Note: not being negative, I just want to ensure I understand correctly since the title might imply something else.
Update: confirmed, it does use aviation fuel.
> "The airplane will also include a reserve-hybrid configuration, consisting of two turbo generators powered by sustainable aviation fuel. The reserve-hybrid system is installed to secure reserve energy requirements without cannibalizing battery range, and it can also be used during cruise on longer flights to complement the electrical power provided by the batteries."
Hybrid after the first 125 miles, total range 500 miles. Their problem is diversions - an incident at the destination airport may mean an passenger aircraft may need to land at an airport which could be a couple hundred miles away. The hybrid powerplant throws the fuel efficiency numbers off so goal is not to run it unless needed, but they could not get certification without it.
With limited information form their web site, both. Being able to run pure electric while switching to fossil fuel. [0]
The way modern hybrids can charge from an outlet, I classify them as EV-Hybrid, and only use gas if need be vs older ones that only charge through the gas engine, Hybrid.
These kind of startup excite me. More so than the "next killer app" or "look what we shoved AI into."
Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes and attack Europe's short flight market (which is already cheap). Now we need bigger planes or more frequent planes and the next startup to solve the energy needs.
> Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes
I'm not sure how building an electric aircraft would help with this. Are people going to suddenly switch to commuting by plane?
Fixing America's commute problem is primarily an urban planning one (ie, putting all the homes nowhere near anything) and not an insufficient-electric-aircraft one.
Could you imagine the (rather justified?) NIMBYism for all the airports required for commuter flight? If rail can’t be done, flight definitely won’t fly.
Btw, I kind of changed my opinion on AI. Finally, everybody can build an app, so we no longer have to pretend the people who built one and made it big are some sort tech pioneers pushing humanity forward.
Likewise, if you're a nerd, you can spend your free time building stuff you thought you would never get around to.
Yes, AI as marketed is a bit of a snakeoil, but much more real and meaningful than crypto and social media. And math nerds finally can get a high paying job that's not about peddling ads or figuring out how to make a hedge fund even richer.
I was just at Newport Technology preview where they demoed a ground effects aircraft drone. This was a scaled model and the final drone aircraft is designed for 12 passengers. All electric.
Interesting decision to build the whole aircraft instead of the propulsion system only. I wonder what the decision process was between retrofit of existing turboprop frame vs. build from the ground up? I would expect the level of effort and certification to be much higher building from scratch even though you get complete control.
Aircraft design is very intricate. Change the CG, break the whole system.
Fuel is often placed in wings because adding/burning fuel from your center of lift means your CG doesn't significantly change through a flight and you spend less on pumping fuel within the aircraft. With batteries, you are looking at a constant mass from the beginning of the flight to the end... so you can place it anywhere. Electric motors are orders of magnitude lighter than jet engines. Also, you don't need to pump electrons against gravity so placing all of that weight lower has handling/performance advantages.
By using an airframe shape that is well known, they are reducing risk and appealing to existing pilots. By building it from the ground-up, they are taking advantage of differences between the tech.
eg: all of that weight in the fuselage instead of the wings means that rolling is going to be much more nimble. Yaw might be affected as well, depending on the placement/moment of the batteries.
It may be too hard to do a good retrofit. If you basically have to tear the entire plane apart and rebuild and recertify it to put batteries in the right places, maybe the costs aren’t worth it for potential customers.
I know many planes use their wings as fuel tanks but given the weight of batteries maybe that doesn’t work.
I agree it’s interesting. Not a small undertaking.
Generally all the weight of the fusaage has to go through the wings anyway so it is structurally more efficient to put weight on the wings in the first place.
I think an interesting aspect is that on normal aircraft fuel tanks have to be near the center of lift to maintain weight and balance as fuel is burned off. When using batteries, this is not really a concern, and I would think might lead to some more interesting designs. To be sure, if there is space in the wing, awesome - the batteries can now also be used as ballast though too if required.
Wings can also be excellent for heat rejection - in-wing batteries have a lot of surface per unit of volume and are constantly exposed to low temperatures.
Which may result in them being too cold and you needing to spend power heating them, so someone needs to do the math on that.
Judging by the seats, perhaps making it as light as possible. Existing airframes are relatively light but let's be honest, they aren't trying to save 500g here and there when they have massive jet engines to get everything airborne.
I discussed with people working on aircraft components, and my understanding is that weight is a constant obsession for them. Propose a new system to Airbus/Boeing, and the first question they'll ask is "how much does it weight?"
Every kg saved is a kg more of freight that can be transported (or a little less fuel used to keep the plane in the air); save 500g for each seat of a 200-seat plane, and you can put one more paying passenger in the cabin.
Agreed. But for related reasons, aircraft aren't really designed for either the structural robustness or balance to deal with big heavy batteries, which is what motivated the clean sheet design.
Heart Aerospace (YC W19) just flew the largest electric airplane ever flown — a 100-foot wingspan, a takeoff weight of 25,000 pounds, and $5 of electricity to get it off the ground.
Nit: When they did the actual flight I did the math on the $5 worth of power claim, and it just doesn’t pencil out even at the lowest power rates in North America. Just to illustrate: at $.05 per kWh (which is less than half the price of electricity where they flew), you get 100kwh for $5. 100kw is what it takes to takeoff a 1200 pound Cessna. Probably about 75kw for an efficient cruise in that same plane.
Still an incredible feat, but no idea where the $5 comes from. Maybe that’s just the power they use to get from the threshold of the runway to wheels up.
The takeoff roll is only a minute or so to lift-off, so it's possible. But also somewhat meaningless, as an airplane can take off for free in high-enough headwinds.
It won't likely perform better as it ages but it may continue out-performing a fleet that tends to hold its value. If the maintenance cost of the electric motors and batteries along with the turbines operating at reduced power is better than the maintenance cost of two turbines that are operated at 100% power to take off, it could really pay off, as that tends to be a very expensive part of the operation. Airframes also often appreciate these days, as it is very expensive to buy a new one and an old one is somewhat proven.
This plane basically has to outperform a Saab 340.
The noise wouldn't be significantly lower during takeoff/landing, only during taxi, right? Good for workers on the tarmac, but doesn't get rid of the largest noise pollution issue.
In the video he explains that the goal of the hybrid system is mainly to be used when for some unexpected reason the airplane cannot land at its original destination.
I’ve been tinkering with the idea of a hybrid system where the ICE system is its own bolt on component to an electric aircraft that is used for takeoff and altitude before it detaches and returns to the airfield before the aircraft cruiser on electric power.
Could even have a rocket launch version for cargo
Can you please not be snarky in HN comments and not post shallow dismissals of other people's work? Both of these are in the site guidelines, as you must know: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
There's room for thoughtful skepticism and critique, but not dismissive sarcasm, nor supercilious putdowns like "Yeah...", "just a joke", "yet another high wing puddle jumper". All that is exactly what we ask commenters to avoid on this site. As the guidelines say, "A good critical comment teaches us something."
Your account unfortunately has a long history of breaking the site guidelines—enough, I'm afraid to say, that I instinctively brace myself when I see your username. We've asked you about this multiple times over the years:
If you wouldn't mind taking the intended spirit of this site more to heart and really correcting this pattern, we'd appreciate it. You're obviously knowledgeable and a good commenter apart from this, but it's a problem.
Fair enough. I'd view it as "florid" vs. "shallow", but it's not my opinion that matters and I fully agree that there's a spectrum between "strongly held" and "offensive" and you have to put the boundary somewhere.
I'm going to push back on one bit though, which I suspect is just a misunderstanding on your part: "yet another high wing puddle jumper" is not remotely dismissive or trivializing! Being "high wing" is purely descriptive, and correct, and a "puddle jumper" is a widely used term for short-range passenger aircraft (like the Dash 8, which I also mentioned), here's a great reddit thread for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/rs7i4m/what_is_t...
I'm not saying this to make the designers feel bad verbally. I'm literally saying they've produced an aircraft that competes poorly in the market with something DeHavilland was selling in the 1980's.
My first sentence was almost 100% sarcasm though and I'll take the hit on that.
I take your points on "high wing" and "puddle jumper", especially the latter since I didn't know the term. But "yet another" is still a dismissive swipe!
The video cites the large number of existing flights that are short enough for the electric. I am not sure they should be judged based on whether they make air travel more appealing overall - making it cheaper and lower emission is plenty.
I'm pretty excited for the hybrid airplane. Use battery charge to get up to altitude. Hybrid power during cruise and top off the battery with the leftover power. Far less power requirements, far less fuel use, better climb performance, and can use the most efficient engine rather than hugely inefficient but power dense turbines. And as a bonus, put the prop power anywhere you want. Designs that distribute props across the leading endge, or right on the leading edge of the rudder, are exciting.
Can I be the one to make the obligatory train comment? Moving hundreds of people 500 miles in comfort, using only electricity, is also a VERY solved problem.
Man, I’d love more trains but we can’t act like the infrastructure necessary to support them, if not present, is very challenging to develop.
Even ignoring land acquisition (which is a big thing to ignore in populated areas where a train would most benefit the population), there are simple things like road crossings, other infrastructure crossing, etc.
In this case an airplane may be simply a lower friction solution.
Trains are great, but they can only go where tracks go. Planes are faster, too, noting that boarding times can dilute that. Trains are perfect for freight and super frequent routes, though.
It's not about moving hundreds of people, it's about moving 30-100 people. Many places don't have the demand or physical possibility for a railway. If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be so many short distance flights.
Can I be the one to make the obligatory land acquisition and permitting comment? Navigating the acquisition of all the land and environmental and other rights via US courts is a VERY unsolved problem.
I live in Germany. 500 miles is more than essentially all domestic flights in Germany. Two hours driving by car from Berlin gets you nowhere all that interesting. You'd probably spend close to an hour just getting out of the city. Two hours might get you as far as Magdeburg or Dresden when traffic is mild. Good luck with that on a busy weekday. Dresden would be about 200km. Magdeburg is a bit closer to 160km. And much of the way you'd be facing speed limits. And traffic jams.
Both of you are misunderstanding the point: I was responding (pretty clearly I thought!) to the ridiculous "all electric" range.
Yes, it can go farther if you burn fuel. But so can a Dash-8, very effectively. No one is interested in hybrid range per se, only if the hybrid mode is more efficient.
To repeat: the market is filled with fuel-driven turboprops. This only wins if it's better, and it's only better if it's cheaper. Is it cheaper? If it's cheaper they should say, and not spend time talking about "all electric" range in a regime that doesn't want aircraft at all.
And sure, there are places in the world that don't have limited access highways. But the 125 mile range is already served very well by piston-driven lightplanes! Again, who's going to buy one of these vs. just continuing to run their 40+ year old Beavers or Caravans or whatever?
Also: if the only market for your high tech electric superplane startup is backcountry work in Alaska, you're probably never going to get funded to begin with.
It might be cheaper when internalizing the externalities of CO2 emissions. Once/If we start properly taxing the impact of these emissions, this plane could offer much cheaper flights then fossil fuel driven competition.
I mean, for the all-electric distances it's pretty much a given that it's cheaper: fuel consumed is the largest item on airlines' expenditure. The bigger question is at what distance you start having to burn more fuel than if you weren't lugging batteries round with you. If it's [eventually] commercially competitive at 400m range it's going to be useful on a variety of routes currently operated by ATR-42s and Saab 340s etc, the sort of thing that's definitely not operated by 40 year old 9-seaters. If it isn't... well islands still exist, they're just a fairly small niche
I'm far too dumb to understand the intricacies of such technology, but the continued research into Lithium-air batteries seems incredibly inspiring. If we can figure that technology out, seems like it'd unlock a whole host of battery-powered transportation options.
I still find it crazy that piston engine aircraft still run on leaded fuel. The only reason it is still the case is mostly regulatory. We can make compatible unleaded fuel, we could have done it decades ago, but it would have required costly recertification and maybe minor retrofits and the use of additives, and considering the small scale of GA, considered not worth it.
Things seem to go in the right direction, with an unleaded alternative in the process of being certified. But aviation, especially general aviation moves at a glacial pace, usually for good reasons, maturity is important, but not poisoning people is important too.
Wikipedia says “It was initially developed by Bombardier Aviation with the program launched on 13 July 2008 and had two years in-service as the Bombardier CSeries.”
The interior of the plane is clearly designed by an engineer. They stripped everything down to save weight, passenger comfort be dammed. The seats don't even look comfortable.
They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.
But maybe they’re aiming at short haul cargo. And either way, wouldn’t that really be one of the last things to do? Just proving the plane can even get in the air and stay there for a useful distance on electricity is more important than how comfortable it is.
The founder seems to sneak in the word "hybrid", around 1m30 mark in the video below.
https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=5unXLmPxk6M_kmuN&t=86
Note: not being negative, I just want to ensure I understand correctly since the title might imply something else.
Update: confirmed, it does use aviation fuel.
> "The airplane will also include a reserve-hybrid configuration, consisting of two turbo generators powered by sustainable aviation fuel. The reserve-hybrid system is installed to secure reserve energy requirements without cannibalizing battery range, and it can also be used during cruise on longer flights to complement the electrical power provided by the batteries."
https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-unve...
The way modern hybrids can charge from an outlet, I classify them as EV-Hybrid, and only use gas if need be vs older ones that only charge through the gas engine, Hybrid.
[0] https://www.heartaerospace.com/es-30
More of a replacement for the "helicopter market"...
Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes and attack Europe's short flight market (which is already cheap). Now we need bigger planes or more frequent planes and the next startup to solve the energy needs.
I'm not sure how building an electric aircraft would help with this. Are people going to suddenly switch to commuting by plane?
Fixing America's commute problem is primarily an urban planning one (ie, putting all the homes nowhere near anything) and not an insufficient-electric-aircraft one.
Likewise, if you're a nerd, you can spend your free time building stuff you thought you would never get around to.
Yes, AI as marketed is a bit of a snakeoil, but much more real and meaningful than crypto and social media. And math nerds finally can get a high paying job that's not about peddling ads or figuring out how to make a hedge fund even richer.
https://polaristechbridge.org/bluetide/
https://www.regentcraft.com/
Fuel is often placed in wings because adding/burning fuel from your center of lift means your CG doesn't significantly change through a flight and you spend less on pumping fuel within the aircraft. With batteries, you are looking at a constant mass from the beginning of the flight to the end... so you can place it anywhere. Electric motors are orders of magnitude lighter than jet engines. Also, you don't need to pump electrons against gravity so placing all of that weight lower has handling/performance advantages.
By using an airframe shape that is well known, they are reducing risk and appealing to existing pilots. By building it from the ground-up, they are taking advantage of differences between the tech.
eg: all of that weight in the fuselage instead of the wings means that rolling is going to be much more nimble. Yaw might be affected as well, depending on the placement/moment of the batteries.
I know many planes use their wings as fuel tanks but given the weight of batteries maybe that doesn’t work.
I agree it’s interesting. Not a small undertaking.
On a 737 they can put about 8k pounds per wing.
Even little planes like Cessnas have wing tanks.
Which may result in them being too cold and you needing to spend power heating them, so someone needs to do the math on that.
Every kg saved is a kg more of freight that can be transported (or a little less fuel used to keep the plane in the air); save 500g for each seat of a 200-seat plane, and you can put one more paying passenger in the cabin.
Still an incredible feat, but no idea where the $5 comes from. Maybe that’s just the power they use to get from the threshold of the runway to wheels up.
Cool stuff regardless!
This plane basically has to outperform a Saab 340.
If anything, planes have real autopilots!
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-claim-teslas-appreciat...
Range: 125 miles all electric
The higher reliability of electric.
Losing an turbine engine doesn't mean asymmetrical thrust. Plane still flies normally.
Losing an engine on takeoff you still have full power.
Electric motors spin up faster than turbines. Which means faster throttle response. Which you need when hit with a wind shear on landing.
Take off and landing under electric power means much less noise.
Efficiency, you can increase the number of props or fans to get a much higher bypass ratio. Worth noting the plane in the video has four props.
There's room for thoughtful skepticism and critique, but not dismissive sarcasm, nor supercilious putdowns like "Yeah...", "just a joke", "yet another high wing puddle jumper". All that is exactly what we ask commenters to avoid on this site. As the guidelines say, "A good critical comment teaches us something."
Your account unfortunately has a long history of breaking the site guidelines—enough, I'm afraid to say, that I instinctively brace myself when I see your username. We've asked you about this multiple times over the years:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29222114 (Nov 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697507 (Jan 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21094881 (Sept 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20314315 (June 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19469358 (March 2019)
If you wouldn't mind taking the intended spirit of this site more to heart and really correcting this pattern, we'd appreciate it. You're obviously knowledgeable and a good commenter apart from this, but it's a problem.
I'm going to push back on one bit though, which I suspect is just a misunderstanding on your part: "yet another high wing puddle jumper" is not remotely dismissive or trivializing! Being "high wing" is purely descriptive, and correct, and a "puddle jumper" is a widely used term for short-range passenger aircraft (like the Dash 8, which I also mentioned), here's a great reddit thread for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/rs7i4m/what_is_t...
I'm not saying this to make the designers feel bad verbally. I'm literally saying they've produced an aircraft that competes poorly in the market with something DeHavilland was selling in the 1980's.
My first sentence was almost 100% sarcasm though and I'll take the hit on that.
I appreciate the reply.
What an age to witness.
From a purely aesthetic point of view, pusher props are way cooler. If the wings are far back and the plane has canards, even cooler.
Even ignoring land acquisition (which is a big thing to ignore in populated areas where a train would most benefit the population), there are simple things like road crossings, other infrastructure crossing, etc.
In this case an airplane may be simply a lower friction solution.
> the grueling two hour drives
What country are you in, and perhaps more importantly, what roads are you driving on?
What car are you driving?
How are you not dead?
...Which would mean you're driving at 250mph.
Most cars take off at that speed.
Yes, it can go farther if you burn fuel. But so can a Dash-8, very effectively. No one is interested in hybrid range per se, only if the hybrid mode is more efficient.
And sure, there are places in the world that don't have limited access highways. But the 125 mile range is already served very well by piston-driven lightplanes! Again, who's going to buy one of these vs. just continuing to run their 40+ year old Beavers or Caravans or whatever?
Also: if the only market for your high tech electric superplane startup is backcountry work in Alaska, you're probably never going to get funded to begin with.
Very few highways between the Hawaiian islands. Or Caribbean. Probably plenty of other places.
There are tons of places in the world with short haul flights today, even if good highways exist.
Every one of those planes is a potential target for replacement.
You’re arguing most short haul flights shouldn’t exist. Maybe do, but they do.
then we are not tied to global fuel politics
and maybe airports will become far less toxic with leaded fuel finally being completely eliminated
(and there is a Ycombinator video channel? never knew)
Things seem to go in the right direction, with an unleaded alternative in the process of being certified. But aviation, especially general aviation moves at a glacial pace, usually for good reasons, maturity is important, but not poisoning people is important too.
Uh, what about the Bombardier C-series (A220)?
Hence 18 years.
They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.
The competition in this market segment doesn't look like Middle Eastern airlines' first class cabin concept art, it looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340#/media/File:Mesaba_Ai...
related : many flight demonstrators in the past for large passenger planes have had no interior at all aside from the cockpit and ballast kits.