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Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by NovemberWhiskey on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @01:40PM (#24630717)
The basic problem with electric aircraft vs. electric cars is that aircraft spend a much larger proportion of their journeys operating at high power levels.

A slow, economy cruise setting in a Cessna 172 is a 45% power setting - ~80 hp, and climbs will be at full power (180 hp).

On the other hand, you might only need ~20 hp to maintain 65mph on a level road in a sedan; and most people never use anything like the full power of their cars for more than seconds at a time.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by dexen on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @02:03PM (#24631013)
>aircraft spend a much larger proportion of their journeys operating at high power levels.

Luckily the high power level is maintained at reliably high speed [0], ensuring airflow for cooling.

Even better, aircraft by its very long-range nature will have much larger battery:engine ratio. For example this 2018 article [1] discusses airplane with 9x the Tesla's battery capacity and 3x the Tesla's engine power, in other words, its batteries would need to handle only 1/3rd electrical load as much at peak load (per unit). The lower power density[2] of the battery pack again provides for easier cooling; perhaps even passive cooling or air cooling instead of forced liquid cooling. Whereas Tesla's sustained performance is limited by battery pack thermals.

Lastly, it's worth noting the ICE aircraft engines are "overbuilt" as compared to the roadgoing ones, mostly for sake of reliability.

--

[0] aside of the engine run-up and initial acceleration, but both of those are short anyway

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18602771

[2] not to mix it up with energy density

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by dredmorbius on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @01:50PM (#24630834)
That, and the fact that fuel-powered aircraft will shed half their takeoff weight during flight. Battery-powered aircraft either maintain constant mass or gain mass in the case of metal-air batteries, as energy is discharged.

Long-haul alt-energy aircraft utilise very low airspeed (low drag), extreme mass budgets (they're wonders of materials and structural engineering), and altitude profiles (potential energy0 to manage overall energy budgets and use.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by sandworm101 on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @02:28PM (#24631267)
>> fuel-powered aircraft will shed half their takeoff weight during flight.

While that is true of jets optimized for altitude, small piston aircraft (cessnas) do not burn nearly that much fuel on takeoff. Small aircraft can generally do a dozen or more takeoff/landing cycles on a single tank.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by nickff on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @02:37PM (#24631367)
Fuel is burned throughout the flight, not just take-off (and initial climb to altitude), which is why airliners flying long-haul routes usually gain altitude as they progress. The Cessna 172 seems to have a fuel fraction of around 20% (an order of magnitude higher than a car), and airliners are much higher (~40%).[1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_fraction

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by dredmorbius on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @03:02PM (#24631626)
A 2020 Toyota Camry --- a typical 4-door sedan --- has a curb weight of 3,340 lb and a 15.8 gallon fuel tank (95 lb), for a fuel-to-weight ratio of 2.8%.

Range is ~615 miles at 39 mpg highway.

Passenger and cargo capacity is another 1,500 lb on top of this, give or take.

This is far lower than any conventional aircraft, though a few ultralights might compare.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by TylerE on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @04:10PM (#24632369)
Even on a tiny little Cessna fuel is 1/8th of the weight, and fuel burn per hour in cruise is approx. 50lbs/hr.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by dredmorbius on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @12:49PM (#24640778)
And again with my Camry example, assuming 60 mph and 39 mpg, that's about 9 lb/hr fuel consumption.

The Cesna has a 140 mph cruise, a bit over double that of the Camry on highway, but that still means 20 lb at equivalent distance for the car, less than half the light plane.

Aircraft are fuel burners.

(Agreeing, just giving land-travel equivalent.)

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by namdnay on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @02:00PM (#24630982)
I think this depends where you're driving. If you're at 130kmh in a 70hp subcompact, something perfectly common in Europe, you're pretty close to max power..
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by ovi256 on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @04:05PM (#24632303)
A 70hp compact can't maintain 130kmph on a climbing highway, only on a flat highway. I know this from experience - I had to pull into the slow lane with the trucks. Plus, a compact car at full throttle is really an unpleasant experience - the car wheezes at high volume and you can feel it's doing its best and it's not enough.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by namdnay on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @03:58AM (#24636554)
Agreed. Which demonstrates that cars often do run at 80-100% of their capacity for long periods of time
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by NovemberWhiskey on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @11:59AM (#24640152)
I don't think that demonstrates that at all, but even assuming it did: when they do so, they get diabolical gas mileage.

Top Gear did an amusing test where they had a Toyota Prius drive flat out around a track, with a BMW M3 (a larger, heavier sports sedan) keeping pace with it.

Over the course of the test, the Prius returned 14.3 miles per gallon; and the BMW M3 achieved 16.1 - despite the fact the BMW has a 4 liter turbocharged, six cylinder engine vs. the Prius 1.5 liter, four cylinder.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by namdnay on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @02:13PM (#24641732)
To be fair, that test way way above legal speeds. I don't think it's representative even of motorway performance.

I don't see your point however - what I'm saying is that at 130kmh (standard motorway speed in most of europe) a 70-90hp subcompact (by far the most common car in europe and the world in general) is running at above 80% max power (testified by the fact that as soon as there's a significant incline their speed will fall back to 110-120). So running long times under heavy engine load is quite normal for cars

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by nickik on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @03:45PM (#24632076)
Elon solution for this is to go much higher then a typical plane. This is much more possible with electric and helps with efficiency.

https://youtu.be/MBItc_QAUUM?t=2422

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by virtue3 on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @05:09PM (#24633006)
The issue is that you do NEEd air in order to use the props. So there is a limit to how high you can go.

Air resistance vs not having enough air to push.

Basically - you can design the prop for high altitude, but then takeoff is gonna not be great. You could design a variable prop system (or even have 2 different ones?) but then weight / complexity.

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijae/2018/5782017/

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by nickik on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @08:29AM (#24638059)
If you go supersonic you get enough air in even when flying higher.

His plane is VTOL so the overpowered engines for supersonic will work well for liftoff.

Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by eptcyka on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @03:55PM (#24632198)
Getting higher is no easy feat, especially given the energy density of the current state of the art batteries.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by dhsysusbsjsi on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @05:07PM (#24632995)
Not to mention additional complexities going above 10,000 ft that adds weight: pressurised cabin (or oxygen) and anti-ice and de-ice systems and heating.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by steffan on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @01:53AM (#24636045)
Exceeding 10,000 ft. is orthogonal to needing anti-/de-ice systems. In fact, you're often less likely to need them at the higher altitudes because it is too cold for airframe icing to occur. Counterintuitively, if it is too cold, you no longer have icing problems.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by eptcyka on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @05:59AM (#24637079)
You need to pass all of the feet leading up to 10'000 feet though.
Re:Rolls-Royce concludes testing of plane technology to brea... by nickik on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @08:32AM (#24638081)
You can use the batteries as structure and they produce heat that you need to cool anyway. Seems like there is a lot you can do with that once you start optimizing everything around the battery.

I don't know how much weight a anti-ice/de-ice could add.

My point was only that once you think about it and redesign everything around the new constraints, you can come up with things that we don't yet think about.