Re:The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
by scarier on Thursday August 27, 2020 @12:30AM
(#24290121)
Still, a plane with half the aerodynamic drag and twice the BSFC is only getting 4x the fuel efficiency, not the ~10x they're claiming. Even if they're making a bit of "free" thrust from their cooling system (which has been a thing since WWII), I don't see what accounts for the rest, even ignoring that the Celera likely has a significant increase in frontal area due to the standing-height cabin.
Re:The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
by brunooo on Thursday August 27, 2020 @01:09AM
(#24290314)
Re “free thrust/WWII”: Real Engineering recently did a great summary of the P47 Thunderbolt intercooler and general craziness of the engine at https://youtu.be/IwqTN5fhMR8
Re:The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft
by nl on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:41AM
(#24290725)
They are claiming slightly under 10x fuel efficiency compared to a jet (2-3 mpg vs 18-25 mpg).
That doesn't seem completely unreasonable.
A Pilatus PC-12 (which is the turoprop competition here) NXG gets around 4.3 mpg.
The engine company is German and so we can make lots of jokes about German companies' fuel efficiency claims I guess.
Nevertheless, it has been around since 2012 and is used in a few planes already, so presumably there is some measurable improvement there or they'd have taken the claim down by now?
For comparison, this engine has a Specific fuel consumption of 210 g/kW/h, while a P&W PT6A-6 (older, slightly more powerful: 431 kW vs 368kW) has 0.408 kg/kW/hr[2]
[1] https://red-aircraft.com/?lang=en
[2] http://www.all-aero.com/index.php/contactus/64-engines-power...