Re:All-electric Cessna Grand Caravan makes maiden flight
by TylerE on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:26AM
(#23367415)
Well, don't discount fuel.
I had the oppurtunity to spend an hour in a T-6 trainer a number of years ago. This was the primary trainer used by Air Force in WW2. Big radial engine. At full throttle (which we were mostly at, as we were doing acrobatics), that eats through fuel at about 40 gallons/hr. That's $200/hr just in gas, for a plane that carriers 2 people and isn't really all that powerful.
Re:All-electric Cessna Grand Caravan makes maiden flight
by nemetroid on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:20PM
(#23370959)
Fuel typically accounts for 20-30% of airline operating expenses. For 2019, it accounted for 23.7% [1].
1: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/ebdba50e57194019930d72722...
Re:All-electric Cessna Grand Caravan makes maiden flight
by yovagoyu on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:13AM
(#23367606)
Gas is a huge deal in large passenger planes where instead of miles per gallon, they actually measure efficiency in gallons per mile.
The 747 for example eats about 1 gallon per second (~3600 gallons per hour) according to this source: https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/qu...
Re:All-electric Cessna Grand Caravan makes maiden flight
by jeltz on Sunday May 31, 2020 @06:11AM
(#23368478)
We measure fuel efficiency for cars in "liters per 10 km" in my country.
Re:All-electric Cessna Grand Caravan makes maiden flight
by danielfoster on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:50AM
(#23367744)
This is absolutely true, hence why the Cessna is so cheap to operate. Once the engine and power system are certified everything else is good to go.
It's these costs, not fuel costs, that account for a big percentage of the cost of flying. There's no meaningful way to reduce the cost of flying without reducing them. Perhaps electrics will incur much lower costs in maintenance, reducing costs somehow.