The TESLA of Aviation? Flying an ELECTRIC PLANE!

Ready? Pipistrel   Aero Electro? Pipistrel Alpha... The team at Eyre To  There aviation have asked me to come down here   to Adelaide to test out this the pipistrelle alph  what is it...? Pipistrel Alpha Electro. The only,   only certified electric single-engine  aircraft flying here in Australia   and they've asked me if i want to  fly it today. That it's not centered. All right we're going to do a quick demonstration  now so you can see how loud or not loud this   aircraft actually is i'm about two meters from the  front of the aircraft they're gonna start it up   and they promise that they're not gonna  run me over when they do that ready if i was standing here in front of an sr-22 when  that was powered up like my aircraft that i fly   i would not be able to be having this conversation  with you right now that's crazy what is an   electric plane well it's basically it's an  aircraft just like you used to any other aircraft   it's a training aircraft a two-seater really good  for student pilots who are learning how to fly but   it doesn't run off carbon-based fuel it runs off  electricity now of course there's well where is   the electricity being made and what's being used  to make that electricity that's a whole discussion   aside from this but to power this aircraft  the only thing it needs to get off the ground   is a charge it's as simple as plugging it into  the wall socket and basically just plugging it   so just here on the front here we plug it in  so for those of you that sort of familiar with   electric cars a very similar concept roughly  how long then would it take to charge up takes   just on an hour and look a lot of factors affect  that in terms of temperature and things like that   and obviously state of charge but but generally  speaking for about an hour's flying it's about   an hour and 10 hour and 15 minutes worth of  charging it has two large batteries in it   um they're an inline battery system as well  so effectively speaking you're looking at a   400 volts worth of batteries and if we want  to convert that to kilowatts uh the plane's   output is actually about 58 kilowatts in flight  so it's a fairly powerful little system all right   all right does those doors closed  yeah the little no no the little   silver pin here uh yeah pull that down  that disengages it and carry the weight down are you all ready to go hey  fair i'm good on the right   all happens fairly quickly on the runway  acceleration is quite substantial because there's   a lot of torque from the electric motor yep okay  so if you've driven an electric car it's like that   it's more or less instantaneous all right not  waiting for it to spawn up all set off we got rpms alive airspeeds are live safely airborne That was quick. Now you mentioned when we're  coming to the top of the climb that you're going   back to a kilowatt setting i'm obviously used to  going back to an rpm setting or a power setting   yep there's obviously a few little things like  that but apart from the intricacies of flying an   electric plane it's no different than if it was a  gas-powered aircraft that's correct the handling   is told exactly the same as the petrol-powered  alpha i haven't flown one but i've flown lots of   other LSA it handles no differently to any other  LSA like aircraft it's still basically you've got   climb power you've got cruise power we're setting  a power setting rather than a in kilowatts rather   than a horsepower or an rpm so it's affecting  a similar sort of prop rpm probably about 30   power that we're cruising at 30 power yeah and  we're ticking along at just under 90 knots 90   knots is uh pretty much the crew speed  that you'd expect yeah yeah so 90 knots   uh indicated what sort of climb rates could you  get from this aircraft as well because it's quite   torque efficient on the ground you were saying  it is you know on the take-off then we had   around about 12 to 1300 feet a minute of climb  that's a pretty good climb right now it's a nice   cool day so the density altitude's pretty  good it helps yeah you want to have a fly   Stefan? yeah that's all right yeah we've got a few  minutes we're on track for the damn walk handing   over taking over my aircraft so we've still got  21 22 kilowatts set so 20 to 25 is the cruise   power setting okay but you know we're still at 90  knots so that's plenty we don't need to rush in   um we're at just under 2 000 feet 1800 feet  just descended a little to give us a little   bit more vertical separation yeah we still got  66 battery state so we've got plenty of battery   there and we've got uh five miles to run to the  dam wall okay so i'm just aiming straight in here   i'm a little bit easy right see there's a sort of  bald hill in front of us with trees coming down to   the right yep dDvid this is a big deal for me  this is my first time ever flying an electric aircraft tip With people like us who love aviation just to  know where it's it's likely to go in the future   you know there'll be more electric power plant  development down the line directly it's nice I want to ask you, and be honest, realistically  are we going to start seeing more of these   aircraft in airports in the future because they're  very so they're not prototype but they're very   new at the moment is this the way that you think  student pilot training is actually going to go?   I certainly do Stefan if i've got anything to  do with it we'll see them all over the place   in the coming years but yeah certainly that the  business calls for you know thorough research   um and proof of concept really has been done but  what we're what we're doing now is really to to   i guess showcase the aircraft and this capability  within Australia and hopefully we can then build   you know build our market and see  lots more of them around. All righty   all right your aircraft David.  Handing over taking over. A   capital city right there and we're stooging along  a little electric airplane and most people have   been on the wiser yeah general aviation is  so underrated sometimes isn't it they're   privileged to be able to do this it is all right  we're starting to set up now for our final leg   power comes back now i'm just about gliding  from here we're going to slow down below 70   knots for our first flap extension speed  okay let's play seventy flaps to approach zero nine three two on that split to land two  on left land zero nine thirty eight uh it's on   final since i pulled the power our battery state  hasn't changed we're not using fuel it's like the   fuel trucks following us no carburetor heat of  course to worry about landing checks complete for the ira lines on western open request pixie  electro 09 38 perfect ground. On the taxi back in   we haven't had the opportunity to surprise  people by the propeller stopping! Yeah. So there you go i flew an electric plane now  do you think we're going to see these sorts of   electric planes at airports across the world  in the future well you may find that a little   bit hard to believe but probably in the same  way that you may have found it hard to believe   10 years ago that we'd have electric cars pretty  much being mass produced on the roads like we do   now. All I think is that environmental reasons  aside even if these aircraft all they do is bring   down the cost of flight training for students  in the future gets more people into aviation   and allows more people to achieve their dreams of  becoming a pilot and surely that's a good thing   and there's a helicopter  starting up behind me of course.

Channel: Stefan Drury

Views: 628,884

Keywords: aviation, bush plane, electric aircraft, electric airplane, electric planes, elon musk, pipistrel electric plane, small plane, stefan drury, tesla airplane

Id: uMrLHeKJA80

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021