
Boeing-Backed Startup Lands JetSuite for Electric Plane's Debut - rbanffy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/boeing-backed-startup-targets-2022-debut-for-electric-plane
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Mvandenbergh
Interesting. Obviously this is challenging from a power and energy density
point of view but I suspect the play is likely to be in being able to land
planes at airports very close in to major cities where noise and pollution
constraints dominate. If you have a plane that you're allowed to land 300
times a year at midnight at a field where you'd only be allowed to land at 50
times a year before 10pm with a conventionally powered plane you might be able
to stake out a commercially viable niche.

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yardie
The amount of air you need to move to create the thrust is not silent at all.
Whether it is all electric or gas turbine it's going to be noisy.

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aurailious
Its like how about somewhere around 30 mph cars make more noise from going
through the air than their engines.

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lorenzhs
Tyre noise sounds like the more likely source of car noise, at least that's
how I previously heard this statement being made.

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gandreani
One application for super capacitors that I always think about is electric
planes. These small planes represent a drop in the total fuel consumption of
air travel. The majority of it is consumed by commercial passenger airlines
and shipping.

The second most important metric batteries have to meet is charging time. The
lower the time the plane spends on the ground, the better return on
investment. Having to wait for a plane to charge is not ideal for airlines. A
super capacitor power bank can be charged much faster than a lithium ion
battery bank.

The third is power delivery. I haven't calculated the power required to take
off, but given the usual 30s "sprint" (not sure what the technical term is
here) to take off the rest can be calculated from that. I haven't calculated
it yet, but lithium battery packs usually are restricted to Capacity == Power
i.e. 1Wh == 1W. With super capacitors that ratio is sometimes 100x that

The downside to super capacitors is even the best ones created so far (in
research not commercial) are the graphene ones that loose their power in 12h.

This isn't a deal breaker but it does probably limit a capacitor powered
electric plane to 6hour rides max

Hope someone else finds this rambling interesting :)

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nine_k
I can imagine a hybrid where a super capacitor is used as a booster at
takeoff, when power consumption is 5-10 times higher than in horizontal
flight. It does not need to keep the charge for a long time, and can be
charged right before the flight. It will eliminate many thermal issues with
lithium cells at high currents.

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gandreani
That would be a good solution for the power delivery problem but not the
charging problem

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rtkwe
It seems that electric plane will have one big pain point in adoption for
larger passenger craft: the time to refuel/recharge the batteries. Gate dwell
time is one of the major costs for an airline both in terms of lost revenue
and in fees charged by the airport itself.

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adenadel
Possibly stupid question: Would battery swaps be a reasonable solution to
this?

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rbanffy
These planes are hybrids - they use a turbine to charge batteries and power
the EDF engines. I suppose the batteries are used for take off and cruise
flight is mostly powered by the turbine (that doesn't have to be powerful
enough for takeoff). Landing, again, can be purely electric.

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corradio
Given the title I thought they literally "landed" an electric plane, which
would be quite nice for a startup. Turns out I was baited into clicking.

> Boeing Co.-backed startup Zunum Aero plans to deliver its first hybrid-
> electric plane in 2022 to JetSuite Inc

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JumpCrisscross
The next century of personal transportation will be autonomous electric cars
for short distances, autonomous regional rail for medium within-density
transport ( _e.g.._ interborough or within-the-Bay-Area distances), autonomous
electric aircraft for cross-density transport( _e.g._ New York to the Hamptons
or Cupertino to Napa) and cheap windowless airplanes for long distance. The
unique aspect of this vision is the reduced role for public transit outside
intracity subway and regional commuter rail. Autonomous cars and planes seem
to increase road efficiency in a manner that competes effectively with rail
for density-crossing transport.

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0x006A
whats great about windowless airplanes?

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JumpCrisscross
> _whats great about windowless airplanes?_

Blended-wing bodies [1] are very efficient. So you get a bigger jet that's
cheaper to fly. Downside: some seats will be on the inside. Moreover, windows
are a huge stress point on air frames. A windowless craft is cheaper to
maintain.

If there's one preference travelers show, it's that for cheaper tickets. A
windowless blended-wing aircraft delivers on that.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing_body](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing_body)

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grej
One of the biggest issues with further adoption of Blended Wind Body aircraft
is that current FAA regs require demonstration that deplaning the aircraft in
an emergency is possible at full seating capacity, including crewmembers, in
90 seconds or less [1], although studies and simulations have been done that
continue to evaluate this [2]

BWB with their pax on the inside, make this very challenging.

[1] s7:
[http://fsims.faa.gov/WDocs/8300.10%20Airworthiness%20Insp%20...](http://fsims.faa.gov/WDocs/8300.10%20Airworthiness%20Insp%20Handbk/Volume%202/2_077_00.htm)

[2]
[https://fseg.gre.ac.uk/fire/fseg_ped2010_bwb_paper_distrib_f...](https://fseg.gre.ac.uk/fire/fseg_ped2010_bwb_paper_distrib_final.pdf)

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exabrial
Time on the ground = time not being spent on hauling paying passengers.

This is the key problem with battery-powered electric vehicles and why fuel
cells make so much more sense that battery packs. Fuel cells are a much
"harder" technology to get correct and the tech is very difficult to get
correct.

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rbanffy
This is why this plane uses a turbine to power the two EDF engines,
supplemented by the batteries it charges during cruise flight.

