From Not many people know that
By Paul Homewood
I had a rubber band-powered model plane when I was a boy, but you wouldn’t fly across the Atlantic on one!
When an all-electric single-person plane took to the skies above the village of Little Snoring, it was a remarkable achievement in British engineering.
The maiden voyage of the first all-electric aircraft designed and built entirely in the UK could herald the beginnings of a new kind of homegrown, zero emissions aerospace manufacturing industry.
But its winning lap didn’t last long. The plane took off for only 33 minutes over the airport in Norfolk, before returning to refuel.
According to Guy Gratton, an associate professor of aeronautics at Cranfield University who has flown the Sherwood eKub, the all-electric plane can last up to 90 minutes when fully charged “on paper”.
The plane is manufactured by the Light Aircraft Company (TLAC), which sells small aircraft to hobbyists around the world and is built by a UK-based consortium headed by Mr. head.
This is a great achievement in the race to establish zero-emission air travel that the Government has supported. Jet Zero Council. But it’s unlikely to be the answer to removing guilt from your overseas vacations any time soon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/04/ Electro-planes-have-finally-taken-wont-get-far/
Why is Emma Gatten so happy to write this, instead of the Telegraph’s aviation editor who probably knows what he’s talking about? (And, by the way, I don’t have any guilt about flying!)
As any aeronautical expert will tell her, battery-powered flight has one fundamental hurdle it can’t overcome except for short-range, micro-flying – weight-to-energy-density ratio. .
Simply put, mounting enough battery capacity for a longer flight would add too much weight to the aircraft making it useful in any way.
This micro lamp could find a niche among hobbyists. But as the CEO of TLAC admits:
“For recreational pilots, there is certainly a market for it. But I certainly don’t base my entire future business on the project.”
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