Aerospace company Electra.aero Inc. has now secured 2,200 pre-orders for its EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-electric aircraft:
Valued at nearly $9 billion, Electra’s order pipeline is one of the largest in the advanced air mobility industry.
Electra’s Ultra Short aircraft — which integrates blown lift and hybrid-electric propulsion to take off and land in 150 feet — enables air operators to connect communities that lack aviation infrastructure, fly into airports with strict noise restrictions, create new opportunities and business models for cargo services, and potentially save travelers significant time and hassle. It also introduces military logistics capabilities including landing on unimproved surfaces to improve safety and reduce cost, power ground operations, and carry out critical transport.
“Electra’s Ultra Short is the unlock for a new era of air travel — what we call direct aviation — that is as transformative as it’s practical,” said Marc Allen, CEO of Electra. “Hybrid-electric propulsion enables us to achieve what jet fuel alone can’t do; we’ve created a fixed-wing airplane that delivers the access of a helicopter with 100 times less noise, 70% lower cost, improved safety, and dramatically reduced emissions.”
[…]
The nine-passenger EL9 offers up to 3,000 pounds of payload capacity and a range up to 1,100 nautical miles, with in-flight battery recharging that eliminates the need for ground charging infrastructure.
Electro’s own site explains its technology in more detail.
Another piece of silliness. The batteries weigh ten times as much and occupy ten times the space as the fuel they replace. The electric motors are smaller, but recharging the batteries takes hours, not minutes.
There is probably a niche for electric airplanes, but I don’t what it might be.
AGW has spawned an infestation of charlatans.
It sounds like this is something like the diesel-electric drive train that has been used on trains for half a century .
The best batteries have about one tenth the energy density of avgas. Every ton of battery is nine hundred kilograms less payload. This disadvantage is artfully sidestepped by using a different energy storage measure. We can ignore the lessening mass of avgas over a flight, as it is the take-off weight that matters.
The propellers drive wind over the wings, increasing lift. Just like they did for WWII bombers. The lift can even be increased by the use of flaps!
Wow, what a new innovation.
Perhaps “hybrid-electric propulsion” needs spelling out:
Using electricity means it can use many, small, responsive motors:
Hybrid-electric propulsion is destined to be a paradigmatic technological breakthrough for GA (General Aviation). The fundamental problem is that of making it work.
After watching a few minutes of the CEO, Marc Allen, speak, I’m deeply skeptical of the success of Electra because he isn’t nearly autistic enough to make something technical like this work. Furthermore, (1) the man is some sort of Middle Easterner or something, (2) he was formerly a senior executive at Boeing, and, most importantly, (3) he is a lawyer. Other problematic affiliations and blaring negative signals include membership of the Council on Foreign Relations and board chairmanship of a human-trafficking NGO.
Personally, if I wanted to launder money, I’d do something low-profile.
This matter-of-fact video with the lead engineer is more reassuring.
I am still holding out hope — and perhaps it is foolish, uninformed hope — for cycloidal propellers in aircraft like this one:
https://www.cyclotech.at/cyclotech-presents-first-air-car-with-cyclorotors/
Thanks, Gaik. Cyclotech looks really cool.
https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-marines-seagliders-for-rescue-ops
Tangentially relevant
Gaikokumaniakku, I had that piece open in another tab. Great minds…