# Practical electric ultralight



## a_majoor (2 Aug 2009)

Electric powered flight is moving ahead, now practical ultralights are here. Electric UAV's are a real near future technology, and if advances in energy storage technology, fuel cells or something else can approach the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels, then practical electric flight will take off:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/07/espyder/



> *Dream Flying On Electric Wings*
> By Jason Paur  July 31, 2009  |  2:07 pm  |  Categories: Air Travel, EVs and Hybrids
> 
> 
> ...



Lots of very large pictures on link


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## a_majoor (19 Dec 2009)

OK, not so ultralight, but electric flight never the less:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/superconductors-could-enable-electric.html



> *Superconductors could Enable Electric Jet Planes
> *
> Next Generation More-Electric Aircraft: A Potential Application for HTS
> Superconductors (14 pages, 2008] Fully superconducting machines have the
> ...


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## a_majoor (21 Jan 2010)

And in between electric ultralights and 747's, a battery powered small plane:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/01/analytical-mechanical-associates-making.html



> *Analytical Mechanical Associates and NASA Mark Moore Pushing Electric Aircraft - Niche Applications*
> 
> Analytical Mechanical Associates (AMA) has been in the business of aerospace engineering for more than forty years.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (5 May 2010)

Power beaming for aircraft. Next step, power beaming to ships and ground vehicles?

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/laser-powerbeaming-to-uavs.html



> *Laser Powerbeaming to UAVs*
> 
> LaserMotive White Paper – Power Beaming for UAVs (9 page pdf)
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (5 Nov 2011)

http://solarship.com/

A Canadian company is working on a hybrid airship which promises to have STOL performance and use limited amounts of energy to fly. The hybrid airship uses helium to offset the weight of the airframe, but still uses aerodynamic lift to fly. The developers believe that this combination can be powered by solar cells on the upper surface (the amount of engine power to fly would be less than a regular aircraft of this size), I would be interested to discover what sort of solar cell performance is really possible.


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## a_majoor (27 Feb 2013)

Another not ultralight idea, but this time a 737 sized aircraft using electric power to fly, and apparently feasable with current technology. The promised savings in fuel are interesting, and the size and shape of the proposed aircraft are quite interesting for many of our needs:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:a68cb417-3364-4fbf-a9dd-4feda680ec9c&plckPostId=Blog%3Aa68cb417-3364-4fbf-a9dd-4feda680ec9cPost%3Acbc39e6b-d381-4909-bf5d-981f6b1839fa



> *Turboelectric Propulsion - Superconducting or Not?*
> 
> Posted by Graham Warwick 1:27 AM on Mar 24, 2012
> When NASA talks about turboelectric distributed propulsion, it talks in terms of superconducting generators and motors in a hybrid wing-body concept aircraft it calls the N3-X. But there are other ways of approaching all-electric propulsion.
> ...


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## a_majoor (9 Apr 2013)

Ionic thrusters are years away from flight, but the idea of a silent ultralight UAV which is almost invisible in the Infared band is pretty attractive. How well it could scale to an ulta light aircraft (I think they are talkig about light general aviation aircraft like a Cessna) remains to be seen; the idea of sitting inside an ultra high voltage transformer is a bit alarming:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/ionic-thrusters-0403.html



> *A mighty wind*
> Thrusters powered by ionic wind may be an efficient alternative to conventional atmospheric propulsion technologies.
> Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (8 Jul 2013)

Seems like the idea of hybrid electric aircraft has taken hold in the industry. How practical this actually is remains to be seen; the extra weight of the electric motors, separate fans, batteries, turbogenerators, control electronics and (possibly) cyro coolers might more than offset any potential savings from using smaller turbine engines:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516576/once-a-joke-battery-powered-airplanes-are-nearing-reality/



> *Once a Joke, Battery-Powered Airplanes Are Nearing Reality*
> Aerospace companies are working on hybrid electric airplanes, and the earliest versions will likely arrive before the end of the decade.
> 
> By Kevin Bullis on July 8, 2013
> ...



Note: Diesel engines, especially highly turbocharged ones could probably do the job today, and diesel has a higher energy density and is safer in case of an accident to boot.

This second article isn't about electric aircraft per se, but highlights the technology that might be used to build ultralight and ultrastrong aircraft:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509916/hybrid-wing-uses-half-the-fuel-of-a-standard-airplane/



> *“Hybrid Wing” Uses Half the Fuel of a Standard Airplane*
> NASA has demonstrated a manufacturing breakthrough that will allow hybrid wing aircraft to be scaled up.
> 
> By Kevin Bullis on January 24, 2013
> ...


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