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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

I think that is one of the reasons why the upcoming electric small planes are such a huge thing - getting rid of not only combustion engines, but very old and inefficient combustion engines. Could be a real game changer.

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They are probably not going to take off (pun intended) any time soon. Just fuel reserve requirements alone are about the full range they have.

I suspect hybrids will be developed first. Basically an APU sending power to the main motor + a relatively small battery. The 'APU' can be relatively compact and deliver a lot of power, with less engineering requirements (can place it anywhere, doesn't need to interface with a prop). If it fails you have some emergency battery power. Electric motors are incredibly strong and have very few moving parts, so reliability is higher. They are also light.

Net net, there's some complexity and the combined equipment may be heavier (may! existing powerplants are some heavy beasts) but there's probably advantages.

Certification would be horrendous, I imagine.

Yeah BEV / Teslamania obscures the fact that what automotive REALLY should have done was hybrids from year 2005+ for virtually every vehicle as the first step. Instead, they are doing the great leap to full electric.

In my vision a compact rotary (that inside-out rotary patent a few years ago looked even more promising) would recharge the battery subsystem. Or maybe a fuel cell.

The same would probably work for GA. Really, hybrids will work regardless of the battery tech for the next couple decades.

Yes, considering the first hybrid with the Prius was available as early as 1998, the car industry should have switched to hybrids in the early 2000s. But unfortunately they didn't. Just keeping selling pure combustion engined cars was far too profitable. I think Tesla did indeed play a huge role in pushing full electric cars. Which today is of course the correct technology for most applications as it skips the combustion engine completely.

Hybrid planes would be quite attractive, but of course the certification bareer which might be too large

I thought going directly to BEV was a good plan, but then someone on this site pointed out that if civilization needs to go to BEVs, and there is X supply of battery materials, should we use those in 100kwhr packs for full BEVs, or in 20 kwhr battery packs for PHEVs that will deliver 80-90% of trips electrified?

So you effectively electrify 5x the number of cars...

But, that opportunity has passed, at least we are moving towards electrification.

They'll end up with a fraction of the range/payload of the old planes.

Maybe that's fine if the point is just to go up on a Saturday for fun and land at the same field you took off from.

I'd literally fly a bicycle with wings for fifteen minutes at a time if that made [fixed-wing] aviation more affordable. I live in one of the better-off eastern-bloc countries and I make significantly more than most people I know, but getting a PPL would almost certainly ruin me financially at this moment.

I know that paragliding and hang gliding exist, but those are a bit out of my comfort (and safety) zone.

There are clubs that own small aircraft that you can fly, I've done some time in these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42

Technically it is a microlight but top speed and handling are much closer to a regular GA craft. I absolutely loved it and if my eyesight was better I'd definitely go for a license.

There are also actual gliders (aka soaring). These are planes in all but the engine, and are pretty safe.

Buy a Cessna 150 or 152. About the same as your bicycle and about as affordable.

Yes, of course. But the range (1-2h) might be just enough for a lot of szenarios.

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