Airplanes that fly on electricity debut at Fresno’s Chandler Airport

Cursory googling claims you can generate hydrogen for $28/million-BTU with electricity @ 5c/kwh. 1 million BTU is about 8 gallons worth of jet fuel, so I would guess that jet fuel is much cheaper than $4/gallon?

I look forward to him tinkering with it some more. Hopefully he brings it out to this years FlightFest and I can see it in person.

Edit: Case in point, magnus effect plane - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6geOms33Dk

Imagine trying to fly that thing from Perth to Adelaide in individual 50-minute hops between outback airfields... Impossible.

I note it has "up to 60 minutes" under "endurance".

What I believe is the non-electric version of the plane is here: https://www.pipistrel.si/plane/alpha-trainer/overview

That has an endurance of 3.1 hours with its standard 50-liter fuel tanks.

It would also provide a charging option if you have to land at an airstrip that doesn't have an electrical outlet handy.

As people already commented, it wouldn't make much difference for the usual models, but you can design a plane that benefits from it. It may have some good uses (agriculture comes to mind), but probably won't be good for transportation.

For surveillance, comms, and very small-scale payload delivery (possibly drugs, far more likely munitions), ultralight drones with battery + solar could offer loiter / time-in-air and / or modest speed longer-distance capabilities.

On the other hands, if you were to beam a few hundred kilowatts by (carefully!!) aiming at the panels with a massive laser, you could power it this way, yes.

Bonus if you are doing it from a satellite: you can power a plane even across an ocean and don't need many ground stations. On the other hand you just built an orbital death ray so expect protests from, well, everybody.

Sometimes you see electric aircraft have multiple smaller engines and props, but that is mostly driven by structural or design concerns of their esoteric missions like needing to distribute the weight along a huge wing (Sunseeker) or needing to land in tight spots (various VTOL designs). Conventional planform electric aircraft don't have such extreme limitations so there is no point in sacrificing performance.

Existing gasoline single-prop engines typically have dual redundant ignition systems with segregated cylinders powering a unified driveshaft and camshaft, and I think your split inverter/motor/battery path is entirely in line with that approach to single-prop internal redundancy. It depends on the weight of the components, of course.

When I was taking my private pilot lessons, this was a very minor thing - maybe a couple of minutes spent on it every other flight? The only time we spent more than a couple of seconds adjusting the fuel/air mixture was when we were intentionally stalling the engine to practice recovery procedures.

And with a private pilot's license, before you would be allowed to rent any plane you generally have to show you've been checked off in one - that's one of the things your log book shows.

But aren't most pilots ultimately training to fly turbofan or turboprop planes?

Is fuel mixture and engine management for a piston-engine plane relevant to that?

I'd imagine that the jump from electric to larger planes is not much bigger than from a piston-engine flight training plane. But I'm not a pilot so I'm just speculating here.

Regardless, I'm sure it's easier to do everything but engine management first, and then do fewer sessions with just focus on engine management.

Examiners will likely ask about the FAA fuel minimums, but those are expressed in minutes of flight time, not gallons.

Also, the regulations tend to place a great deal of trust on pilot's judgement. According to FAA a person who just received his private pilot certificate in a Cessna 152 is eligible to fly a Pilatus with Airplane Single Engine Land PPC. Is it legal? Yes. Is it advisable one does so? No.

>> Pipistrel introduced an electric version called the Alpha Electro in 2015 at a price of 69,000 euros,[3] with technology from the Pipistrel WATTsUP proof of concept design, for short training. It has energy for one flight hour plus reserves, and can recharge in 45 minutes or have its batteries replaced in 5 minutes.[4] Instead of 78 lb (35.5 kg) of fuel, it has 277 pounds (126 kg) of LiPo cells, however the water cooled electric motor weighs 11 kg;[5] much less than the gasoline engine. It has a useful load of 380 lb, whereas a Cessna 152 has between 350-480 lb useful load.[6][7]

For comparison, the same weight of avgas (39 gal) will fly a Cessna 172 for just under 4 hours with reserves (assuming 9 gph), compared to the the Alpha’s 60 minutes.