Until the Orange Buffoon decides that an electric airplane is just unacceptable.

I spoke to the founder CEO and he told me, sir, the steam powered aircraft were much better. We could weld them. These electric planes, you gotta fly in Albert Einstein from MIT to repair them. Herp durr.

It's one megawatt, Michael, how much could it cost? Five dollars?

(It costs more than $5 to fill my EV from my municipal power utility, so I'm pretty confident that the $5 is hinging on a technicality of how they bought that power.)

Delivered more than one MW, not necessarily one MWh. Though I do mistrust the wording here, as well.

Until the Orange Buffoon decides that an electric airplane is just unacceptable.

Fortunately these won’t be in service in his lifetime. Or at least, the relevant part of it.

It's one megawatt, Michael, how much could it cost? Five dollars?

(It costs more than $5 to fill my EV from my municipal power utility, so I'm pretty confident that the $5 is hinging on a technicality of how they bought that power.)

Yeah, not saying the actual amount of energy is infuriating. I want to know how much juice the squeezed.

$5 of electricity for me is about 33kWh. Which is a fun coincidence because that's about the amount of energy in a gallon of gas (in EPA speak anyway).

It's one megawatt, Michael, how much could it cost? Five dollars?

(It costs more than $5 to fill my EV from my municipal power utility, so I'm pretty confident that the $5 is hinging on a technicality of how they bought that power.)

It was also a very short, low altitude flight (27m, max 1100 feet). I expect it was generally consuming well less than its max power for most of its flight, so it might not have consumed much more power than a large EV battery.

Until the Orange Buffoon decides that an electric airplane is just unacceptable.

I does seem likely to be confused with a windmill ... #facepalm

edit: Ninjaed... teach me to not do my usual search before posting...

Very cool.

Also, that makes airlines worrying about my portable power bank laughable.

I spoke to the founder CEO and he told me, sir, the steam powered aircraft were much better. We could weld them. These electric planes, you gotta fly in Albert Einstein from MIT to repair them. Herp durr.

Those All'Murican coal powered steam planes have wiped the pansy European sailplanes from the skies. Truly the epitome of progress. If coal was good enough for the Wright brothers, it is good enough for us.

It's one megawatt, Michael, how much could it cost? Five dollars?

(It costs more than $5 to fill my EV from my municipal power utility, so I'm pretty confident that the $5 is hinging on a technicality of how they bought that power.)

Unless they have special service, here's the rates:
https://www.cityofplattsburgh-ny.go...unicipal-lighting-department/TARIFF PAGES.pdf

Large general service is $0.0162/kWh. So, $5 means about 0.3 MWh. The flight was 30 minutes with a peak demand of 1 MW, presumably on takeoff.

Seems to track.

On the ES-30, I understand the extended range. But. Is the increased drag of not running the engines really worth the drag when on pure electric? I understand the range argument, but that means eventually the props on the electric go dead too at a certain point, and you are pure fuel mode. How is this not just a worse version versus generators? Is the loss on a generator so large that this is more efficient? it feels a bit like a failure to commit to the thing. Trains have been hybrids for decades, so there has to be more to the story than just wanting to use off the shelf parts for certification. Certainly. Right?

I'm no aeronautical engineer but can't you spin the props with electricity instead of the turbine? ie you add coils around the turbine shaft (away from the hot part) so you can spin the prop (or fan) using an electrically driven magnetic field. Then you have blended power: some turbine, some electric. Adjust the current and fuel to control the mix.

I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but windmilling props seems avoidable.

On the ES-30, I understand the extended range. But. Is the increased drag of not running the engines really worth the drag when on pure electric? I understand the range argument, but that means eventually the props on the electric go dead too at a certain point, and you are pure fuel mode. How is this not just a worse version versus generators? Is the loss on a generator so large that this is more efficient? it feels a bit like a failure to commit to the thing. Trains have been hybrids for decades, so there has to be more to the story than just wanting to use off the shelf parts for certification. Certainly. Right?

Pro-tip: if you write down how you would design things without thinking, and then a few seconds later you realize that's dumb, step back and think harder.

Pro-tip: if you write down how you would design things without thinking, and then a few seconds later you realize that's dumb, step back and think harder.

Unnecessarily mean spirited comment.

I'm usually an all-electric nazi, but I also understand the issues of physics; battery chemistry is nowhere near where it needs to be for commercial flights, but I'm all for reduced fossil fuel burning where logical and feasible.

Added bonus, if you can manage takeoff and landing on electricity alone, you'll lower the noise around the airport and make a lot of neighbours happy.

Especially true here in Montreal with the airport being in the middle of the city.

Until the Orange Buffoon decides that an electric airplane is just unacceptable.

If his airplane knowledge is as good as his grasp on aircraft carriers, he'll demand that the airplanes use steam.

Until the Orange Buffoon decides that an electric airplane is just unacceptable.

In a rain storm all the passengers would get electrocuted from the powerful electric motor.

“So I said, there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?" (actual quote)

And why abandon fossil fuel when Qatar is sending nice new palace jets, and the Saudi are chopping up undesirable journalists?

Curious what the battery longevity is in something like this. Not in flight time but cycles. I imagine theyre running hot to keep a plane in the air.

Wouldn't a plane actually be easier to cool since you have a tremendous amount of sub-120F air to vent heat away into.

A few year ago, there was a hubbub about GoPro overheating quick if you leave them stationary flat on a desk, but they last better if they on a pole (open air below them) and they basically never overheat if they have moving breeze (or are moving faster then walking speed themselves - which is how action cameras were originally designed for)