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JetBlue and Boeing Are Betting Big On Electric Jet Startup 'Zunem Aero' (theverge.com)
A new startup called Zunum Aero is aiming to reinvent how users travel short distances, such as from San Francisco to Los Angeles. "The Kirkland, Washington-based company [...] plans to build a fleet of hybrid electric jets to sell to major carriers for service on densely traveled regional routes like San Francisco to Los Angeles or Boston to Washington, DC, "reports The Verge. Two aviation giants, Boeing and JetBlue, are reportedly backing the startup. From the report: Lower operating costs (i.e., no fueling) will allow carriers to reduce fares by 40 to 80 percent, they predict. And by flying a smaller aircraft that would be subject to fewer TSA regulations, Zunum claims it will take less time to go through security before boarding one of its planes. Zunum aims to build several models of hybrid-electric propulsion jets. At launch, its first class of aircraft will be tiny, in the 10-15 foot range, with a 10-passenger capacity and a range of up to 700 miles on a single charge. (Think San Francisco to Portland or Atlanta to DC.) Those planes can be expected to roll off the assembly line by the early 2020s, the company's CEO Ashish Kumar told The Verge. By the 2030s, as electric battery technology improves, Zunum hopes to build larger aircraft that can carry up to 50 passengers and travel up to 1,000 miles on a single charge. (Think Seattle to LA or Boston to Jacksonville, Florida.) Zunum's aircraft will feature hybrid electric motors with the capacity to accept recharging power from a variety of sources. Because airplanes are typically kept in service for up to 30 years, Kumar says its important for Zunum's aircraft to be future proof. That means designing them to be compatible with future battery designs and range-extending generators, with an eye toward ultimately switching from hybrid propulsion to fully electric motors once the technology catches up.
yeah right
It's a problem the snake oil salesman known as Ashish Kumar is willfully ignoring.
Yes, batteries will get better, but 40 times better ? That remains to be seen, and there is NO guarantee
it will ever happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials
How can a jet be electric?
While it might work during cruise and landing, will the extra fuel need for takeoff and possibly to support flight at cruise altitude, and thus extra fuel burn and the need to carry such fuel, outweigh the benefits in reduced fuel consumption. AC manufacturers go to great lengths to save a pound given the cost savings over a plane's lifetime, this seems to be a bit of a pipe dream right now. For example, they pulled airphones once usage dropped to the point the companies supplying the tech and paying a fee to put it on airplanes lost money, just as pulling in seat video makes sense with the addition of wifi and the increase number of passengers carrying tables and cell phones made it more economical to provide wifi access to the in seat features that way. they were carrying the weight anyway in passenger luggage, why not get rid f the in seat weight to save money. Add in the potential for a catastrophic fire while flying due to a battery problem and you have some reall hurdles to overcome, I can see Boeing and JetBlue putting some money into it to get access to the technology if it pans out, just as investing in experimenting with alternate fuel sources makes sense.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Using direct jet power to taxi at 10 mph from the gate to the runway, and visa versa, is damn inefficient, fuelwise. One commonly-quoted factoid is that a Concorde would use more fuel taxiing from gate to runway, than a standard airliner would use in an entire short-haul European flight. Even ordinary jetliners waste a lot of fuel in the process.
Electric motors connected to the wheels might be a more economical way to move the the plane around on the ground. We'd have to compare fuel saved taxi-ing, versus weight of batteries+electrical gear. The electrical motor gearing would have to be disengaged when the plane comes in for landing... but wait a minute... could the plane use re-generative braking to partially recharge its batteries whilst landing?
There are 2 possible implementations of electrical taxi-ing
1) A battery. That would be the heavier solution.
2) An induction-powered motor drawing power from cables just beneath the runway surface. That would eliminate the need for batteries.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
You have no idea. Small airplanes have much less stringent security requirements. I flew from Vancouver to Victoria last year on Harbour Air (10 seat floatplane). I called to find out how far in advance i had to be there. HA - What time is your flight?. Me - 7 AM. HA - be there no later than 10 to 7. No security check of any sort. At 7:00 on the nose the pilot walked into the lounge, announced the flight and we all walked down to the dock together. This was downtown to downtown, and the from the time I arrived at the "Airport" to the time I walked off the dock in Victoria was 35 minutes. Pure awesome.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
A Cessna 172 is 27 feet long, and carries 4 people, including one or two pilots. This thing claims to be 10 to 15 feet long, and carry 10 passengers + a pilot or two? How's that gonna work?
The important thing to know about this company is that there is no prototype yet. The news is that they are "Working with FAA", but given that they don't actually have an airplane,
even one worthy of the "Experimental" designation, there hardly seems a point in working with the FAA.
We'll get electric aircraft eventually. I suspect not from these folks, and we might have to wait a bit longer for the battery technology.
Bruce Perens.