Alexis wrote:
But is it relevant how much fuel an engine consumes without taking it’s speed (and to a degree range) into account? I don’t think so. It would be interesting to make a list of most eifficient aircraft. Mooneys should be on top of that list.
You will end up with a A-380 at the top 
I usually get some on me when I go flying and would opt for Ul91 if I could.
Disposable gloves can be used there. I use them a lot when working on the plane anyway, because things like engine oil, hydraulic fluid and silicone sealants are really nasty if you touch your face after getting some on your fingers.
On a silly note, I think it’s not the A380 but the international space station at 31000km/kg of fuel in the cruise.
kwlf wrote:
I think it’s not the A380 but the international space station at 31000km/kg of fuel in the cruise.
He he, so true. Balloons aren’t that bad either, once you get into a nice jet stream
Alexis wrote:
MHO that the high volume of lead in Avgas shows how far behind aircraft engine technology really is.I
Absolutely.
But this lack of advance is in huge part a consequence of the regulatory overload as well as the legal situation re production liability in the US which has caused most new products in certified aviation to fail or to force its producers into foreign ownership. Cirrus, Cessna, Beech, Mooney, Continental and who else are all Chinese owned now. Lycoming has an ideal diesel for GA but sells it to the military only why? Because certifying it for GA and cover product liability is not worth it.
In Avionics new boxes are usually trchnologically outdated befire they get certified.
So as a result GA has to rely on decade old airframe and engine types as they have certification and are therefore cheap to produce. Add to that next to monopoly situations and we have todays deadlock.
Of course this is part of the agenda of the socialist-green fundamentalists who have long realized that this old technology will die a natural death and therefore focus on hindering development of new stuff.
This is not only aviation related. Solar unstalls get hampered by the same bandits in the guise of listed buildin laws and other stuff. Ornitholigists fight wind parks and so on.
A modern 4 seat tourer today should have no element in it which was developed before say 2000 but instead we still have engines and systems out of WW2.
This has to be viewed in broader context hence my earlier post. Aviatuon is no island but with the lack of a lobby it is a sitting duck for the anti wealth mafia.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
agenda of the socialist-green fundamentalists
I am far from a socialist-green fundamentalist, but don’t you think it would be good to sometimes take off your tinfoil hat for a few moments? Onerous aircraft certification standards can hardly be blamed on such an “agenda”, I think. And they are being reformed.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Of course this is part of the agenda of the socialist-green fundamentalists who have long realized that this old technology will die a natural death and therefore focus on hindering development of new stuff.
I don’t agree.
The issue with overburdensome regulation has existed long before the “socialist-green fundamentalists” ever got any traction, and long before climate change was even studied, so that isn’t the reason.
A while ago I saw a flying magazine from the late 60s, and it might as well have been a flying magazine from 2017: all the issues were basically the same:
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Lycoming has an ideal diesel for GA but sells it to the military only why? Because certifying it for GA and cover product liability is not worth it.
I don’t believe they’ve ever sold one, although I could be wrong. Lycoming long ago inherited the engine from the Italians who originally developed it, and found it was too heavy to justify further development. I’ve read that much more recently it brought out of mothballs for a demonstration to the US military, as a potential replacement for the Thielert, after ownership changes put secure supply of that engine into question. Given Lycoming’s disinterest, I understand another solution was found.
There are serious firms researching multicopter air taxis and personal transport to avoid city traffic. These cannot be low energy users.
The energy required to send a few humans for a few minutes to a very high altitude must be enormous. (Virgin Galactic.) And the emissions?
Environmental protection is to be enforced on the poor (such as Cessna Mustang owners), but not on the rich.
Google is your friend.
Virgin Galactic flights are meant to have carbon emissions of about 2 tons per passenger, which is the same order of magnitude as a London-Singapore flight. There are concerns though about them dumping carbon high into the atmosphere and causing global warming out of proportion to their CO2 emissions.
The EHang 184 apparently has a 14.4 kilowatt hour battery which will take it 20 miles. I’m guessing there’ll be considerable reserves so… perhaps 20 miles on 10 kwH? Makes the maths easier. Petrol holds about 10kwH per litre, so perhaps you would need to burn 2 litres of fuel to generate this much energy. 10 miles per litre for a single passenger vehicle isn’t impressive. On the other hand, you hopefully get to fly in a straight line without waiting in traffic jams and the average commuter car only has 1.2 people in it anyway. And you can potentially charge them from renewable sources. But you’re right, it’s not going to be an energy-efficient way to travel.
We’re all pilots here, who in one way or another have gotten our heads round burning some quantity of petrol recreationally.
