Harbour Air switching to battery powered planes

[Its What I do]

can you say R&D money?
It has some merit .
I think you could remove 1200-1400 lbs from a beaver .
Install batteries and engine 2000lbs and fly for 2.5 hours on battery ,. maybe in a few years .
The biggest hurdle will be water based charging systems . Battery /range with reserves.

but what do i know

[goingnowherefast]

I'm sure it will be a different prop, especially on the beaver. It won't have to handle the power pulses from a piston engine and can be made lighter. Probably look more like the prop from the turbo beaver.

[J31]

Which begs the question: new motor and same prop? Or will they make in upgraded 3 or even 4+ bladed prop for the new motor?

You can run a lighter prop because there are almost no power pulses.

[C-GGGQ]

That's what I'm saying. Most of the noise is the prop so how much quieter depends on if they stick to the prop or if they end up with a 5 bladed composite scimitar style with tips etc etc.

[Meatservo]

Almost certainly not the same prop, unless they want to equip their electric powerplant with some kind of auxiliary oil pump to make the pitch-change apparatus and governors work. I wonder how the available torque available from brushless electric motors would dictate any change to the RPM/Pitch relationship between powerplant and prop.

[goingnowherefast]

I wonder if the torque profile of an electric motor would allow the use of a fixed pitch prop? Beavers fly in a narrow speed window, so wouldn't be drastic here. It's not like you need to decrease engine RPM to gain drastic efficiency or decrease engine wear either.

Electric motors are generally pretty high torque, so you'd still get decent take-off power, even at slightly reduced RPM.

[fish4life]

I wonder if the torque profile of an electric motor would allow the use of a fixed pitch prop? Beavers fly in a narrow speed window, so wouldn't be drastic here. It's not like you need to decrease engine RPM to gain drastic efficiency or decrease engine wear either.

Electric motors are generally pretty high torque, so you'd still get decent take-off power, even at slightly reduced RPM.

That may be one of the most intelligent things brought up on this forum, I think you are onto something

[Meatservo]

I was thinking along similar lines, but I wonder too if the best compromise efficiency-wise would result in unacceptably longer takeoff runs, or conversely unacceptable noise in the cruise regime. Regardless of torque profile, a fixed-pitch prop would represent a compromise one way or the other, even on a relatively slow plane. There is a phenomenon in model aviation whereby a fixed-pitch propeller is still being turned by the motor, but at a lower theoretical pitch than the airspeed would call for, resulting in a zone of very disturbed air behind the prop and resulting control problems in the wake of the prop. Not unlike what happens say on a turbo-beaver when the prop is discing and rudder control is lost on the roll-out. The effect is worse on brushless electric motors and fixed-pitch props, due to the fact that a brushless motor will not be spun faster by airflow as long as the electronic speed control is commanding a specific RPM, which is how they work. For this reason alone I can imagine a variable-pitch prop would be safer.

One thing that would definitely reduce complexity is the fact that the electronic speed controls on brushless motors work by responding to an operator demand for a certain RPM: they are "throttled" by tight control over revolutions. Therefore a constant-speed unit or propeller governor would not be necessary, even if variable-pitch was deemed to be an asset.

In terms of available power compared to battery useage, the model-plane community has some fairly well-developed guidelines that allow them to calculate in Watts the power requirements of a given plane, and the voltage, available amp-hours, propeller pitch (the theoretical distance forward travelled in one rotation of the propeller) all play a part. This is of course for fixed-pitch propellers and brushless motors. Brushless motors are actually pretty impressive, having really only one moving part. For aeronautical purposes redundancy in the electronic speed-control would be a very important issue.

The whole thing is actually quite fascinating. The torque band available from the typical brushless electric motor is so broad, they can be used to drive turbine impellers as well as conventional propellers with virtually no modification to the basic motor. I have seen functional brushless electric turbines the size of your thumb.

I feel like any real-world application of this technology will draw heavily on the experiences of the model-aviation hobby, which has become incredibly advanced in the hands of motivated amateurs.

[Beefitarian]

I'd be getting very scared for Albertas long term future.

Calgary can go back to being a stop on the #1 for people driving between Vancouver and the east. Except it will be for folks needing to grab a steak and charge their battery.

Maybe if the population drops off the fishing can go back to normal. I might need to get a horse... Sounds ok.

[jakeandelwood]

https://www.pilotcareercentre.com/Aviat ... red-flight

According to this article Harbour Air is going to have a plane ready for test flying by November, doesn't seem very believable. One thing that is for sure in this article is that Carol James is in fact "stunned" .

[Human Factor]

Off the water today!

https://www.cheknews.ca/harbour-air-tes ... ay-628812/

[7ECA]

So they essentially made a Turbo Beaver, cool. As in, same horsepower as the -34 powered bird.

I wonder what the range/endurance of a Beaver with what likely amounts to 1,500 pounds of batteries tucked in her belly amounts to...

[C-GGGQ]

So far advertised as good for a 30 minute sight seeing flight with reserves. I get electricity is cheaper than avgas, but I gotta figure that sight seeing flight won't be cheap. Also I don't remember what the charge time was after such a flight. Wonder how many they can actually accomplish in a day? At any rate good proof of concept at least.

[Heliian]

3 minute flight accomplished for the media.

Looks pretty good, I'm impressed.

[iflyforpie]

Remember. Just over 80 years ago the worlds first jet aircraft had an endurance of about ten minutes. Its engine was far less reliable than this one. 20 years later, jet aircraft were flying hundreds of people across the Atlantic non-stop.

Battery charging might be an issue. Perhaps they can be swapped after each flight.

[corethatthermal]

Im thinking a very long extension cord OR a high output small hydrogen or Natural gas engine to charge the batteries in flight ! The engine/Gen option could be very fuel efficient , lightweight and environmentally green with the added ADVANTAGE of being certified to a much less stringent set of standards due to the batteries lasting for 30 minutes if the engine/generator fails! The generator could also directly supply the motor with the required juice and the batteries be used as a back-up.

[The Mole]

This isn't really about an E-beaver for the GreeNDP's commuting to Victoria. Its about certifying an Aero electric motor. Twin motor aircraft with only one gas turbine/generator? Adding boost to small gas turbines? In the short term harbour air get government money and publicity.

[plhought]

I haven't heard anything about Harbour Air gettin' "guberment" money for any of this. If they did I'm sure Horgan or some other government big wig would have been jabbering away at last week's media events.

I'm curious how they control a traditional oil-pressure/spring constant speed prop with the electric motor. How have they adapted the propeller control to work without a gearbox and oil source like a traditional piston/turbine would be interesting.

Honestly though I the most realistic commerical use of future electric aviation 'motors' would be hybrid designs utilizing a gas turbine driven electric generator powering the engine/engines.

Airbus have an Avro RJ in the works to be modified to demonstrate this, and I think there was even someone working on throwing a big APU and electric motor on a Dash-8-100 demonstrator.

[RebelCFTQC]

The prop looks interesting. I wonder if it is has an electric motor for pitch change like MT, looks like hartzel blades.

[Beefitarian]

Is just the e-beaver that colour?

I just watched Bob Falfa race his '55 chevy against John Milner in a Duece coupe that looked a bit like that.