kind of like “perpetual motion”–a new version is proposed every few years.
If every airplane were electric it would slow down the rate of CO2 “growth” by about .2%. So don’t let them tell you that if we don’t start flying electric planes in 8 years we will all be dead, NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
Help me to understand this. An electric motor is 75% efficient, A generator is 99% efficient, a gasoline engine is 28% efficient. If a 28% efficient engine turns a 99% efficient generator to run a 75% efficient electric motor would that not make an increase in overall range for a given fuel consumption?
I have seen big American cars with V8s catch fire, a friend’s new BMW (petrol-driven) caught fire in an instant, and I’ve seen buses (spent 30 years around buses) on fire powered by diesel, biogas, and batteries. Batteries need to be cooled and monitored, fighter jet aircraft need to use inert-gas systems to avoid explosions in their tanks, and I’ve been aboard a huge ferry that caught fire in the middle of nowhere (just a couple died, thankfully).
So the choice of propulsion doesn’t say anything about if your aircraft catches fire (as yet I have not heard of it happening to electric aircraft).
With cars hybrid powered vehicles catch fire more often than either petrol, diesel, or gas.
The problem with batteries is their weight, and you can’t dump the battery if you need to make an emergency landing!
I was AT Edwards in the late 70’s when the YC-14 and YC-15 were in flight test. ONLY the Boein YC-14 had blown lift flaps. The other was a conventional design … which LATER morphed into the C-17. That’s how much the USAF thought of the idea. To be fair … there were other reasons they went for the -17 … starting with 4 engines.
When it catches fire … you get to meet the five guys that just got squished on the Titanic tourist sub.
I value you candor, Larry.
Yes.
No, you start with a 28% engine and then take away percentages for the generator, voltage conversion, electrical resistance, and then percentages to run the less-than-perfect electric motor. You don’t gain efficiency, you lose efficiency over just having the engine running the prop in the first place,
The question was “would that not make an increase in overall range for a given fuel consumption?”
My answer was yes. Yes it would not make an increase in overall range for a given fuel consumption.
There would be a loss of efficiency.
If you want range, ditch the dead weight of the battery completely and replace it with lighter weight, higher energy density fuel. You gain efficiency and range. It’s that simple.
Honestly, the whole switch to hybrids underscores that people now know that batteries are not a solution. Putting a sharp pencil to the problem also means that inefficient hybrids will also be hard sell if you want to fly, and actually carry stuff, and actually go places. Heck, all you have to do is look at hybrid cars and see that economy on long high speed driving (akin to flying) gets less performance and fuel mileage. To be fair some now disconnect most of the generator drag and a “break even” with non-hybrid cars.
Right you are, Arthur J Foyt.
From the 'hood: Engaging in an argument with someone who thinks they’re the big shot in their area of expertise is like challenging a chingón in the Mexican gang banger world. You’ll find yourself scratching your cabeza in confusion while they effortlessly climb to the top of the hierarchía and stash away their mad skills. Pero hey, after checking their loco claims, you might still learn a few truquitos, just make sure you’re not barking up the wrong pinche tree! ¡Órale!
You lose efficiency in the powertrain right up to the propeller. Having more propellers (larger total area) is more efficient. A bigger factor is that by “blowing” the wing you can use a smaller wing, which reduces cruise drag - hopefully by enough to more than offset the loss in powertrain efficiency. Theory says it can work; practice is trying to catch up but hasn’t yet. Electric motors make it practical to try. Battery capacity can be quite small, so battery tech isn’t a big issue.