Thanks to Ross I've read the article.
Some fairly heroic engineering there.
About 100 Kilowatt-hours of battery power weighing 500Kg or so. This
gets a two seat aircraft that used to be a 4 seater that can really
only be used as a trainer and whose engine handling characteristics
are completely different from those of the IC powered aircraft anyone
is likely to fly after training although with some electronic
trickery you could simulate this. Say about 10 square meters of solar
cells which might generate 2Kw or so peak. Essentially insignificant
during flight. Sure hope somebody is getting large tax write off or
taking down some gullible fools with this project.
This seems about a sensible as Simon's solar cell powered electric
car ($100,000 worth of solar cells , $120,000 car and the solar cells
are most likely of Chinese manufacture, made using electricity
generated by burning Australian coal, transported by burning diesel
and No 2 bunker and during their lifetime the cells *might* just buy
enough electricity to cover their purchase cost)
Oh, and it does matter whether the energy required to manufacture and
install and maintain the cells is actually repaid during their
lifetime. If it isn't you don't have an energy source. Same for wind
"turbines". The existence of wind turbines and solar cells is
dependent on a high energy technical civilisation which generates
many orders of magnitude more electrical energy from other means.
Electric cars and aircraft are a fine hobby and research into these
things is probably deserving of some low level of societal resources.
It is always good to know what doesn't work and you might just get
lucky sometime although with batteries bear in mind that we've been
researching these for 150 years or so and we're up against some hard
physical limits.
As I said, I'm talking about powering civilisation, not the eccentric
hobbies of the idle rich. My favorite future power source is Polywell
fusion, a variant of Inertial electrostatic fusion. With enough cheap
electrical energy you can make hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 and water
(it's even a "carbon neutral" cycle should any evidence ever turn up
that this is desirable) and we have a complete industrial
infrastructure and technology to use them already in existence. If
Polywell doesn't work we may have to do it with fission. We'll know soon.
To bring this right back to gliding - are any of these electric cars
going to tow a glider trailer usefully?
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments since 1978
phone Int'l + 61 746 355784
fax Int'l + 61 746 358796
cellphone Int'l + 61 428 355784
email: [email protected]
website: www.borgeltinstruments.com
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