Dear AVweb, dear Paul, thank you for your analysis. We met some time ago at Aero Expo in Germany. I'm Head of Training for the first flight school in Germany operating the Velis Electro in fully integrated training operations. After some months getting comfortable with operations I can state that I have full confidence in the aircraft and the technology going in to the future. You are correct that we had to acquire a Rotax version of the same aircraft to train the navigation component of the PPL syllabus. All other operations up to that stage are possible, including adequate reserve requirements considering the operational conditions as dictated by EASA regulations. (These are different for flights from A-A overhead the airfield as opposed to A-B navigational flights.) We work closely with EASA as a regulator and Pipistrel as a manufacturer to gather data and give feedback based on experience gained. The aircraft is now fully integrated into training operations and trial flights, type checks, and PPL licencing are possible. We would be happy to work with AVweb or any other interested party (including FAA regulators) to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft without the temporary restrictions which the FAA currently imposes. Your assessment that only 25 minute flights are possible to allow for 30 minute reserves is not entirely accurate by our experience. Our operational numbers show that 30 minutes flight time is possible using less than 50% battery capacity, where most of the energy required is used in the climb to altitude. Once in cruise, the power requirement is very low on this efficient airframe. As such, a further 20% can comfortably used at a low cruise power setting to land the aircraft with the recommended minimum 30% remaining - which by our numbers should approach the 30 minute minimum cruise reserve in level flight / descent to land. I will not post contact details here, but any interested party can reach us over our website at www.westflug.de or connect with us on FB (Westflug Flight Training) with questions or to keep up to date. Regards, Rob Head of Training Westflug Flight Training
Thank you it is good to get information from someone who has flown it. Please note the FAA 30 minute reserve is ‘normal cruise’ not 30 minutes at minimum cruise power/descent power. I think that is why the endurance that the flight test engineers at Florida Tech are seeing is less than you expect.
@@XPLAlN fair comment. The Velis has normal cruise power tables where we operate at the lower end of those normal cruise power settings - 20-25 kW. The demo flight above seemed to be operating at cruise of 35 kW. In comparison, we do normal climbs at 40 kW. Flying this aircraft needs a shift in mentality - no operating it like a conventional aircraft with 5hrs endurance; it needs to be operated for what it is - somewhere between a glider and an ultralight. It just happens to have full certification. Flight students need flight time - not flight distance.
@@chronikentertainment7856 thank you for the reply. Normal cruise is not defined so I expect low power cruise would be acceptable for the purpose of reserve planning. In the video he said they were using 25 kW at 85 KIAS so on paper that is 12.5 kWh reserve or 57% . A 3 minute climb at max con followed by a 25 kW cruise will in theory result in 20 minutes flight plus 30 minutes reserve, so I think that is the kind of profile that resulted in the times quoted in the video. PB said they flew for 21 minutes and used 43% capacity so theory would seem to correlate with practice in this case.
Great stuff, as usual, from Paul, with the appropriate tone for the state of the technology. He's gentle and respectful with Pipistrel, which is admirable. I would love to see him review this aircraft with his trademark humor injected and maybe a little bit of overshoot on the criticism. He's the most entertaining and instructive guy on TH-cam when he cranks it up.
@18:20 I fly an electric paramotor. Other than range reduction electric flight creates this new issue for pilots to deal with. You have less power available near the end of the while your weight is still the same as it was on takeoff. Any pilot new to electric should be briefed that go around performance is reduced, possibly significantly, not increased compared to take off.
@@paulogden7417 You're correct, the motor controller doesn't compensate for the battery's power curve. To do so would mean reducing available take-off, and some cruise, power artificially. Some systems may do that but there will be a limit. I was trained to understand the machine I'm operating so it would behoove me to know about both the battery's power curve as well as any electronic compensation system.
That sounds like nonsense to me. It's no diferent to an electric car, you have the same performance available at the start of the drive as the end. I've just done a search and I can't find anything that says performance is less at the end of the flight.
That's not how modern batteries work, the power curve doesn't drop off that fast. Not to mention it's a 50 minute range PLUS a 30 minute VFR reserve. So as you are flying back to the field to land, you're at about 50% total charge, not 20% or whatever.
@@martinw245 you can boost the voltage yes, but a full charged 18650 pack is 4.2v and a spent one is ~3.5v. If you take into account c rates, there’s a reason all EVs are fastest when fully charged it’s simply the voltage being higher at max charge. At 6C a battery cell outputting 3.7v is always going to send less power than a 6C battery at 4.2v it’s just how battery chemistry has evolved.
For electric car purposes, 32 kW/h is about the same as a gallon of gas. What's interesting with this plane is that it's got, apparently 22 kWh of batteries (11 kWh/pack), and gets about an hour of maximum endurance compared to the fuel version that holds 20 gallons and gets six hours. That tells me that this plane is more efficient than an electric car in terms of getting endurance out of kWh of batteries relative to fossil fuel. That's a good sign. Now all they need to do is make the battery pack six times more energy dense and 1/2 the weight.
You could do the math on gas engine efficiency vs EV efficiency. E-cars are around 5x as efficient as gas. A gallon of gas may contain a lot of energy but a gas engine is merely a noisy heater with motion as a side effect at about 25% efficiency... As such, multiply usable energy in a gallon of gas by 0.25 for cars. Planes may be a little better but not hugely so.
@@Kimoto504 gasoline engines are extract about 20-24% of the energy in gasoline. diesel engines extract about 90-95% of the energy in diesel. combustion engine vehicles get lighter as you go further since you're using the fuel up, and you're making the same power. electric crap stays the same weight from start to finish and makes less power the weaker the charge gets. you battery beat-nicks/hippies/whatever need to stop lieing to yourself. electricity is great, batteries are not the option for vehicles. you also completely ignore the fact that mining lithium and other components for those batteries has caused extravagent amounts of damage to the local land. heavy water(irradiated water) filling the whole mine from the process is just sitting around,slowly creeping into the water cycle. wake up, dont believe the crap these people who are taking millions of tax payer dollars from government grants tell you.
OK 32 kWh is 115 MJ which is exactly the same energy as a gallon of avgas. However, this airplane has a max L/D of 15:1 at 64 knots, according to Pipistrel. "Endurance speed" is min power speed which is generally about 0.8 of range speed (aka max L/D) for propeller airplanes and uncomfortably close to the stall in this case so I am going to use the range speed instead. At 600 kg with a 15:1 L/D at 64 kts in standard conditions the power required is glued on at 12.9 kW. Now even if you take 2 kWh out the 22 kWh battery for a climb to pattern altitude you have 20 left, so to burn through that at a rate of 13 kW in 58 minutes would equal an efficiency of 65%. Which is a lot worse than a Tesla. And the problem here is we do not really know what power setting results in the claimed endurance of 60 minutes so the efficiency could be better or worse but it is a stretch to get it higher than eg a Tesla 3.
@@jmwintenn Most diesels are 35% efficient, some commercial trucking engines can do 45% and ship diesel engines can reach 54%. Diesels with 95% efficiency? Not a chance. They'd be near noiseless and not need cooling systems if they could get that efficient.
I think in Europe they have reduced the reserve time to 15 mins for electric aircraft with the caveat that you must stay in sight of the runway. Basically polishing square pegs so they fit in round holes.
The fact it flies at all is amazing. I’m in the UK and one of these would be perfect for flying circuits and short trips. The axial flux motor is such a clever design. Seeing them in more cars too. Excited to see where the tech will go next.
It's good that planes like that are already coming to market. I agree that it's not practical yet, but the technology has to start somewhere. But I also agree that the minimum fuel shouldn't be shaved down to 10 minutes. In the school I fly the policy is 30 minutes after the alternative, which gives me even more peace of mind. I wouldn't fly with 10 minutes reserve EVER.
The relevant technology is energy storage, which this has nothing to do with. Do the math and you'll see that no matter how much you optimize for drag coefficient, or anything else, batteries aren't even close. The future is almost certainly in turbines burning "clean" fuels, like Fisher-Tropsch derived synthetic liquid fuels from renewable feedstocks or even direct carbon capture to fuel cycles.
Everyone's said it but I'll be that reminder guy: Battery tech MUST improve for electric planes to be realistically feasible as a replacement for dino bones burners. Lithium air batteries may be that new tech, but we'll see. Best of luck to Pipistrel.
That is the case with cars too. Not so much with range, but charge time. Charge time may be less of an issue with flight schools or for that pilot who likes to fly on the good weather weekends. But with current battery tech, a lot of capability just isn't there.
@@randallkelley3600 True although cars can worry less about the weight issue. Many electric cars are on par with their gas-powered counterparts in terms of range now. Always room for improvement of course.
@@randallkelley3600 Meh - The newest Model 3 with 60kWh LFP battery would be enough for like 95% of people driving. Goes like 250 miles with a charge, has good durability and good charge rates. On average people only drive like 25 miles per day.
I'll happily buy an electric car when the charge times significantly reduce and when the cost of batteries drop significantly. Maybe when by 2020 Tacoma hits 300k miles battery tech will be where it needs to be.
Having flown a few hundred hours in this aircraft, I would also recommend doing most of your flying around 70 knots, it's much more efficient at that pace and you'll find you have a power setting around 16-18kW (as long as you're not flying with a fatty) which will vastly increase your endurance. We clock 1.2 - 1.4 training missions all the time in Class D airspace.
I think the key to green flight is to modify aircraft engines to work on biofuels. Either algae based or ethanol. I dont see electric flight scaling all the way up to a jetliner size. Emitting carbon is fine if it's the same carbon you took out of the atmosphere 6 weeks ago.
While I'm sure there will be plenty of dissenters remarking about how impractical electric is (and it is in its current form), I'm excited to see how the innovation continues in the following decade(s). Glad to see Pipistrel pushing the technology forward.
I have a great idea to get around the limited flight time due to the limited battery capacity. What you can do is to get an Antonov AN-225, it has an MTOW of 640,000kg which should be enough capacity to carry batteries to re-charge the Pipistrel mid-air. It simply drops a power cable that pulls the Pipistrel along at 250 kts for 2.5 hours, at which point the Pipistrel can fly another 20 minutes or so.
The ONLY way I would every even consider a 10 minute reserve would be a flight that just stays in the traffic pattern. I could see this being useful for just doing touch and goes, but I think a new reg would need to be made to allow for a lower electric reserve (while in the pattern). I'm excited to see where electric planes go in the upcoming years!
Even with out the reserve limitation, 36 minutes for two people before battery completion is why electric airplanes are not going to go far into production. The technology just isn't there yet.
The technology is getting there but clearly has limitations. The certification in Europe helps with the intended use case of a trainer that mostly just stays in the pattern. For that, 10 minutes reserve is fine since you are basically within gliding distance of a perfectly good runway. Which is why they can stay up for fifty minutes or so. This plane is obviously never going to be breaking any records. But if you look at it as an early MVP, it's not that bad. It works as advertised and they are popular with flight schools in Australia and Europe. The main opportunity for improving this design is that the batteries in this thing are simply not state of the art. Not even close. A lot has happened in the last 5-10 years. The issue is that replacing batteries resets the clock on the certification by several years. So, they entered the certification process quite a few years ago with whatever had been available then for some time (i.e. they chose suppliers conservatively). E.g. the Nissan Leaf more than doubled its range in the last 12 years without increasing the weight. The first version from 2010 had a 21 kwh battery. There now is a 62kwh version and the smallest version is 40kwh. People are swapping out the batteries in the original leaf and are getting double the original range. That might happen with Pipistrel as well eventually. Both weight per kwh and charging times could probably be improved quite a bit even without switching to e.g. solid state batteries (which are actually becoming available now). So, if they'd manage to go from 50 to 90-100 minutes, that would be nice upgrade and they might be able to improve on that as well. Also getting the charge times down should be feasible. There are EVs on the road that charge much larger batteries in a fraction of the time. And with the extra range, you could afford to only charge to about 80% instead of having to wait for 100%. Charging to 80% is usually quite fast with EVs. Other manufacturers have similar issues with their batteris but are doing a bit better despite similarly lagging in battery tech. E.g. Bye's Eflyer 2 is currently undergoing certification and is rated for a 3 hour endurance. It had it's first flight in 2018 and it supposedly might get through the certification process by next year. Likewise, the Eviation Alice has a range of around 500 miles. So, it's not there yet. But getting there is not exactly science fiction any more.
It's not there for planes yet. But it wasn't there for cars 15-20 years ago either. The first modern EV cars were completely impractical, just like this Pipistrel is, but without them we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today. The Pipistrel isn't the end game, it's a first step.
@@maxleitschuh7076 Air travel is vastly different. Unless or until we have a revolution in battery storage density and weight, then EV for airplanes will not be going anywhere.
As I've come to expect, Paul provides a superb review. As an engineer, all of the facts Paul speaks about were self evident to me, and were easy to calculate. However, without an actual product review, few believe "the facts". Electric power works well enough in expensive, short range cars, and that's where it belongs.
The plug is physically standard but not electrically nor electronically. You can only use Pipistrel's proprietary chargers with Pipistrel's planes. Or at least that's the case with the Alpha Electro our club has. It's very frustrating.
@@Blxz A Model 3 costs 30k$ used 40k$ new. 5L/100km The car would consume that much after 300/400 thousand km at 2€/L. The electric car will probably be at least twice as valuable after it has driven the same distance.
In its current form this plane has no real utility but people said the same thing about the Wright Brothers in their time, so it will be interesting to see where this goes.
If the packs cost $22k, an average flight is 15 minutes (0.25 hours), and the batteries are rated to 2000 cycles (typical rating), then you're only looking at 500 hours of flying with a battery-reserve of $44/hour. I'm sure shipping the electric motor back to Slovenia every 300 hours isn't cheap, either. With current battery technology, it doesn't matter how efficient the airframe and motor are, you just can't get enough flight time to be practical. The math just doesn't work out.
The comment in the video about the energy needed to recharge the battery as related to capacity size is incorrect. Batteries may be close to 100% efficient on a Coulombic (amps) basis, but not kWh (volts X amps for DC). As an example, I have measured my Chevy Volt (PHEV) to be less than 80% efficient when charging the battery.
The amp accounting comes straight out of the BMS. You are correct, to put back in the stated 12.5 kWh or so, it required nearly 14kWh of input. The value stated in the video was correct, although needed that additional context.
As an electric car owner for 10 years, it is good to see progress being made in the aviation industry. It also has landed in the motor coach and locomotive sector. Thank you for the report.
Wake me up when batteries achieve 1,500 wh/kg, cost $97/kwh, and achieve 2,000 hrs of flight time before replacement. That is what it will take to achieve parity with the O470 and 50 gallons of avgas in the 182. (79 gal useful, but if carrying four adults and baggage - 50 gals on board and 800 lbs of people and stuff) Any energy density less than 1,644 wh/kg and it requires a sacrifice in either useful load, endurance, or performance. A more meaningful effort would be renewable/sustainable fuels and retrofitting fuel systems to support it, or if it has to be electrons to satiate the EV obsessed techbros - hydrogen fuel cells, as aircraft have far more empty space then additional weight carrying capability.
It was "only" 33 years from the Wright Brothers first flight to the first flight of the Douglas DC-3. I also agree it's not practical now, but someday I suspect we will have viable battery technology.
These electric aircraft doesn't really benefit anyone apart from the environment, and for niche applications like general aviation it will probably be cheaper to just pay a carbon tax and plant more trees. The move towards cleaner-burning fuels and exhaust filters would also make the transition to zero emissions much less urgent, and the impending end of Avgas will force owners to re-engine their aircraft. Aviation grew because of the obvious benefits of faster travel (as well as military uses), whereas with electric aircraft it's like replacing plastic straws with paper straws, it's an inferior solution that's better for the environment. But there are other ways of achieving the same for the environment - plant enough trees and GA could become carbon negative.
@@Avantime Let's not forget that an electric motor is probably 10X more reliable than a gasoline engine. There are limitations but when it does happen it will be better than a gasoline powered aircraft in just about every way. There will be no ignoring it then. Its simply inevitable.
@@lamberto6405 The problem is you can't have an electric motor without a battery, those two must come together. (Well technically you can have a gasoline/diesel-electric engine but that's just adding needless complexity, the crankshaft is ideal for driving a propeller) Once you add a battery you'll need an aviation-certified battery thermal management system. It's this part that will most likely fail, with potential catastrophic consequences such as a runaway battery fire, a sudden collapse in range, or the engine and avionics stop working. High capacity, lightweight batteries are especially volatile, and aircraft can't just go into turtle mode. Internal combustion engines and gas turbines have been around for around a century, and manufacturers are very good at making reliable engines. Today you wouldn't bat an eye on a Toyota with a million miles, or a Rolls-Royce jet engine reliable enough to carry an ETOPS-certified 777 for almost 4 hours on a single engine. It's the GA mentality that's holding the scene back towards much more reliable, modern engines. Electric aviation still have a lot to prove, the industry is still very much in the pioneering era. Give it 50 years or so, as technologies get mature enough to meet the safety standards aviation regulators and the flying public demands. You see all those futuristic electric flying taxi start-ups valued at crazy amounts of money? They'll all disappear when the Fed raises interest rates back to normal levels in order to control inflation. In order to control inflation, the interest rates must rise over the rate of inflation, like 8% to 10% now. And the later the Fed does it, the more they'll have to raise rates, as wage increases spiral in response. Tesla's stock is already down ~50% this year, with the current Fed funds rate is just 1%.
I hope the FAA catch up soon and enable electric aviation. We're having such a great time flying our certified electric aircraft in flight schools in Australia and building our charge node network fro recreational aviators. 5 Airports electrified and counting!. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia allow a 30% on-board energy retention as emergency reserve, which allows up 50-60 minutes of flight in the Pipistrel Alpha Electro depending on payload.
No cabin heat? Batteries that must be kept from overheating and no cabin heat? All you'd need is a duct from the radiator into the cabin. Silly oversight.
An the surface, yes. But it would require hoses, valves, a radiator in the cabin. Say, 25-30 KGs easily. With the margins being as thin as they are, that's probably why they chose not to implement that. Someone more cynical than me might even say that you probably won't get very cold in 21 minutes anyway 😉 In any case, an interesting airplane, that shows a probable future. My local airfield has one, I might call them sometime, and ask what a flight would cost (as a passenger, not a pilot) just to experience it.
No. It takes great power to generate heat so its planned that way. Engines create "free" heat thanks to their inefficiency but it is an ancillary benefit.
The only utility for electric power plants is with motor gliders. Honestly, I'm surprised that they aren't electrifying their Sinus Flex motor glider. It shouldn't be too hard since the Velis is related to the Sinus. Certification here in the US would be a lot easier because it could be certified as a glider instead of an LSA. Of course that means you can't use it in a normal flight school setting as a trainer, but let's be real, nobody is going to use the Velis Electro for that role either.
I wouldn't say it is the only utility, especially with battery power... Solar powered however, I think it is a bit unexplored idea, even if they did cirumnavigate the earth with one already.
This is an early plane for training and short hop recreational flights. There's a six seat , also fully certified plane with a more than two hour safe range plus alternate on the way. Battery densities have already doubled since airbus e fan of 2016. It's depressing how aviators are such technical luddites in some regards
Hydrogen powered cars never made much sense but I've struggled to understand why hydrogen-powered aircraft haven't been more looked at compared to plug-in EV planes. Generating liquid H2 is very inefficient, true, but energy density is so much better and weight is so much more of an issue to planes that I feel like it makes way more sense than a tiny, very expensive aircraft that you charge for two hours to fly for twenty minutes. Might as well fly an electric ultralight for a fraction of the cost.
Battery needs to be half the weight of the plane to start making it useful with an hour flying time + reserve. So, if they make a 1200 kg plane with 600 kg batteries instead of a 600 kg plane with 150 kg batteries I think it would be really useful.
7:10 - What is the deal with the aviation community and not understanding horsepower? More power = more torque at the same RPM, *ALWAYS.* What's listed there for the Rotax is FLYWHEEL torque, but torque at the propeller (thanks to the PSRU) is going to be 214 lb-ft!
@@randallkelley3600 Yup, the takeoff run for the Velis is well more than twice as long as the Virus. Vehicle performance is all about power to weight ratio.
@@frontagulus Absolutely right. According to the fourth law of thermodynamics "horsepower equals torque times RPM divided by 5252 except for electric and external combustion engines". Also, for electric and external combustion engines, 2 + 2 = 6
WARNING ! The charger plug should be away from the propeller, like near the wing root. For any technical reason, if the prop is activated while charging or, worst, when someone is connecting, disconnecting or servicing the socket ... Better safe than sorry !
Fuel powered aviation requires a lot of compromises because the margins are slim. Battery powered aviation requires so many more compromises that it approaches complete uselessness with current and foreseeable future battery tech.
I believe the 10 min reserve is only for landing in the take off airport that has been kept on sight during whole flight. Otherwise 30 min. You failed to clarify this while you criticised the 10 min as europeans where bargained in safety.
Thanks for posting this Paul. As with all electric vehicles that aren't tethered, battery endurance and capacity are the biggest constraint. I would be curious to see where research / experimentation is regarding hydrogen fuel cells. I could see the possibility of these being a short to medium term "solution" to traditional battery limitations, particularly with regard to range (same as gasoline essentially, when compared to this battery option) and with regard to weight. It would be fascinating if someone like Pipistrel was to bring out the same airframe but with a fuel cell energy source. If it was to regain the range and get back to something like 5 hours, then that would be a game changer, even if the weight limitation was there
@@HeyIFoundACamera You could say that’s mature, just impractical with the limitations of power source. If they invented a new magical cheap power source/battery tomorrow that you could swap in for the batteries, the rest of the tech is pretty solid. I’m curious why they’re not looking into hybrid systems in the mean time until solid state batteries are economical power density wise.
These things are still far away from reality. The same for flying cars. Both are hype. Not real practical machines. I know, some say 'yet' but notice we still dont have a cheap turbine engine that can replace piston engines in GA, nor do we even have unleaded aviation fuel. (note. Pipistrel went bust and just got picked up by Textron).
I wouldn't say Pipistrel are way ahead in terms of electric flight technology when Eviation Alice is about to have its first test flight and caries 11 people 600 miles.
I was just checking to see what you've uploaded and here you are. Thanks to everyone involved. Couldn't the electronics cooling system be used as a source for cabin heat or is no cooling needed at temperatures where cabin heat would make flying more enjoyable?
I dream of a usable cross country version where I can take it around in a decade or two. Hopefully EV tech advances in general can help slingshot electric planes!
so... it works out 11kW-hr on 162 lbs or... 68 Watt-Hr/lb! Jet-A is 6,000 Watt-Hr/lb, thats waaaaay off! going nowhere fast with 68 Watt-hr/lb batteries. Good luck with that!
@@randallkelley3600 EASA's 10 min of reserve applies to all aircraft, as long as they fly in close proximity of an aerodrome = traffic pattern training
Electric cars that are designed for ICE and then converted are generally pretty bad. It seems that the same applies to aircraft. Putting the engines on the wings, rotating opposite would remove the torque and make the fuselage lighter. Lighter means more battery. You'd also get better frontal view and a quieter cabin for instruction. Making the battery pack a structural element rather than carrying it like a sack (two sacks) of potatoes would cut the weight again. Less weight, more batteries. There's huge potential for improvement here, even without making a heavier aircraft. An hour flight with a half hour reserve should be easy in a purpose designed aircraft.
why is your review using totally different and much less figures than al the others, particularly price, and weight which others say is the same as the Rotax. this seems like a deliberate hit job on this aircraft.
I must say, reading these comments, you can really see how great the aviation community is. Mention an electric car on an automotive forum, and people seem almost angry that you exist. Despite them being mature, useful products, there's a lot of hate towards EVs. Mention an electric plane, and everyone appears positive, excited for the future, while acknowledging the limitations of the current technology (and the fact that it'll improve).
My experience is electric cars are very excepted in the enthusiast car markets now. You see Tesla’s at the drag strip being driven by middle aged dudes in cut off t-shirts. Fast is fast. People are loving the new Porsches too. Only gripe is the sound being boring, I don’t see formula 1getting rid of ICE’s for instance because the soundtrack is a big part of the drama and excitement to spectators. Some of the new models have more active sound generators though and eventually they’ll figure out how to make them as raw feeling for those that appreciate that about cars.
Plugin batteries would allow a quick turnaround. I cannot understand why electric cars and airplanes are not designed for quick turnaround. This is the reason I would never consider either.
So lets see: - the aircraft will always have "max fuel weight" regardless of power left, range massively reduced. - At high altutude, the batteries will get very cold or even feeze, massively reducing available power or even fail. - inability to fly high altitude looses benefits of thin air allowing a higher ground speed for same airsoeed. - if the charge runs put, unlike fuel, you will have to crash land with "max fuel" weight.
I have this wrong for any number of reasons ... i'm not an "air"-anything (not an airline-anything nor an aircraft-anything). With the caveat in place, am I reading this correct? At a 60% charge (11 minutes in the video), it has 153 minutes (2-1/2 hours!?!) yet to charge; for an only 18-24 minute flight (to maybe "virtually nowhere") once it's done..... Wow.... I can't imagine this being useful for anything. Great video, as always.
Paul, good video but I am wondering if there is any serious research into thin film solar panel to cover the wings and fuselage. If this could be accomplished, I would think you could extend your flight time considerably.
I still think the one thing missing from most electric lio designs I’ve seen is Redundancy. Ultimately everything in these designs seems to go back to the batteries. Thermal runaway is one thing if you’re cruising in your Tesla but if you’re at 4-500 in this thing and one of the coolant pumps fails what do you do? Where is the redundancy for thermal runaway conditions in the batteries? Translating EV to EF is not as simple as most people and a lot of these companies appear to think. Neglecting redundancy in an automotive setting is one thing. In an aviation setting? No thanks. Don’t get me wrong I do think electric flight is the future I just don’t think lio batteries will be the power source. Flow batteries? Supercaps? Hybrid caps? Or maybe they can solve the redundancy problem with lio powered flight? I just don’t see it right now. Thermal runaway is most commonly caused by failures to the cooling system and if I’ve learned anything in my 40 years (flying being no exception) it’s that pumps fail more than anything. Love your videos by the way!
I remember spending 17 minutes from the start of my plane engine to get to active runway for take off in the 90’s at KFRG airport because of busy airport . Go figure.
It is a little different with electric propulsion. Unlike fossil fuel engines, the electric motors are not running (using power) when stationary when waiting in line on the taxiway.
I like it. Battery tech has so much potential you really can’t argue against it from that point Of view. I could see northwest seaplane operators going partially electric in the next 20 years (harbor air has already jumped in!).
Great video, I am interested to see what they do with the plane and its successor. It is basically a tech demo to learn how to make them and learn how they react to new conditions. I am sure they are learning a lot by making these planes even if it's not a money maker. Also useful to get the ball rolling on all the regulations required to get later generations legal. I don't think many people will look at it as a viable alternative to a gas-powered aircraft for some time but that's ok. Someone needs to be the first, good on them for making it.
Everyone debating what it's good for, yet they are selling like hotcake. Those guys are building the future and not the armchair engineers in the TH-cam comment section
Could they pair the electric prop system to a higher efficiency consumable fuel source. I’m thinking a turbo diesel, hydrogen or other fuel generator. May still be lighter, less complex maintaince since a generator is much simpler mechanically are more optimized due to the narrow RPM band they operate in. Combined with reserve batteries or super capacitors, you could much more easily survice an engine failure. I’m assuming the electrics motors themselves would have a very low fail rate, and they’re so light you could make twin props for cheap with a single combustible fuel generator powering both. Even if the weight is the same, one would think the operating, safety and insurances costs would be way less of a factor. Could be the boom civil aviation needs to get young pilots interested in it again. Flying is seen as too expensive and bad for the environment to most. Just reducing operating costs could be a big benefit until the batteries come along.
Those flaperons will be a killer for pilot training. Why would you teach some weird quirk of an aircraft the student is never going to fly once they obtain their licence? It would be a complete distraction during a crucial phase of flight training. Fine if these things ever get an endurance of a few hours and become practical for cross country flying but otherwise a waste of instruction time.
Dear AVweb, dear Paul,
thank you for your analysis. We met some time ago at Aero Expo in Germany.
I'm Head of Training for the first flight school in Germany operating the Velis Electro in fully integrated training operations. After some months getting comfortable with operations I can state that I have full confidence in the aircraft and the technology going in to the future. You are correct that we had to acquire a Rotax version of the same aircraft to train the navigation component of the PPL syllabus. All other operations up to that stage are possible, including adequate reserve requirements considering the operational conditions as dictated by EASA regulations. (These are different for flights from A-A overhead the airfield as opposed to A-B navigational flights.)
We work closely with EASA as a regulator and Pipistrel as a manufacturer to gather data and give feedback based on experience gained.
The aircraft is now fully integrated into training operations and trial flights, type checks, and PPL licencing are possible. We would be happy to work with AVweb or any other interested party (including FAA regulators) to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft without the temporary restrictions which the FAA currently imposes. Your assessment that only 25 minute flights are possible to allow for 30 minute reserves is not entirely accurate by our experience. Our operational numbers show that 30 minutes flight time is possible using less than 50% battery capacity, where most of the energy required is used in the climb to altitude. Once in cruise, the power requirement is very low on this efficient airframe. As such, a further 20% can comfortably used at a low cruise power setting to land the aircraft with the recommended minimum 30% remaining - which by our numbers should approach the 30 minute minimum cruise reserve in level flight / descent to land.
I will not post contact details here, but any interested party can reach us over our website at www.westflug.de or connect with us on FB (Westflug Flight Training) with questions or to keep up to date.
Regards,
Rob
Head of Training
Westflug Flight Training
Thank you it is good to get information from someone who has flown it. Please note the FAA 30 minute reserve is ‘normal cruise’ not 30 minutes at minimum cruise power/descent power. I think that is why the endurance that the flight test engineers at Florida Tech are seeing is less than you expect.
@@XPLAlN fair comment. The Velis has normal cruise power tables where we operate at the lower end of those normal cruise power settings - 20-25 kW. The demo flight above seemed to be operating at cruise of 35 kW. In comparison, we do normal climbs at 40 kW.
Flying this aircraft needs a shift in mentality - no operating it like a conventional aircraft with 5hrs endurance; it needs to be operated for what it is - somewhere between a glider and an ultralight. It just happens to have full certification.
Flight students need flight time - not flight distance.
@@chronikentertainment7856 thank you for the reply. Normal cruise is not defined so I expect low power cruise would be acceptable for the purpose of reserve planning. In the video he said they were using 25 kW at 85 KIAS so on paper that is 12.5 kWh reserve or 57% . A 3 minute climb at max con followed by a 25 kW cruise will in theory result in 20 minutes flight plus 30 minutes reserve, so I think that is the kind of profile that resulted in the times quoted in the video. PB said they flew for 21 minutes and used 43% capacity so theory would seem to correlate with practice in this case.
This dork posted a letter in a TH-cam comment
It's probably a cut and paste of an email. You're the dork here, Glemm
I think what impresses me most is the fact that they actually managed to even create an electric plane!
At least it doesn't need much navigation equipment as it can't get far from the airport
🤣
Self launching glider
..or weather radars.
Dont fly from a busy airport in case you get stuck in a holding pattern.
oil bot detected
Great stuff, as usual, from Paul, with the appropriate tone for the state of the technology. He's gentle and respectful with Pipistrel, which is admirable. I would love to see him review this aircraft with his trademark humor injected and maybe a little bit of overshoot on the criticism. He's the most entertaining and instructive guy on TH-cam when he cranks it up.
Thanks a lot. Throwing the bit up on screen about the Buehler Foundation ruined a perfectly good reference joke.
@18:20 I fly an electric paramotor. Other than range reduction electric flight creates this new issue for pilots to deal with. You have less power available near the end of the while your weight is still the same as it was on takeoff. Any pilot new to electric should be briefed that go around performance is reduced, possibly significantly, not increased compared to take off.
This suggests that your motor controller is not compensating for reduced voltage by increasing current. My guess is this aircraft does that.
@@paulogden7417 You're correct, the motor controller doesn't compensate for the battery's power curve. To do so would mean reducing available take-off, and some cruise, power artificially. Some systems may do that but there will be a limit. I was trained to understand the machine I'm operating so it would behoove me to know about both the battery's power curve as well as any electronic compensation system.
That sounds like nonsense to me. It's no diferent to an electric car, you have the same performance available at the start of the drive as the end.
I've just done a search and I can't find anything that says performance is less at the end of the flight.
That's not how modern batteries work, the power curve doesn't drop off that fast. Not to mention it's a 50 minute range PLUS a 30 minute VFR reserve. So as you are flying back to the field to land, you're at about 50% total charge, not 20% or whatever.
@@martinw245 you can boost the voltage yes, but a full charged 18650 pack is 4.2v and a spent one is ~3.5v. If you take into account c rates, there’s a reason all EVs are fastest when fully charged it’s simply the voltage being higher at max charge.
At 6C a battery cell outputting 3.7v is always going to send less power than a 6C battery at 4.2v it’s just how battery chemistry has evolved.
Thanks for this report, Paul. Every new technology has to start somewhere, and practical tests and reports like this are very enlightening.
Indeed.
Battery technology is far from new. In fact it is rather mature.
For electric car purposes, 32 kW/h is about the same as a gallon of gas. What's interesting with this plane is that it's got, apparently 22 kWh of batteries (11 kWh/pack), and gets about an hour of maximum endurance compared to the fuel version that holds 20 gallons and gets six hours. That tells me that this plane is more efficient than an electric car in terms of getting endurance out of kWh of batteries relative to fossil fuel. That's a good sign. Now all they need to do is make the battery pack six times more energy dense and 1/2 the weight.
You could do the math on gas engine efficiency vs EV efficiency. E-cars are around 5x as efficient as gas. A gallon of gas may contain a lot of energy but a gas engine is merely a noisy heater with motion as a side effect at about 25% efficiency... As such, multiply usable energy in a gallon of gas by 0.25 for cars. Planes may be a little better but not hugely so.
@@Kimoto504 gasoline engines are extract about 20-24% of the energy in gasoline. diesel engines extract about 90-95% of the energy in diesel.
combustion engine vehicles get lighter as you go further since you're using the fuel up, and you're making the same power.
electric crap stays the same weight from start to finish and makes less power the weaker the charge gets. you battery beat-nicks/hippies/whatever need to stop lieing to yourself. electricity is great, batteries are not the option for vehicles. you also completely ignore the fact that mining lithium and other components for those batteries has caused extravagent amounts of damage to the local land. heavy water(irradiated water) filling the whole mine from the process is just sitting around,slowly creeping into the water cycle.
wake up, dont believe the crap these people who are taking millions of tax payer dollars from government grants tell you.
OK 32 kWh is 115 MJ which is exactly the same energy as a gallon of avgas. However, this airplane has a max L/D of 15:1 at 64 knots, according to Pipistrel. "Endurance speed" is min power speed which is generally about 0.8 of range speed (aka max L/D) for propeller airplanes and uncomfortably close to the stall in this case so I am going to use the range speed instead. At 600 kg with a 15:1 L/D at 64 kts in standard conditions the power required is glued on at 12.9 kW. Now even if you take 2 kWh out the 22 kWh battery for a climb to pattern altitude you have 20 left, so to burn through that at a rate of 13 kW in 58 minutes would equal an efficiency of 65%. Which is a lot worse than a Tesla. And the problem here is we do not really know what power setting results in the claimed endurance of 60 minutes so the efficiency could be better or worse but it is a stretch to get it higher than eg a Tesla 3.
Planes are often more efficient than cars. A gallon of gas will go further in a plane than the car it came out of.
@@jmwintenn Most diesels are 35% efficient, some commercial trucking engines can do 45% and ship diesel engines can reach 54%. Diesels with 95% efficiency? Not a chance. They'd be near noiseless and not need cooling systems if they could get that efficient.
The rep from Florida Tech did a great job. Well-spoken and knowledgeable.
I think in Europe they have reduced the reserve time to 15 mins for electric aircraft with the caveat that you must stay in sight of the runway. Basically polishing square pegs so they fit in round holes.
So far i am aware the did not. Still 45min?
But i would love to know where you found this information?
10min for flight in close proximity of aerodrome (also for conventional planes)
30min for VFR crosscountry (+IFR jet)
45min for IFR and night
@@500arend Its in the EASA ruling.
See what @Aviationinmymind said. 10 mins if remaining in sight of airport is not a concession in Europe, it is standard.
@@flexairz i will look it up again 😅 geus my knowledge is a bit rusty
The fact it flies at all is amazing. I’m in the UK and one of these would be perfect for flying circuits and short trips.
The axial flux motor is such a clever design. Seeing them in more cars too. Excited to see where the tech will go next.
It's good that planes like that are already coming to market. I agree that it's not practical yet, but the technology has to start somewhere. But I also agree that the minimum fuel shouldn't be shaved down to 10 minutes. In the school I fly the policy is 30 minutes after the alternative, which gives me even more peace of mind. I wouldn't fly with 10 minutes reserve EVER.
What technology?
Everything is mature.. dumb solution
I wonder how Glider Pilots seem to manage with 0 minutes?
The relevant technology is energy storage, which this has nothing to do with. Do the math and you'll see that no matter how much you optimize for drag coefficient, or anything else, batteries aren't even close. The future is almost certainly in turbines burning "clean" fuels, like Fisher-Tropsch derived synthetic liquid fuels from renewable feedstocks or even direct carbon capture to fuel cycles.
10 mins reserve is only valid while flying in the traffic pattern.
I wonder if there are lower weight non-rechargeable battery options for reserves, so the final 15 minutes would never be used.
Thank you for a honest review that really pointed out some issues which are not shown in other presentations.
Everyone's said it but I'll be that reminder guy: Battery tech MUST improve for electric planes to be realistically feasible as a replacement for dino bones burners. Lithium air batteries may be that new tech, but we'll see. Best of luck to Pipistrel.
That is the case with cars too. Not so much with range, but charge time. Charge time may be less of an issue with flight schools or for that pilot who likes to fly on the good weather weekends. But with current battery tech, a lot of capability just isn't there.
@@randallkelley3600 True although cars can worry less about the weight issue. Many electric cars are on par with their gas-powered counterparts in terms of range now. Always room for improvement of course.
@@randallkelley3600 Meh - The newest Model 3 with 60kWh LFP battery would be enough for like 95% of people driving. Goes like 250 miles with a charge, has good durability and good charge rates. On average people only drive like 25 miles per day.
I'll happily buy an electric car when the charge times significantly reduce and when the cost of batteries drop significantly. Maybe when by 2020 Tacoma hits 300k miles battery tech will be where it needs to be.
@@CarterHancock Now if they can just get charge times down.
Interesting and informative rundown. Always high quality, viewer worthy reporting from Paul. THX!
yeah paul's the man
Another fantastic video with unbiased information
Having flown a few hundred hours in this aircraft, I would also recommend doing most of your flying around 70 knots, it's much more efficient at that pace and you'll find you have a power setting around 16-18kW (as long as you're not flying with a fatty) which will vastly increase your endurance. We clock 1.2 - 1.4 training missions all the time in Class D airspace.
100% They best speed is between 64 amd 70 knots. We too clock consistently 1.0s at least. A perfect training mission duration.
As a fatty, I just anger-ate a box of twinkies after reading your comment
Which flight school is that?
@@ElectricPlaneGuy Which flight school?
Looking forward to seeing the first inflight refu, er, recharging demonstration.
Adding this to my play list of videos that haven't aged well.
I think the key to green flight is to modify aircraft engines to work on biofuels. Either algae based or ethanol. I dont see electric flight scaling all the way up to a jetliner size. Emitting carbon is fine if it's the same carbon you took out of the atmosphere 6 weeks ago.
CO2 is plant food not pollution and not a significant "greenhouse" gas.
Thanks, more info from the US than we can get in Europe. By the way SI units for torque are Nm not nM.
While I'm sure there will be plenty of dissenters remarking about how impractical electric is (and it is in its current form), I'm excited to see how the innovation continues in the following decade(s). Glad to see Pipistrel pushing the technology forward.
It will dominate at some point. Instant torque is so wonderful.
Thanks Paul. Interesting times.
I have a great idea to get around the limited flight time due to the limited battery capacity. What you can do is to get an Antonov AN-225, it has an MTOW of 640,000kg which should be enough capacity to carry batteries to re-charge the Pipistrel mid-air. It simply drops a power cable that pulls the Pipistrel along at 250 kts for 2.5 hours, at which point the Pipistrel can fly another 20 minutes or so.
Well, can't do that anymore. The only completed An-225 was destroyed.
Don't be ridiculous. That is just silly.
A C-130 would be more than capable of carrying that kind of load. No need to talk about the An 225.
Finally, someone with practical solutions. Great idea.
The ONLY way I would every even consider a 10 minute reserve would be a flight that just stays in the traffic pattern. I could see this being useful for just doing touch and goes, but I think a new reg would need to be made to allow for a lower electric reserve (while in the pattern). I'm excited to see where electric planes go in the upcoming years!
It is do-able. Military jets routinely have less than a 10 min reserve. Sometimes not even enough for one more cct.
May that traffic pattern not be over my house. Bonus, let the traffic pattern be over those for electric planes. Thanks.
@@glynnetolar4423 Right now it seems that the only real dangerous airplanes are gasoline powered.
I agree. I’d love to fly touch and go circuits in this.
Thanks for another great one, Paul!
Even with out the reserve limitation, 36 minutes for two people before battery completion is why electric airplanes are not going to go far into production. The technology just isn't there yet.
You can get pretty far with 36 minutes of flight time though... Not across the atlantic, but..
The technology is getting there but clearly has limitations. The certification in Europe helps with the intended use case of a trainer that mostly just stays in the pattern. For that, 10 minutes reserve is fine since you are basically within gliding distance of a perfectly good runway. Which is why they can stay up for fifty minutes or so. This plane is obviously never going to be breaking any records. But if you look at it as an early MVP, it's not that bad. It works as advertised and they are popular with flight schools in Australia and Europe.
The main opportunity for improving this design is that the batteries in this thing are simply not state of the art. Not even close. A lot has happened in the last 5-10 years. The issue is that replacing batteries resets the clock on the certification by several years. So, they entered the certification process quite a few years ago with whatever had been available then for some time (i.e. they chose suppliers conservatively). E.g. the Nissan Leaf more than doubled its range in the last 12 years without increasing the weight. The first version from 2010 had a 21 kwh battery. There now is a 62kwh version and the smallest version is 40kwh. People are swapping out the batteries in the original leaf and are getting double the original range. That might happen with Pipistrel as well eventually.
Both weight per kwh and charging times could probably be improved quite a bit even without switching to e.g. solid state batteries (which are actually becoming available now). So, if they'd manage to go from 50 to 90-100 minutes, that would be nice upgrade and they might be able to improve on that as well. Also getting the charge times down should be feasible. There are EVs on the road that charge much larger batteries in a fraction of the time. And with the extra range, you could afford to only charge to about 80% instead of having to wait for 100%. Charging to 80% is usually quite fast with EVs.
Other manufacturers have similar issues with their batteris but are doing a bit better despite similarly lagging in battery tech. E.g. Bye's Eflyer 2 is currently undergoing certification and is rated for a 3 hour endurance. It had it's first flight in 2018 and it supposedly might get through the certification process by next year. Likewise, the Eviation Alice has a range of around 500 miles.
So, it's not there yet. But getting there is not exactly science fiction any more.
@@rkan2 No. Not really.
It's not there for planes yet. But it wasn't there for cars 15-20 years ago either. The first modern EV cars were completely impractical, just like this Pipistrel is, but without them we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today. The Pipistrel isn't the end game, it's a first step.
@@maxleitschuh7076 Air travel is vastly different. Unless or until we have a revolution in battery storage density and weight, then EV for airplanes will not be going anywhere.
A battery will always absorb more energy on charge that it supplied, the difference being lost as heat.
I always love Paul’s videos!!!
As I've come to expect, Paul provides a superb review. As an engineer, all of the facts Paul speaks about were self evident to me, and were easy to calculate. However, without an actual product review, few believe "the facts". Electric power works well enough in expensive, short range cars, and that's where it belongs.
CC forget about the selfies..I only want to see the panel!
The plug is physically standard but not electrically nor electronically. You can only use Pipistrel's proprietary chargers with Pipistrel's planes. Or at least that's the case with the Alpha Electro our club has. It's very frustrating.
Huh... it has one hour flight time and 30 minutes reserve in UK. We already have a flight school using them.
Fun to play with locally… but would you pay over $100k to do that when you can get a small ultra lite to do the same thing for under $25K?
If you pay 10$/gallon - probably in many situations yes
@@rkan2the amount of fuel you need to burn to offset thay price difference exceeds the life of the battery.
@@Blxz A Model 3 costs 30k$ used 40k$ new. 5L/100km The car would consume that much after 300/400 thousand km at 2€/L. The electric car will probably be at least twice as valuable after it has driven the same distance.
@@rkan2 huh? This is a video about planes right?
In its current form this plane has no real utility but people said the same thing about the Wright Brothers in their time, so it will be interesting to see where this goes.
Well said!
If the packs cost $22k, an average flight is 15 minutes (0.25 hours), and the batteries are rated to 2000 cycles (typical rating), then you're only looking at 500 hours of flying with a battery-reserve of $44/hour. I'm sure shipping the electric motor back to Slovenia every 300 hours isn't cheap, either.
With current battery technology, it doesn't matter how efficient the airframe and motor are, you just can't get enough flight time to be practical. The math just doesn't work out.
with the deep discharging aviating would generally involve and fast charging battery life of 2000 cycles is optimistic
At 12:50 is that the position and pattern, already planned for the second generation Flux Capacitor? Asking for an 80s friend! 😉😊
The comment in the video about the energy needed to recharge the battery as related to capacity size is incorrect. Batteries may be close to 100% efficient on a Coulombic (amps) basis, but not kWh (volts X amps for DC). As an example, I have measured my Chevy Volt (PHEV) to be less than 80% efficient when charging the battery.
The amp accounting comes straight out of the BMS. You are correct, to put back in the stated 12.5 kWh or so, it required nearly 14kWh of input. The value stated in the video was correct, although needed that additional context.
As an electric car owner for 10 years, it is good to see progress being made in the aviation industry.
It also has landed in the motor coach and locomotive sector. Thank you for the report.
Wake me up when batteries achieve 1,500 wh/kg, cost $97/kwh, and achieve 2,000 hrs of flight time before replacement. That is what it will take to achieve parity with the O470 and 50 gallons of avgas in the 182. (79 gal useful, but if carrying four adults and baggage - 50 gals on board and 800 lbs of people and stuff)
Any energy density less than 1,644 wh/kg and it requires a sacrifice in either useful load, endurance, or performance.
A more meaningful effort would be renewable/sustainable fuels and retrofitting fuel systems to support it, or if it has to be electrons to satiate the EV obsessed techbros - hydrogen fuel cells, as aircraft have far more empty space then additional weight carrying capability.
Amen to that
excellent report, thank you!
It was "only" 33 years from the Wright Brothers first flight to the first flight of the Douglas DC-3. I also agree it's not practical now, but someday I suspect we will have viable battery technology.
These electric aircraft doesn't really benefit anyone apart from the environment, and for niche applications like general aviation it will probably be cheaper to just pay a carbon tax and plant more trees. The move towards cleaner-burning fuels and exhaust filters would also make the transition to zero emissions much less urgent, and the impending end of Avgas will force owners to re-engine their aircraft.
Aviation grew because of the obvious benefits of faster travel (as well as military uses), whereas with electric aircraft it's like replacing plastic straws with paper straws, it's an inferior solution that's better for the environment. But there are other ways of achieving the same for the environment - plant enough trees and GA could become carbon negative.
@@Avantime electric planes/cars are not better for the environment. CO2 is plant food.
@@Avantime Let's not forget that an electric motor is probably 10X more reliable than a gasoline engine. There are limitations but when it does happen it will be better than a gasoline powered aircraft in just about every way. There will be no ignoring it then. Its simply inevitable.
@@lamberto6405 The problem is you can't have an electric motor without a battery, those two must come together. (Well technically you can have a gasoline/diesel-electric engine but that's just adding needless complexity, the crankshaft is ideal for driving a propeller) Once you add a battery you'll need an aviation-certified battery thermal management system. It's this part that will most likely fail, with potential catastrophic consequences such as a runaway battery fire, a sudden collapse in range, or the engine and avionics stop working. High capacity, lightweight batteries are especially volatile, and aircraft can't just go into turtle mode.
Internal combustion engines and gas turbines have been around for around a century, and manufacturers are very good at making reliable engines. Today you wouldn't bat an eye on a Toyota with a million miles, or a Rolls-Royce jet engine reliable enough to carry an ETOPS-certified 777 for almost 4 hours on a single engine. It's the GA mentality that's holding the scene back towards much more reliable, modern engines. Electric aviation still have a lot to prove, the industry is still very much in the pioneering era. Give it 50 years or so, as technologies get mature enough to meet the safety standards aviation regulators and the flying public demands.
You see all those futuristic electric flying taxi start-ups valued at crazy amounts of money? They'll all disappear when the Fed raises interest rates back to normal levels in order to control inflation. In order to control inflation, the interest rates must rise over the rate of inflation, like 8% to 10% now. And the later the Fed does it, the more they'll have to raise rates, as wage increases spiral in response. Tesla's stock is already down ~50% this year, with the current Fed funds rate is just 1%.
I hope the FAA catch up soon and enable electric aviation. We're having such a great time flying our certified electric aircraft in flight schools in Australia and building our charge node network fro recreational aviators. 5 Airports electrified and counting!. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia allow a 30% on-board energy retention as emergency reserve, which allows up 50-60 minutes of flight in the Pipistrel Alpha Electro depending on payload.
No cabin heat? Batteries that must be kept from overheating and no cabin heat? All you'd need is a duct from the radiator into the cabin. Silly oversight.
An the surface, yes. But it would require hoses, valves, a radiator in the cabin. Say, 25-30 KGs easily. With the margins being as thin as they are, that's probably why they chose not to implement that. Someone more cynical than me might even say that you probably won't get very cold in 21 minutes anyway 😉
In any case, an interesting airplane, that shows a probable future. My local airfield has one, I might call them sometime, and ask what a flight would cost (as a passenger, not a pilot) just to experience it.
No. It takes great power to generate heat so its planned that way. Engines create "free" heat thanks to their inefficiency but it is an ancillary benefit.
The only utility for electric power plants is with motor gliders. Honestly, I'm surprised that they aren't electrifying their Sinus Flex motor glider. It shouldn't be too hard since the Velis is related to the Sinus. Certification here in the US would be a lot easier because it could be certified as a glider instead of an LSA. Of course that means you can't use it in a normal flight school setting as a trainer, but let's be real, nobody is going to use the Velis Electro for that role either.
I wouldn't say it is the only utility, especially with battery power... Solar powered however, I think it is a bit unexplored idea, even if they did cirumnavigate the earth with one already.
Seems like an OK basic training aircraft for warm climates at best.
I was wondering how much the cold weather performance would suffer. University of North Dakota's flight school probably couldn't use it.
This is an early plane for training and short hop recreational flights. There's a six seat , also fully certified plane with a more than two hour safe range plus alternate on the way. Battery densities have already doubled since airbus e fan of 2016. It's depressing how aviators are such technical luddites in some regards
Hydrogen powered cars never made much sense but I've struggled to understand why hydrogen-powered aircraft haven't been more looked at compared to plug-in EV planes. Generating liquid H2 is very inefficient, true, but energy density is so much better and weight is so much more of an issue to planes that I feel like it makes way more sense than a tiny, very expensive aircraft that you charge for two hours to fly for twenty minutes. Might as well fly an electric ultralight for a fraction of the cost.
Hydrogen storage is a nightmare. The tank system has to be thick to hold the pressure. It takes 1kg of tank to hold 0.090kg of H2.
Endurance issue is simple. Just put in a small fusion reactor.
Battery needs to be half the weight of the plane to start making it useful with an hour flying time + reserve. So, if they make a 1200 kg plane with 600 kg batteries instead of a 600 kg plane with 150 kg batteries I think it would be really useful.
It has "training only" written all over it.
7:10 - What is the deal with the aviation community and not understanding horsepower? More power = more torque at the same RPM, *ALWAYS.* What's listed there for the Rotax is FLYWHEEL torque, but torque at the propeller (thanks to the PSRU) is going to be 214 lb-ft!
That's true for internal combustion engines but not so for electric and external combustion
@@frontagulus No, it's true for absolutely everything. It literally can't be any other way.
Indeed, in aircraft thrust is what counts. And it explains why the performance in flight is no better (worse I think) than the Rotax powered version
@@randallkelley3600 Yup, the takeoff run for the Velis is well more than twice as long as the Virus. Vehicle performance is all about power to weight ratio.
@@frontagulus Absolutely right. According to the fourth law of thermodynamics "horsepower equals torque times RPM divided by 5252 except for electric and external combustion engines". Also, for electric and external combustion engines, 2 + 2 = 6
WARNING ! The charger plug should be away from the propeller, like near the wing root. For any technical reason, if the prop is activated while charging or, worst, when someone is connecting, disconnecting or servicing the socket ... Better safe than sorry !
Until someone figures out a “magic” battery or a micro nuclear reactor I think the best that can be expected is a hybrid airplane.
Exactly right!
Oh, the motor rotates, reminiscent of planes from 100 years ago 🙂 That explains the torque issues at takeoff.
I really like the unbiased objective presentation.
there were certified electric planes before that in europe.. Like the silent which also runs in the UL category
Fuel powered aviation requires a lot of compromises because the margins are slim. Battery powered aviation requires so many more compromises that it approaches complete uselessness with current and foreseeable future battery tech.
I believe the 10 min reserve is only for landing in the take off airport that has been kept on sight during whole flight. Otherwise 30 min. You failed to clarify this while you criticised the 10 min as europeans where bargained in safety.
10min reserve is absolutely not enough for full cert, that's really cutting it close.
Have to start somewhere though.
Has someone made a comment about having a very long extension cord yet?
Thanks for posting this Paul. As with all electric vehicles that aren't tethered, battery endurance and capacity are the biggest constraint. I would be curious to see where research / experimentation is regarding hydrogen fuel cells. I could see the possibility of these being a short to medium term "solution" to traditional battery limitations, particularly with regard to range (same as gasoline essentially, when compared to this battery option) and with regard to weight. It would be fascinating if someone like Pipistrel was to bring out the same airframe but with a fuel cell energy source. If it was to regain the range and get back to something like 5 hours, then that would be a game changer, even if the weight limitation was there
solution: flying trolleybus
@@RoamingAdhocrat well... there was company who had that solution in mind anyway
Very informative, thanks
Cool little plane, but Is 50min really the best we can do with electric?
The short use time means people will be rushing and making bad decisions or mistakes.
Great report here Paul but I came for some humor ....LOL
Battery-powered electric aircraft are the aircraft of the future...and they always will be.
Till they are not.
Very thorough review! I'm excited to watch as electric-powered aviation tech matures.
It is mature right now.
How is it mature now, when you can only fly for 20 minutes with a 30 minute reserve? I don't call that mature.
@@HeyIFoundACamera You could say that’s mature, just impractical with the limitations of power source.
If they invented a new magical cheap power source/battery tomorrow that you could swap in for the batteries, the rest of the tech is pretty solid.
I’m curious why they’re not looking into hybrid systems in the mean time until solid state batteries are economical power density wise.
Modern battery tech is no where near where it needs to be for electric aircraft. I really wish it was though.
These things are still far away from reality. The same for flying cars. Both are hype. Not real practical machines. I know, some say 'yet' but notice we still dont have a cheap turbine engine that can replace piston engines in GA, nor do we even have unleaded aviation fuel. (note. Pipistrel went bust and just got picked up by Textron).
I wouldn't say Pipistrel are way ahead in terms of electric flight technology when Eviation Alice is about to have its first test flight and caries 11 people 600 miles.
I was just checking to see what you've uploaded and here you are. Thanks to everyone involved.
Couldn't the electronics cooling system be used as a source for cabin heat or is no cooling needed at temperatures where cabin heat would make flying more enjoyable?
You wouldn’t get cold enough in 18 minutes LMAO
interesting idea
I dream of a usable cross country version where I can take it around in a decade or two. Hopefully EV tech advances in general can help slingshot electric planes!
so... it works out 11kW-hr on 162 lbs or... 68 Watt-Hr/lb! Jet-A is 6,000 Watt-Hr/lb, thats waaaaay off! going nowhere fast with 68 Watt-hr/lb batteries. Good luck with that!
Why cant you take more battery power on board and throw them off with a parachute?
Whoa 18 whole minutes endurance for dual instruction (with 30 min reserve). What a machine for instruction and time building! (Sarcasm)
keep away from the prop sir good video
The one thing that leapt out at me was 1KW/min of effective "flight time". That's a major yikes right there.
Yeah, and that European certification with 10 min flight reserve...better not have to go around or divert to a different airport.
@@randallkelley3600 EASA's 10 min of reserve applies to all aircraft, as long as they fly in close proximity of an aerodrome = traffic pattern training
Electric cars that are designed for ICE and then converted are generally pretty bad. It seems that the same applies to aircraft. Putting the engines on the wings, rotating opposite would remove the torque and make the fuselage lighter. Lighter means more battery. You'd also get better frontal view and a quieter cabin for instruction. Making the battery pack a structural element rather than carrying it like a sack (two sacks) of potatoes would cut the weight again. Less weight, more batteries.
There's huge potential for improvement here, even without making a heavier aircraft. An hour flight with a half hour reserve should be easy in a purpose designed aircraft.
cant wait to see what this can do with panasonic 4680 cells
why is your review using totally different and much less figures than al the others, particularly price, and weight which others say is the same as the Rotax. this seems like a deliberate hit job on this aircraft.
Is it legal in Indonesia?
Their next plane is a 200 mile 4 seater electric 👍
I must say, reading these comments, you can really see how great the aviation community is.
Mention an electric car on an automotive forum, and people seem almost angry that you exist. Despite them being mature, useful products, there's a lot of hate towards EVs.
Mention an electric plane, and everyone appears positive, excited for the future, while acknowledging the limitations of the current technology (and the fact that it'll improve).
My experience is electric cars are very excepted in the enthusiast car markets now. You see Tesla’s at the drag strip being driven by middle aged dudes in cut off t-shirts. Fast is fast. People are loving the new Porsches too.
Only gripe is the sound being boring, I don’t see formula 1getting rid of ICE’s for instance because the soundtrack is a big part of the drama and excitement to spectators. Some of the new models have more active sound generators though and eventually they’ll figure out how to make them as raw feeling for those that appreciate that about cars.
18 minutes, so as a trainer (student and instructor) you have enough time for 1 to 2 trips around the pattern?!
Plugin batteries would allow a quick turnaround. I cannot understand why electric cars and airplanes are not designed for quick turnaround. This is the reason I would never consider either.
For aircraft quick exchange connector is a possible critical point of failure. Also, BMS is somewhat "tuned" for the individual batteries.
Thanks for the great content as always. One note: The abbreviation for Newton-meter is N.m, not nM.
So lets see:
- the aircraft will always have "max fuel weight" regardless of power left, range massively reduced.
- At high altutude, the batteries will get very cold or even feeze, massively reducing available power or even fail.
- inability to fly high altitude looses benefits of thin air allowing a higher ground speed for same airsoeed.
- if the charge runs put, unlike fuel, you will have to crash land with "max fuel" weight.
I have this wrong for any number of reasons ... i'm not an "air"-anything (not an airline-anything nor an aircraft-anything). With the caveat in place, am I reading this correct? At a 60% charge (11 minutes in the video), it has 153 minutes (2-1/2 hours!?!) yet to charge; for an only 18-24 minute flight (to maybe "virtually nowhere") once it's done..... Wow.... I can't imagine this being useful for anything. Great video, as always.
It has a one hour endurance, plus a tiny reserve.
Paul, good video but I am wondering if there is any serious research into thin film solar panel to cover the wings and fuselage. If this could be accomplished, I would think you could extend your flight time considerably.
I still think the one thing missing from most electric lio designs I’ve seen is Redundancy. Ultimately everything in these designs seems to go back to the batteries.
Thermal runaway is one thing if you’re cruising in your Tesla but if you’re at 4-500 in this thing and one of the coolant pumps fails what do you do? Where is the redundancy for thermal runaway conditions in the batteries? Translating EV to EF is not as simple as most people and a lot of these companies appear to think. Neglecting redundancy in an automotive setting is one thing. In an aviation setting? No thanks.
Don’t get me wrong I do think electric flight is the future I just don’t think lio batteries will be the power source. Flow batteries? Supercaps? Hybrid caps?
Or maybe they can solve the redundancy problem with lio powered flight? I just don’t see it right now. Thermal runaway is most commonly caused by failures to the cooling system and if I’ve learned anything in my 40 years (flying being no exception) it’s that pumps fail more than anything.
Love your videos by the way!
wat about Alpha ?
I remember spending 17 minutes from the start of my plane engine to get to active runway for take off in the 90’s at KFRG airport because of busy airport . Go figure.
LOL!!
It is a little different with electric propulsion. Unlike fossil fuel engines, the electric motors are not running (using power) when stationary when waiting in line on the taxiway.
I wonder how much battery power will be waisted doing the run up lol
I like it. Battery tech has so much potential you really can’t argue against it from that point Of view. I could see northwest seaplane operators going partially electric in the next 20 years (harbor air has already jumped in!).
Great video, I am interested to see what they do with the plane and its successor.
It is basically a tech demo to learn how to make them and learn how they react to new conditions. I am sure they are learning a lot by making these planes even if it's not a money maker. Also useful to get the ball rolling on all the regulations required to get later generations legal. I don't think many people will look at it as a viable alternative to a gas-powered aircraft for some time but that's ok. Someone needs to be the first, good on them for making it.
Everyone debating what it's good for, yet they are selling like hotcake. Those guys are building the future and not the armchair engineers in the TH-cam comment section
Could they pair the electric prop system to a higher efficiency consumable fuel source. I’m thinking a turbo diesel, hydrogen or other fuel generator.
May still be lighter, less complex maintaince since a generator is much simpler mechanically are more optimized due to the narrow RPM band they operate in.
Combined with reserve batteries or super capacitors, you could much more easily survice an engine failure. I’m assuming the electrics motors themselves would have a very low fail rate, and they’re so light you could make twin props for cheap with a single combustible fuel generator powering both.
Even if the weight is the same, one would think the operating, safety and insurances costs would be way less of a factor. Could be the boom civil aviation needs to get young pilots interested in it again. Flying is seen as too expensive and bad for the environment to most. Just reducing operating costs could be a big benefit until the batteries come along.
Those flaperons will be a killer for pilot training. Why would you teach some weird quirk of an aircraft the student is never going to fly once they obtain their licence? It would be a complete distraction during a crucial phase of flight training. Fine if these things ever get an endurance of a few hours and become practical for cross country flying but otherwise a waste of instruction time.
I just had an idea…what if we mount 2 Honda generators under the wings. Then we would only be limited by the fuel we could carry.
They didn’t think Tesla would work, either.