More seriously though, the claimed cruise speed looks competitive, but a 500nm range is a serious deficiency in this class of aircraft. I’m sure battery tech will get there one day, but there’s still a ways to go. I applaud the companies that are pushing the envelope, but I’m bearish on their chance of commercial success at this point.

Edit: It's not the lower cost I'm disputing. It's the 1/5th bit. That's a huge claim that should come with some detail. How much of that is fuel cost, maintenance...over what time period?

Electric motors are vastly simpler devices with far less moving parts. Much less to go wrong, much less to inspect and replace.

These are savings even before you get to talk about energy efficiency.

These savings aren’t realized in the car market because if the motor of a car fails, it is just an inconvenience. All that extra work doesn’t exist.

These savings aren’t theoretical either —- there are smaller scale electric aircraft used for pilot training on the market already. An hour of time in a Cessna costs $150ish/hour, these new electric planes are boasting costs of around $30/hour.

I'm curious, do the training hours on electric planes count towards normal ICE planes? I would assume at they very least they have different operating procedures if not outright handle differently.

That would be somewhat compelling proof, but you seem to be mixing "price offered to the renting flyer" and "cost incurred by the owner".

I wouldn't be shocked if replacing the electric motor costs less than what a turboprop inspection would.

$6/gallon would be way on the high side estimate for mogas, so say $15 total, so we're sure to be generous.

Electric Pipistrel: "The cost of electricity per hour of flight is roughly between $4 and $6," said Krzysztof Będkowski of Pipistrel Alpha Poland."[2]

I can't work out how $4-6/$15 is 1/10. Is is attractive, for sure. Again, I'm not disputing electric is cheaper, but the claim of 1/5th the cost is pretty extraordinary.

[1] https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/aircraft/flight-training/...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-plane-charges-in-ho...

Assume that you need an hour to get to a general aviation airport, and an hour from the other GA airport to your final destination. Assume that you are a qualified pilot and have a driver's license and access to cars anywhere you want to go. 280 knots puts you in the air for not quite two hours, so a full-length flight is 4 hours or so door to door, moving you 560 miles or so.

That's quite an improvement over a 10 hour car trip. But a 4 hour car trip will get you 220 miles, whereas the EFlyer still needs 2 hours 45 minutes to do that.

The EFlyer can't get you anywhere in less than 2 hours, so anything under 120-150 miles you definitely want to do by car.

If you have a bunch of cities that you want to visit often, which are more than 200 miles apart but less than 500 miles apart, all of which have general aviation strips convenient to your destinations, and most especially if you have 4-7 other people who all want to make the same trips... this could be a winner.

Or you could telecommute.

Where do you see frequent PC-12 ops requiring 500nm range?

My thoughts exactly. What happens when you fly 400 miles and need to divert to another airport because you can’t land at your destination. Talk about range anxiety!

Batteries make sense for cars, but I doubt aircraft will ever be mostly electric. There are other ways of making them green that make more sense, like hydrogen.

So it's 500nm + 45 minutes at cruise speed (= ~200nm or so)

How are they even going to deliver this plane? That's not enough range for a ferry pilot to deliver it to Europe or Asia, even hopping at every available airport around the Arctic.

Generally, they don't just fill airliner tanks full for every flight. They fill them with enough to reach their destination, plus enough extra to reach their alternate if they get diverted, plus enough for 45 minutes more flying.

Or just producing fuel in a carbon neutral way. Seems crazy to add the weight of batteries which are less energy dense when you can have higher energy density fuel that gets lighter as the flight goes on.

This is why you have the 45 minute fuel (battery) reserve, to deal with scenarios like this. It’s well covered in all pilot training.

Reserve time is built into the range number.

Cold temps on the ground might be an issue.

- 518 km/h cruise speed

- 593 km/h max speed

- 946 km max range

- 10.67 km max altitude

For aerobatic aircraft it could be a big deal. High power motors and the desire to be as light as possible will probably drive power recovery and even crazier stunts at airshows.

Gas turbines need to keep running to sustain combustion but electric motors can start and stop instantly with current flow; it seems possible to use this as part of the dynamic control of the aircraft.

Unless we’re talking about very short flights the majority of your energy would be expanded at cruising altitude especially since electric engines have a fairly flat efficiency curve.

Pretty sure I used to do that when I used to fly in my Microprose F-15 and was short on fuel.

At that point, your flight is over and you don't need any extra range.

The choice of abbreviation for nautical miles made me do a double take... Thats 575.39 miles, and 926 kilometers for anyone wondering.

... is that a thing?

Edit: today I learned!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst...

Slow down (if possible/necessary), stop the e-motors, feather the props, get the parachute out while attached to the back, sail down to the ground at a sufficiently low speed of impact to maybe just injure the passengers but not necessarily kill them.

OR

Slow down (if possible/necessary), somehow jettison the wings from the fuselage (maybe explosive bolts like with Solid Rocket Boosters?), parachute out while attached to the top or back, sail down to the ground at a sufficiently low speed of impact to maybe just injure the passengers but not necessarily kill them.

500 kW (2x250 kW motors)

So 500 kW for 2 hours, or 1 MWh. Perhaps battery density is 250 Wh/kg, so around 4000 kg for batteries alone.

Perhaps serial hybrid would makes more sense?

Infrastructure for this plane would be an oversized electric car supercharger.

Larger planes (Wright Electric is working on a 186 seat electric plane) will require a much larger charger. The charger might actually need batteries itself so it can charge off the grid while the plane is not connected and then dump it all into the plane much faster than the electrical grid would allow.