ARE YOU READY TO FLY IN AN ELECTRIC AIRPLANE?

ARE YOU READY TO FLY IN AN ELECTRIC AIRPLANE?

Since Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble invented the first motor car in Bedrock, many millennia back, the automobile has made many strides forward. They have evolved from two to four to six and even eight-cylinder engines, and have gone from gasoline as fuel to diesel to biofuel. In fact, today we also have developed electric cars and hybrid vehicles that can run on either gasoline or electricity. The ultimate step in the evolution, at the moment, is self-driving cars that are controlled by computers and are driverless. If you can cope with all of that new technology, then you will probably not have any problem accepting an airplane driven by an all-electric propulsion engine. That’s right - an electric airplane that is run by battery!

A small Canadian company called magniX just recently installed an electric engine into a small de Havilland seaplane that silently and successfully flew for four minutes over the Fraser River in BC. It was the first time an all-electric commercial passenger aircraft had taken to the skies. By comparison, the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903  of a heavier-than-air powered aircraft lasted 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet. From the product of the brother’s bike shop, first flown in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, their prototype has now evolved into jet planes that fly faster than the speed of sound and commercial airliners that have a capacity of hundreds. So today we are standing on the same historical first stage with the electric-propulsion plane.

Electric flight has apparently been around since the 1970s which is news to me. However, it has remained limited to light-weight experimental planes flying short distances and solar-powered aircraft with enormous wingspans yet incapable of carrying passengers. But as the threat posed by the climate crisis deepens, there has been renewed interest in developing electric passenger aircraft as a way of reducing emissions and airline operating costs.

Currently, there are about 170 electric aircraft projects underway internationally – up by 50% since April 2018. Many of the projects are futuristic designs aimed at developing urban air taxis, private planes or aircraft for package delivery. But major firms such as Airbus have also announced plans to electrify their own aircraft. It plans to send its own hybrid prototype of a commercial passenger jet on its maiden flight by 2021. But only one of the aircraft’s four jet engines will be replaced with a 2MW electric motor powered by an onboard battery.

Two of the main problems yet to be faced are the perception the public would obviously have about safety. In days of yore, if your car stalled when you were driving you could quickly restart it. If the battery fails at 30,000 feet you have a little bigger problem. The other area that requires further development is battery capacity. Many experts doubt that large fully electric passenger airliners will be available any time soon – current battery technology simply does not offer as many miles per kilo compared to aviation fuel.

Since I was totally unaware that anyone was even thinking of developing an electrically powered airplane, all of this is news to me. My more technologically advanced readers are probably already making fun of my naivety!