Relevant to today's hand-wringing about jet fuel costs:
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Russia built rather a number of models studying ground effect planes. They are now producing them commercially to replace ferries.
All of the modern ones I have seen photos of have extremely short wings.
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@Amgine that would be sooo cool!
There was a video a few years ago of a semi-dirig being marketed to extremely wealthy people. And a couple things stand out in my memories. The whole thing was electric - you do not need a lot of thrust if you are not overcoming gravity.
The second was 'sailing': the Zeppelins mostly used wind for their transatlantic flight speed.
But most important was the silence. They cranked the mic gain so you could hear the wind outside. The guy's breathing was louder.
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There was a video a few years ago of a semi-dirig being marketed to extremely wealthy people. And a couple things stand out in my memories. The whole thing was electric - you do not need a lot of thrust if you are not overcoming gravity.
The second was 'sailing': the Zeppelins mostly used wind for their transatlantic flight speed.
But most important was the silence. They cranked the mic gain so you could hear the wind outside. The guy's breathing was louder.
@Amgine i would so love to try that out!!
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@Amgine i would so love to try that out!!
Me too. <BIG sigh…>
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Relevant to today's hand-wringing about jet fuel costs:
I was trolling around looking for an update on Harbour Air's eBeaver project (electric conversion for their DHC-2 "Beaver" commercial/passenger fleet) and the latest I have found and most comprehensive on the state of development is here.
Looks like they're continuing to invest and progress. They first flew in 2019 but the pandemic made a big dent but the regulatory certification sounds like it has been difficult and the parts (motor and battery) have had to evolve, but they are still working on it and now are converting a 2nd plane with upgraded specs and are targeting 2027 for commercial readiness!
#BC #AirTravel #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #EndFossilFuels
Forgot to share this article from last summer, so about 4 months after the article you linked:
https://skiesmag.com/news/battery-cooling-continues-to-vex-harbour-airs-ebeaver-program/
I am looking for any news they got the magnix650 motor(s) at the end of 2025.
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Forgot to share this article from last summer, so about 4 months after the article you linked:
https://skiesmag.com/news/battery-cooling-continues-to-vex-harbour-airs-ebeaver-program/
I am looking for any news they got the magnix650 motor(s) at the end of 2025.
This is the latest info I have found about the Magni650 - published today. But nothing about shipping them to Vancouver…
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This is the latest info I have found about the Magni650 - published today. But nothing about shipping them to Vancouver…
@Amgine looks like a very small motor in comparison to the 650 being used by HA
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Russia built rather a number of models studying ground effect planes. They are now producing them commercially to replace ferries.
All of the modern ones I have seen photos of have extremely short wings.
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the engineering article about the motors is super in depth, some of it way over my head, but they also compare the development of EV cars to planes and I get this... at least now... because it didn't occur to me:
Regeneration is great for cars!
Regeneration is a BIG NO for airplanes! Because if you glide and the propeller to regenerate power, you fall out of the sky.
so ya, none of that!
"Critically, one area the company worked hard on reducing was regeneration. At no point during flight, as well as descent, can the plane simply carry on under its own momentum while air drives the propellers to generate current. That would create a large amount of drag, and the plane would start to fall rapidly.
“Maybe a glider or UAV could do that, but not a passenger aircraft,” Armesmith says. “There are rules against it in aerospace, so we have to actively stop regeneration from being possible, it’s a fault we have to arrest,” Armesmith says.
“So, if we’ve either lost power or had to turn the motor off for any reason, the propeller needs to be able to windmill freely. We can’t have any electromagnetic resistance to the propeller free-turning owing to regeneration back into the DC bus.”
ya... glide good! fall bad! lol
I am very glad these very smart people are making it happen and a local company is right in there!!
https://www.emobility-engineering.com/magnix-magni350-650-magnidrive-100/
#BC #AirTravel #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #EndFossilFuels
@chris Interesting article. Aircraft operation is quite different than cars indeed!
The main challenges for fully electric flight are power density (i.e. batteries) and safety of high voltage systems. With current battery technologies, fully electric flight will remain limited to small, short range aircraft.
You might be interested to know there is other interesting technology development work towards electric flight being done in Canada:
https://www.rtx.com/news/2026/03/03/rtxs-hybrid-electric-plane-is-one-step-closer-to-the-sky
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Relevant to today's hand-wringing about jet fuel costs:
I was trolling around looking for an update on Harbour Air's eBeaver project (electric conversion for their DHC-2 "Beaver" commercial/passenger fleet) and the latest I have found and most comprehensive on the state of development is here.
Looks like they're continuing to invest and progress. They first flew in 2019 but the pandemic made a big dent but the regulatory certification sounds like it has been difficult and the parts (motor and battery) have had to evolve, but they are still working on it and now are converting a 2nd plane with upgraded specs and are targeting 2027 for commercial readiness!
#BC #AirTravel #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #EndFossilFuels
@chris The last update I saw was from late 2024 (youtube).
Good interview with the project manager and a pilot. The interesting detail to me was that they expected the operating cost to be similar to the turbojet planes, because the have to retire the batteries after 2000-3000 cycles. However, that cost comparison was conservative and did not include the residual value of the batteries, or the current cost of fuel.
Also, seems that the regulatory challenges are almost as difficult as the technical ones.
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