Electric Planes Have Landed!

thank you in the sky at any one moment there are about 500 000 people but when I think about that air travel I imagine big commercial airlines vast quantities of fossil fuels being burnt and the worst food in existence but at least you might get a nice holiday but increasingly we're hearing more and more about evito or electric vertical takeoff and Landing which promises to make flight a much more normal and everyday occurrence in our travel across different cities [Music] it all sounds very futuristic but here in Vancouver flying in small Plains across the city and planes that carry 3 to 19 passengers is already a very normal occurrence and has been since 1982. today Hardware on a mission to Electrify their Fleet of 40 planes and I'm here to meet the team who are doing it it's the fully charged show looking for some sunshine and clean air well way better than Southern California this September we're bringing all of the electric vehicles under the sun and an array of clean Technologies to America's Finest City this fall yes that's right fully charged live USA powered by Electrify America is coming to San Diego so for fresh perspectives exhilarating test rides electrifying live talks and all of your favorite YouTubers get your tickets today foreign [Music] people and goods between Coastal communities here that are 20 to 30 minutes flight you only need to bring on board the energy necessary to get you between here and there [Music] [Applause] you would think from a purely Logistics perspective that electrifying flight should be a reasonably straightforward challenge we've got batteries we've not got that many planes and we've got airports ready and waiting for charging infrastructure unfortunately it's not quite that simple and it's for a number of reasons but the biggest one is gravity getting something off the ground requires a lot of power just think about how much easier it is to do a roly-poly on the ground versus a somersault in the air and so planes need to store as much energy as they possibly can in the smaller space and the smallest weight possible now that's something called the specific energy or Watt hours per kilo and today jet fuel has about 40 times the amount of specific energy than Lithium-ion batteries that we have available and that ends up being about 14 times the amount of usable power so of course if we Electrify planes with today's technology they are going to come with a range penalty fortunately though planes like the ones that Harbor air uses don't need to be doing hundreds of kilometers in each stretch more like tens of kilometers 50 or 60 kilometers and that means there's a whole host of planes ready and waiting to be electrified using today's technology and in 2019 that's exactly what Harbor air set out to do in partnership with magnex and h-55 starting with their six-seater 62 year old dhc-2 beaver [Music] an iconic Canadian aircraft and we're doing a Canadian product and we really wanted to highlight that but also it was the most practical aircraft out of our Fleet where electric Aviation is right now it's really only the smaller aircraft is it practical for it's it's going to grow into the bigger ones but the smaller aircraft is is definitely where it's more applicable if you look at the hardware routes the ones that the Beavers do they're in the 20 to 30 minutes kind of range and that is something that we can Target with this particular aircraft and so that was why this one was was chosen some of these aircraft were used to deliver people in medical supplies and food to to Northern Communities where nothing else could get up there right that's that's what they were intended for um so yes they're a Workhorse aircraft they were never really a commuter aircraft originally [Music] so we took a de Havilland mark one beaver and took the Piston r985 wasp Junior off and put on a magnex electric motor it's around 150 kilowatts we were able to work with um a battery supplier that did a used a NASA design battery to make a very super safe lithium-ion battery to power this thing for we've been going so far 20 30 minute flights with a 20 minute Reserve was there any skepticism about whether they should be electrified absolutely you get that with any classic vehicle of any kind you've got the people who who feel that you should never touch it it should be stayed the way it was even going back so far if they have photos from it from when it was first came off the assembly line whatever color scheme it had when it first came off how it was marked you want to return it to to that because that's that it's it's a sacred thing to many people but I think for for us though it's an icon of Canadian history and we really felt that uh you know you don't have to do all of them there will still be some behind that can can remain pristine and perfect in their original in their original form but I think for for for this particular project being able to take such an iconic Canadian aircraft and use it it was a Pioneer right yeah and it's going to be a it gets to be a Pioneer again and that that we really liked [Music] [Music] no matter who the Skeptics are for an electric conversion the beaver and its unique design was an obvious choice for many reasons the style of the Beaver was all the fuel was kept in the belly that was that was the design of it it's a semi-monocoque structure the wing the way it's structured you can't really uh put the the fuel in the wing so easily we did have to expand a little bit beyond that because on this first prototype the battery modules were not as efficiently shaped as as necessary for a retrofit a lot of the battery manufacturers out there look at everything as like just a big solid pack and it doesn't lend itself to dispersion throughout the aircraft so this particular prototype we used up some of the other space but in the future as we move forward the modular batteries will will fill those types of of areas so if you look at it like a like a Lego thing and you can stack them all under the floor or up front or in the cargo area because you also have to really be cognizant of keeping the center of gravity of the aircraft the same so on a retrofit you can't decide where that's going to be it's already defined for you so you have to fit the the batteries around that and if they're not shaped adequately to support that you're going to end up out of your CFG even if you're within the acceptable weight with piston engines and turbine all these engines in order to make the horsepower they generally have to get the propeller up to a certain RPM the piston engine won't make its rated horsepower at a low RPM it needs to get to that sweet spot electric motors can make the horsepower at pretty much any RPM you want so now for propeller designers they're going to be able to change almost throw the rule book out and try and make propellers that can develop a lot of thrust at low RPM a lot of thrust at high RPM you're still going to have to worry about the propeller tips breaking the sound barrier but you'll be able to really play with the propeller design to get an efficient amount of thrust at whatever RPM works well for a design so the the electric motor is definitely more efficient than burning fuel I mean when you're generally burning fuel you're generating a lot of heat then you've got to get rid of that heat and that heat is just wasted energy whether it's a turbine or a piston the electric is definitely way more efficient at turning energy into thrust one of the I guess the challenges right now is storing the energy in a efficient manner trying to get as close to a fuel that density of energy per pound or per cubic space is very difficult right now with batteries it's nowhere near what it is with fuel [Music] thank you foreign there have been a ton of battery Innovations and improvements over the past decade but the challenges that Harbor air have faced in electrifying this aircraft show that we still need a few more innovations that mean we can have smaller batteries or batteries that are lighter or batteries that come withstand a higher number of fast charging cycles and luckily we have a load of companies pioneering new solutions to develop new battery chemistries that can help the aviation industry Electrify across an even bigger range of aircraft very excited in what's coming it's a lot like the beginning of the turbines when the turbines first came out either as pure Jets and then eventually to fans and turbo props the pure jets that came out they burned a lot of fuel made a lot of noise times between the engines getting taken out and rebuilt and put back in were very short the engines weren't very reliable nothing like the Piston engines at the time but as they got going and progressed along now look at where the turbo fans and turbo engine turbo prop engines and turbo jet engines are now that's pretty much the the norm for jet travel is it's going to have a great big jet engine on it we're in the same boat we've started we've got an electric motor we've got it on an airplane and it's flying as the batteries get better it gets better as the motors get better it gets better it's just nothing but better better as everything progresses along we can't wait it's gonna be great this was something that was really near and dear to our hearts in this particular prototype that we're looking at right now um it's it's it's not going to be commercial the way it is but it taught us that we were we were there and in our next design iteration that we're working on we fully expect that that aircraft once it's certified will be in service for decades to come [Music] so it really feels as if electric flight might not be that far away and in fact the first electric flight was in 1884 traveling a staggering eight kilometers now at the time the Creator Charles Reynard said that it was just a matter of time and money before electric flight would really mature and he wasn't wrong 138 years and billion dollars later and it feels like we're on the precipice of this third era of Aviation this electric era of Aviation but what is so cool about this third era of Aviation is that on the one hand you have the Sci-Fi flying car evito aspirations and on the other you have companies like Harbor air already showing us the value of electrifying small and short flights and doing it with planes that would otherwise have to be retired making things more efficient and making them live longer that's what sustainability is all about if you'd like what you've seen today then please do like share and comment or even support us on patreon we will be following this space super closely so if you have any questions about electric flight then please do let us know in the comments and as ever if you have been thanks for watching [Music] thank you well I hope you really enjoyed that episode if you want to see how long we've been doing this and how much we've improved have a look at that episode that is a classic from the early days that is our latest episode fantastic up here you can subscribe to fully Charleston there is our patreon supporters page have a look

Channel: Fully Charged Show

Views: 67,936

Keywords: electric car youtube channel, why should i buy an electric car, green energy comment, renewable energy youtube, new transport ideas, renewable energy comment, renewable energy electric vehicles, electric vs ice cars, latest news on renewable energy, kryten, fully charged show live, ev show, fully charged show, robert llewellyn, electric cars, fully charged, electric sea plane, seaplane, harbour air, vancouver, sustainability, british columbia, electric flight

Id: 1TL0C-S046c

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022