New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft

Re:New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft by digi_owl on Monday July 06, 2015 @10:25AM (#9839291)

I suspect that while landing you really want the engine in "neutral" so you can at any moment kick it into full power if some issue shows up. Landing is damn close to a controlled crash.

And i don't think these kinds of aircrafts have the wing surface etc to be floating around on thermals.

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Re:New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft by pwnna on Monday July 06, 2015 @12:43PM (#9840361)

Usually when landing you want something like 110% of your stall speed, which means that you're not "crashing" (by which I mean stalling). This involves some sort of engine power.

I am not aware of any plane that lands without power outside of an emergency.

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Re:New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft by RealCasually on Monday July 06, 2015 @01:44PM (#9840845)

Staying above stall speed in a descent does not require any power. It is extremely common to perform a "power off" landing in a small plane, and these are often not in emergency cases.

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Re:New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft by phillc73 on Monday July 06, 2015 @01:03PM (#9840526)

Apart from all those thousands of sailplanes people fly every week. They land without power, and very few of those landings would be an emergency.

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Re:New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft by pwnna on Monday July 06, 2015 @04:08PM (#9841858)

Yeah that is correct, I was more thinking of commercial flights rather than sailplanes/gliders

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