Pilotes Québec

Je me lance dans le vide!

Avec les restrictions à venir pour 2035 (c’est dans un avenir très rapproché) et 2050 sur les carburants fossile, pour les moteurs à combustion interne à l’essence (AVGAS ou sans plomb (Mogas) ou le remplacement future du 100LL). Considériez-vous remplacer votre moteurs à combustion interne à carburant fossile, pour un système de propulsion électrique, vous permettant une autonomie de 90 minutes (60 minutes de vol et 30 minutes de réserve) et avoir un temps minimal de 20 minutes ou plus de recharge (Recharge rapide de 20 minutes minimum, plus pour un système 240 volts) à la remise à neuf pour le même prix?

Si, pour le même prix total, qu’une bonne « Remise à neuf de votre moteur à carburant fossile » vous pouviez remplacer votre système de propulsion actuel, par un système de propulsion électrique, le ferriez vous?

Donnez-votre opinion?
P. S. : Lire l’article en anglais d’« AvWeb, Russ Niles, Mis à jour le 28 avril, 2022.

Lien Internet : https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/dia ... tric-da40/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Diamond Predicting 20-Minute Charge For Electric eDA40

By
Russ Niles
-
Published:April 27, 2022Updated:April 28, 2022

Diamond Aircraft says the electrified version of its DA40 single will have up to a 90-minute endurance and charge time of 20 minutes. The company announced on Wednesday it has chosen Safran’s ENGINeUS electric motor to power the eDA40. “With Safran we are having an expert partner for electric propulsion systems aboard,” said Liqun (Frank) Zhang, CEO, Diamond Aircraft Industries Austria. “The smart motor’s state-of-the-art technology including smart features paired with a well-advanced certification process is the logical choice for our eDA40. We are looking forward to the first flights scheduled for end 2022.”

Diamond announced the program last October. The aircraft is aimed at the training market and Diamond is predicting a 40 percent decrease in operating costs for flight schools. The 90-minute endurance likely won’t be achieved immediately but will be possible as battery technology evolves. Diamond is predicting certification for the motor by mid-2023 and basic EASA certification of the aircraft in late 2023 or early 2024.

Salut Jacques,
j`aimerais bien voir un moteur hybride, l`autonomie de distance serait au rendez-vous.

abud wrote:Salut Jacques,
j`aimerais bien voir un moteur hybride, l`autonomie de distance serait au rendez-vous.

Salut, Martin,

Meme si je suis d'accord avec ton affirmation.

Simplement, cela ne résoudra pas, la rareté et le cout du carburant fossile a venir.

P. S.: J'aimerais établir une "Base de donne sur les cout total d'une Remise a neuf des differents moteur a combustion interne (Continental, Lycoming, Rotax, Franklin, etc.", S. V. P. Vous pouvez m'envoyer les informatios par courrier interne si vous voulez.

Selon une publicité de Pipistrel, le Velis avec un moteur électrique de 60 kV (81 BHP) et des batteries de 20 kV, peut voler pendant 90 minutes et a encore 30 minutes de réserve. Avec leur système de recharge, il mentionne 90 minutes pour une recharge.

Donc, l'équivalent pour 90 minutes de vol, seraient:

Moteur et Batterie:
- 80 kV (107 BHP) et 30 kV,
- 120 kV (162 BHP) et 40 kV ou un peut moin,
- 160 kV (215 BHP) et 60 kV ou un peut moins,
- Etc.
Mes deux cents,

Jacques

Voici un autre article en anglais:

Diamond and Safran Team Up to Develop Electric Training Aircraft
The two companies announced their partnership to create a new iteration of the DA40.

By Jeremy Kariuki, April 27, 2022
“Creating an electric version and participating in the electrification of this bestseller aircraft is not only a technical challenge, but it is also a response to the growing global demand to decarbonize aviation using electric propulsion. This new contract demonstrates the success of our ENGINeUS product line and confirms the strong interest of the market in our approach to further increase the electric powertrain performance.”

Safran’s motor, the ENGINeUS 100, will deliver 130 kW (176 BHP) maximum at takeoff power, with a fully integrated motor controller. According to Safran, the electric motor’s certification is expected to come mid-2023. For European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification on the airplane overall, that’s expected in late 2023 or early 2024.

“We are excited to announce the motor partner for the eDA40,” says Liqun Zhang, CEO Diamond Aircraft Industries Austria. “With Safran we are having an expert partner for electric propulsion systems aboard. The smart motor’s state-of-the-art technology including smart features paired with a well-advanced certification process is the logic choice for our eDA40. We are looking forward to the first flights scheduled for end [of] 2022.”
Initial flights for the eDA40 are currently scheduled for the second quarter of this year.
Lien iinternet: https://www.flyingmag.com/diamond-and-s ... -aircraft/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pour le eDA40 il faut noter qu'il n'y a plus de sièges passagers en arrière. Le payload est limité à deux personnes donc ça vise le marché de formation de pilotes et ce n'est plus un avion de voyage.

Aussi ne vous attendez pas à voir des retrofits électriques sur vos avions, ça prend un nouveau programme de certification de l'avion donc extrêmement cher. Les batteries coûtent aussi une beurrée (environ 10 fois le prix des batteries des voitures électriques) et ne se rentabilisent que si on vole beaucoup, comme une école de pilotage.

Dans les années à venir les temps de recharge vont se réduire à quelques minutes, la durée de vie des batteries va augmenter (présentement autour de 1500 cycles et probablement 5000 cycles quelques années), mais la densité énergétique des batteries futures, et donc l'autonomie de l'avion, ne va augmenter que peu à peu - genre 5% par an.

Donc à part les avions de formation ou les avions de loisir pour faire le tour de l'église du village, on va rester avec du carburant pour l'aviation générale de voyage (plus de 200 nm d'autonomie) encore de très nombreuses années.

Le carburant qu'on va voir arriver en aviation se sont les SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel). Ils vont coûter beaucoup plus cher. Les avions hybrides rechargeables permettront de faire baisser la facture, sauf sur des longues distances (600 nm ou plus ) à cause de leur poids plus élevé.

--Luc

VMF-214 wrote:Selon une publicité de Pipistrel, le Velis avec un moteur électrique de 60 kV (81 BHP) et des batteries de 20 kV, peut voler pendant 90 minutes et a encore 30 minutes de réserve. Avec leur système de recharge, il mentionne 90 minutes pour une recharge.

Donc, l'équivalent pour 90 minutes de vol, seraient:

Moteur et Batterie:
- 80 kV (107 BHP) et 30 kV,
- 120 kV (162 BHP) et 40 kV ou un peut moin,
- 160 kV (215 BHP) et 60 kV ou un peut moins,
- Etc.

Mes deux cents,

Jacques

Quelle est la durée moyenne d'un vol pour un pilote privé? Je pose la question puisque je suis en train de faire mon cours et donc mes vols sont normalement de 60 à 90 minutes, mais une fois ma licence en main, la plupart des destination que j'aimerais faire sont à 3 de vol au moins. L'autonomie me semble être un critère important, mais peut-être que je n'ai pas encore compris la réalité d'être pilote privé.

Pour un avion d'entrainement ça me semble pas mal intéressant par contre si le prix d'achat est abordable.

Un autre article (en Anglais) sur les avion électrique

U.S. Aviation First: Private Pilot Certificate Earned Using an Electric Airplane
Pilot Shane Fisher performed his check ride in Pipistrel’s battery-powered Velis Electro.

“This is a fantastic accomplishment for both Shane and the aviation industry as a whole, as this major milestone demonstrates the exciting possibilities and reality of electric aircraft in the training market here in the U.S.,” Right Rudder said in a statement released Friday.

He completed the cross-country requirements for his certificate in a Pipistrel Virus SW–with a similar airframe to the Velis, powered by a Rotax 912 engine. Fisher, of Ultimate Aviation, has since become a Pipistrel dealer, representing the brand in the Philadelphia area.

The achievement serves as a reminder of recent leaps forward in the development of battery-powered electric aircraft. Textron’s (NYSE: TXT) $235 million purchase of Pipistrel this year speaks volumes about Textron’s view on the future of electric flight.

About the Aircraft

The Velis Electro—a single-powerplant aircraft aimed at the pilot training market—has an empty weight (with batteries) of 941 pounds (428 kg) and an maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 1,320 pounds (600 kg). Payload: 378 pounds (172 kg). Its maximum speed is 98 kcas.

The airplane has a maximum endurance of 50 minutes, plus reserve, and a maximum recharging time of one to two hours.

Thom Patterson

Thom is a staff reporter for FLYING and Modern FLYING. Previously, his freelance reporting appeared in aviation industry magazines. Thom also spent three decades as a TV and digital journalist at CNN’s bureaus in Washington and Atlanta, eventually specializing in aviation. He has reported from air shows in Oshkosh, Farnborough and Paris. Follow Thom on Twitter @thompatterson.

My First Electric Flight

Does the Pipistrel Velis Electro have a place in flight training right now?

A Lot of Questions

The Velis Electro has been EASA-certified for more than a year, and it operates under LSA rules in the U.S. Can this fully electric airplane hold its own in flight training right now? Or does it need another evolution of battery technology to find a place in a school’s lineup?

With Textron Aviation’s recent purchase of Pipistrel, those questions take on more significance. What exactly did TextAv get? Is the Velis Electro a solution for economical, sustainable flight training as it stands, or has the company invested in a platform with limited applicability in pilot development programs, as the Cessna Skycatcher has been viewed?

Taking It to the Sky

The act of flying requires committing ourselves to the air and testing out the numbers derived on engineering plans. We can pencil it out, but until we put our soul in the seat, those figures remain abstract.

So, when Chan offered me a flight from the Inverness Airport (KINF) in the Velis Electro following Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo last week, I jumped at the chance. With caution? As it turned out, not really, and once we left the pattern with the airplane, I understood why.

My mind switched over to “glider mode”—not because I had any lack of confidence in the electric powerplant in front of me, spinning a composite, three-blade, fixed-pitch propeller, also made by Pipistrel. I’ve flown behind enough piston engines to feel a healthy sense of skepticism about them all. Props stop for a lot of reasons. No, something else was going on in my pilot brain.

Power Management

The Velis Electro carries a maximum power rating of 65 kWh, which allows for a quick takeoff roll (around 1,000 feet on the 80 degree F morning) and an initial sea-level climb not unlike that of a Cessna 152. But like most powerplants, you don’t keep the engine at maximum power for very long if you want to have any range—nor if you want to preserve engine life.

Upon reaching 75 knots indicated and a couple hundred feet agl, Chan had me pull the lever back to 40 kWh—more than enough to sustain our climb at a comfortable airspeed. Our endurance leapt from a mere 24 minutes to somewhere around 35 minutes. Once reaching 2,500 feet msl, I reduced the power again to 20 kWh, and we had 45 minutes, with 80 percent of the battery life remaining (there are two sets within the airframe).

We’d already been operating as a “flight lesson” for about 15 minutes, if you include the normal engine start, taxi, runup, takeoff, and climbout for an average training flight. I took the airplane through a series of maneuvers—slow flight, steep turns, stalls, and a lazy eight, for grins—and we still had some time to play before we would need to head back to the pattern for a few landings. It felt like the outlines of a normal pre-solo lesson.

Looking for Lift

But there was an additional factor I hadn’t considered until I cast around the central Florida landscape looking for cloud streets: We could gain time in the air if we found lift. I started thinking back to my initial glider training, and I recalled how every flight began, once off tow, with the same search and calculus towards buying a little more time aloft.

It was an entirely comfortable feeling—provided I stayed within my mentally drawn range of the airport. And I mentioned it to Chan, and he agreed—he’s a glider instructor as well as an airplane CFI—glider pilots would likely grasp the concept of power (and lift) management better than most others transitioning to the airplane.
A
nd then I thought, “Why aren’t we training all of our students to think of endurance in this way?” Perhaps some instructors do. Fuel exhaustion accidents make up an embarrassingly large percentage of those that general aviation incurs each year. We could use a rethink in this area of decision-making—there’s nothing magical about dead dinosaur juice for stretching aircraft range beyond a hard limit.

What About Cross-Country Flights?

Chan is up front about where the Velis Electro fits into his flight school operation—as a pre-solo trainer complemented by the Electro’s traditionally powered Virus, with a Rotax 912 S3 engine—for the cross-country portion of the syllabus.

He maintains that the current Velis Electro serves as an intermediate step that allows aviation training organizations (ATOs) to reduce costs and carbon footprint on the way to a zero-emissions world sometime in the future.

He’s adding to this with a plan to incorporate solar energy into Right Rudder Aviation’s physical plant in the near term. While he trailered the Velis Electro back to Inverness from Lakeland after the show, he could have made the flight comfortably, in his estimation—he just had too many airplanes to move in the post-event shuffle.

But What About the Recharge?

If there’s one big obstacle to using the Velis Electro in its current mode, it’s the delay incurred by needing to charge the battery fully between flights, a process that takes between one and two hours, depending on the outlet and charging unit used. While a one-hour turnaround isn’t out of line—given the time it often takes to call the fuel truck and make the debrief/re-brief exchange typical at many schools—two hours makes for a long wait between lessons.
Swapping out battery packs is a future solution to this, or staggering lessons between the Velis Electro and its traditionally powered partner. But it still feels like it would work well—for now—in a boutique operation rather than a high-volume ATO or university program.

The Velis Electro features an empty weight of about 940 pounds (with batteries). Maximum weight is an artificially limited 1,320 lbs, when operated as an S-LSA in the U.S. Because of its EASA provenance and certification, it likely has room to grow beyond that. But Chan wouldn’t say yet.
For This Moment

The Velis Electro is fun to fly, with benign handling characteristics, and should adapt well into a primary training curriculum. Will its specific application be enough for early-adopting schools to take it on? That may be answered in part by the strong interest Chan says was expressed by such organizations at Sun ‘n Fun this year.

All told, we need these intermediate steps in order to make progress on our path towards sustainable aviation. I have a feeling this challenge is ripe for an S-curve leap in technology—or more creative solutions such as the one currently in progress with Pipistrel.


Julie Boatman

Based in Maryland, Julie is an editor, aviation educator, and author. She holds an airline transport pilot certificate with Douglas DC-3 and CE510 (Citation Mustang) type ratings. She's a CFI/CFII since 1993, specializing in advanced aircraft and flight instructor development. Follow Julie on Twitter @julieinthesky.