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https://www.bydanjohnson.com/latest-update-on-faas-plan-to-change-light-sport-aircraft-regulations-july-2019/ TLDR quick summary, still in the early stages, and still years from becoming a New Rule: 1. The FAA says that the new rules will be "less prescriptive" and more "performance based."...

Mo' napkin math: 900KWH battery bank, to charge in 5 hours (again, at perfect efficiency) would require 180,000 watts per hour. VoltsxAmps, diddle it around, even at 2,000 volts (which is becoming a serious employee hazard), you'll be drawing 90 amperes. For five straight hours. It's cheaper...

Or lots of spare battery packs that can be swapped in quickly. Pipistrel offers something like that on their Alpha Trainer.

But we need mass production to get the economies of scale to bring the prices down. One rancher isn't going to change the world. Oh, agreed on the electric motorglider, by the way. Yeah, I know -- GA hasn't had economies of scale for a long, long time.

Yeah, that's probably what will end up happening. I look at it the opposite from you: I'd use the energy density of petroleum for takeoff power, then cruise with electric. The way my crazy mind works, one of the first things that impressed me here is how pilots are in tune with the energy usage...

Wow, I was WAY off. That's what I get for going on memory. Next time, I'll google it. Even so, let's do the math: still using 100HP/75KW as the working number, I'd need roughly 75 square meters, or about 800 square feet. At 200 watts per square meter (assuming current efficiencies), you're...

Good for you, but see above. The math for large-scale applications still doesn't work. (That's the key: large scale. Lots and lots, vs. a single home with modest needs.) To repeat: you can't cheat physics. If you want to make 100 HP for five hours, you need to store enough energy to supply 375...

The Sun will give you, on a clear sunny day, at most about 150 watts of power per square meter. (Going from memory; but anyway, it's not nearly as much as some people think.) So, even with 100% conversion of sunlight to electricity, you still need a LOT of square meters of solar cells to come up...

I know there are plenty of engineering/techie types here, and I wondered what all y'all thought. I know that some of you will see the latest Gee-Whiz electric aircraft at Oshkosh. That got me thinking. Most objections to electric aircraft in particular involve the batteries. They're too heavy...

Naw, that's for Web servers running Wordpress....

Way harsh, dude.

Tough call. I hate to say it, but if it was me, I'd take the check and run. Most companies just total the vehicle if the cost of repairs exceed %60-70% of the fair market value, and Let'sgoflying has already posted that yours wouldn't be worth more than $5800. The real pain comes if the car is...

Pipistrel Panthera is very intriguing, but it's new and I doubt you'll find one in the $250k-ish range.

That xkcd cartoon pretty well sums it up. I'm wasting my time now. You've obviously decided that Rotax LSA engines, as a class, are prone to overheat. But just for the record ... Then I guess the FAA and EASA issued special airworthiness directives about this for nothing. Rotax addressed with...

If you're in an area with poor ground conductivity (like Alabama), that's especially true. We had a brain-damaged copper thief here who was cutting and stealing the thin copper grounding wires on each power pole. First one, second one ... no big deal. He kept cutting them and cramming them in...

Lost a phase at one of my transmitter sites a while back. Guys comes out to fix it, complete with NAPA hat turned around backwards. (The official headgear of Alabama.) Bucket lift up to the transformer, I head back inside the building. A short while later, I hear an earth-shattering BOOM. I...

She is visually impaired. Back in 1999, she was hit with a rare condition called Pseudotumor Cerebri -- acts like a tumor, but it's a buildup of fluid on the brain. Prior to that, she had a history of epilepsy. Most of the lesion activity is in the brain itself. We're seeing one of the best...

Wow. First, you're in my prayers. Get better. Second, my wife has had a similar experience for 2-3 years now. She's on full disability as a result. She has the lesions in her brain, but they can't nail it down. One week, she'll have horrible muscle spasms, in her legs, then in her buttocks...

And you're only one person who apparently has very bad luck with Rotax engines and LSAs. Thousands of other people seem to do just fine with them ... :confused:

Yes, the engine itself is fine. And as far as overheating goes, I've seen plenty of posts, here and elsewhere, about Lycomings and Continentals doing the same thing in some aircraft. It all boils down to ensuring that the cooling air makes it in.