Don't remember which Sailplane Homebuilder's Association Western Workshop this solar powered motorglider flew at, possibly over 10 years ago? http://solar-flight.com/sunseeker/index.html Not every development of technology becomes what we want it to be overnight. Good on the people who have made an electric 2-seat 172 on their way to better things! Many pilots opt for solar panels over coal, geothermal, wind, or that "safe" stuff on board. Some day we'll all discover that the same conservation of energy required to make the long marginal glide is necessary in other walks of life. We pay the maintenance costs of our cars and aircraft. How much is it worth to maintain the planet we live on, so we and others can enjoy life? No need to tell this group, but there seems to be more to life than finances. And enough anti-renewable energy ranting. There are many subsidies and protections for energy systems more nasty than solar, wind, geothermal, etc that nobody talks about. Look up "price-anderson" for a start. It's not Australian, but nor is Oshkosh. Jim
________________________________ From: Mike Borgelt <[email protected]> To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, March 26, 2011 11:13:45 PM Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Oshkosh electric flight awards 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 _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
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