Electric Planes - A Pipe Dream?

[Khandro]

How on earth do they think they can generate sufficient energy to fly a passenger plane? I notice, which can't help but raise a smile "The company is currently seeking to improve its batteries " !

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-09-27/easyjet-hopes-to-fly-electric-planes-within-a-decade/

[Khandro]

I find it amazing that the first electric car was produced in 1835 !!
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html

[New Judge]

"Surely your first car had a handle, judge?"

No spicey. It had holes in the floor like Fred Flintstone's car. :-)

[jim360]

Well, anyway. I don't know how realistic this is. Claims about various future breakthroughs often seem to fall into two camps: far too pessimistic or far too optimistic, and I'm not sure that there's always much in between really.

I'm reminded of a throwaway line in Apollo 13, for example, when Tom Hanks' character promises that NASA is working on such breakthroughs as "computers that can fit into a single room"; or that quote to Whittle about jet engines: "very interesting, my boy, but it will never work".

Who knows which one this is? But, as a general rule of thumb, if you throw enough resources at what is basically an engineering problem then you will usually end up solving it at some point. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if battery-powered planes, at least for short-haul flights, became a reality at some point.

[douglas9401]

One day, probably in the distant future, our lords and masters will sit down and realise that mass transit will always come at a price.
By all means strive to get pollution as low as possible but stop chasing the zero emissions pipe dream.
It has to be dirty at some point in the process.

[Old_Geezer]

Pft.. I already have an electric plane. Reduces that wood as fast as one could wish for.

[mibn2cweus]

Since it's flying through the air anyway why not take advantage of wind power to keep the batteries charged up?!

[1ozzy]

Thank goodness some people have foresight and are willing to work with new technologies

https://www.walldevil.com/wallpapers/a15/smoke-plane-airplane.jpg

[ToraToraTora]

all this lecky cobras is getting silly, electricity has to be generated and that wastes 80% of the energy to do it. So even if the maths worked it's still better and cleaner to use the fossil fuel directly as now. Less pollution in the sky, yes but more at the point of generation. Until we stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity all this electric car/plane/boat/skaeboard BS is pointless.

[gulliver1]

Don't tell RYAN AIR, they will put a pay as you go electric meter on every seat.