Posted on 09/17/2022 6:33:31 PM PDT by lowbridge
You still can’t pack a lithium battery in your checked luggage, but by decade’s end you may be held aloft by aircraft engines powered by lithium batteries.
Thursday, Air Canada announced a purchase agreement with Heart Aerospace for 30 of its 30-passenger ES-30 electric-hybrid aircraft it plans to put into service in 2028.
Last year, United Airlines announced the purchase of 100 Heart Aerospace 19-seat all-electric ES-19 planes, and its regional partner, Mesa Airlines (probably better know as United Express), said it was also purchasing 100 ES-19 aircraft, Business Insider reported.
United’s venture capital fund, United Airlines Ventures, joined Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Mesa Airlines in investing in Heart Aerospace, a Swedish startup, with hopes of taking delivery of ES-19 planes by 2026.
Electric planes operate completely on battery power; electric-hybrids feature on-board supplemental generators that use standard aviation fuel.
The electric or electric-hybrid aircraft are envisioned for use in short-haul regional and commuter service. Turboprop planes have long been used in this service but customer demand forced regional carriers to switch to small jets.
Using jets for short hauls is very expensive, according to a Business Insider report from 2020. Electric planes are limited in range, but with lower operating costs than jets, they might be workable in regional service.
That’s apparently the direction Air Canada, United and Mesa are going — electric vehicles for short hauls.
The goal of the ES-19 is a range of 250 miles by the end of the decade. Air Canada said the ES-30 hybrid can fly all-electric 124 miles and 244 miles with its supplemental generators. The range more than doubles to 500 miles if the plane carries only 25 passengers instead of 30.
But here come the problems. First of all, reduction of passenger load on the ES-30 to increase range is
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
Not for long.
“Multiple airlines say you’re wrong” just a reminder physics is not determined by woke corporate marketing departments. Physics doesn’t care how intense your devotion to batteries is the fact remains their energy density is two orders of magnitude less than petroleum fuels.
Sign me up! Can’t wait to fly my favorite relatives and friends hither and yon!
Our electric motor?
You work for the company?
Dude... they frigging ask the question about packing lithium batteries at the ticket gate every time.
there will be huge stockpiles of dead batteries everywhere- They gonna dump em in the oceans?
It really wasn’t all that scary. Just nausea inducing. The copilot got out after we landed and started immediately chowing down on a sub. The pilot was a friend of mine and said afterwards that happens more often than you think. What really scared me one time was I saw a plane coming in the other direction. Our turboprop 350-400. The other plane about the same closing 700-800mph. Passed close enough to see pilot’s faces very briefly in other plane.
Does Karen count as a cuss word?
;-)
Yep, airlines (esp. “regional”) are all about “turn & burn” for 16 hours+ per day...if not “hot swappable” batteries then they will be running the planes in “hybrid mode” (jet fuel turbo shaft electric generators running). Sounds like an “ESG”/virtue signaling play/ploy by the airlines...”hey, look, we are doing something!!”.
A Boeing 767 has a capacity of 23,980 gallons of jet fuel, weighing about 156,000 lbs. and a payload capacity of 115,700 lbs.
The problem for batteries is that the plane has a maximum take-off weight of 412,000 lbs. Even without a payload, the battery powered plane would have a markefly shorter range than the present aircraft fully loaded.
It was actually a front heading west to east spawning thunderstorms over a large area for us, which is why we has to circle so long, but we had plenty of fuel. Battery powered flight is for woke idiots and kid’s models.
Airlines make money when they are carrying passengers. AOG (aircraft on ground) are not making money, and the idiocy of trying to use batteries to power aircraft will become obvious to even the most delusional of the EV fanboys as these absurdities are pressed into service.
The answer is to comply with the flight attendant’s instructions to hook your phone to the planes’ batteries and hope to keep the plane aloft. Several hundred passengers dumping all of their phones’ power into the aircraft’s batteries may give the flight a couple of minutes more flying time. I never said that it was a good idea.
But a battery powered plane won’t have several hundred passengers. Because of the weight of the batteries it will have a few dozen at most.
Wait until all the surrounding airports have weather issues.
Thanks for the reminder. I admit, I have gotten sloppy over the last few years myself.
All liberals aboard.
This is a real f-—ing stupid idea.
It’s a hybrid.
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