Whatever Happened Too Harbour Air Electric Plane

From https://copanational.org/en/2019/12/12/harbour-airs-e-beaver/

With the 185-lb payload of the prototype (with the pilot), it is obvious that a battery-operated Beaver is not yet commercially viable. The key to the success of this project is advancement of battery technology. The pace of this advancement is such that McDougall expects to have a commercially viable electric Beaver in service in southwestern British Columbia before the end of 2022.

And there it is. There are no workable batteries for commercial ops. The technology isn't there yet.
 
Dan Thomas said:
From https://copanational.org/en/2019/12/12/harbour-airs-e-beaver/

With the 185-lb payload of the prototype (with the pilot), it is obvious that a battery-operated Beaver is not yet commercially viable. The key to the success of this project is advancement of battery technology. The pace of this advancement is such that McDougall expects to have a commercially viable electric Beaver in service in southwestern British Columbia before the end of 2022.

And there it is. There are no workable batteries for commercial ops. The technology isn't there yet.
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Funny... never heard that little fact mentioned in all the breathless reporting when they flew it.
 
denverpilot said:
How’s the airplane coming along though, @Mtns2Skies? Hopefully she’s feeling better.
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It's been "fixed" and flyable since July, then down for 7 weeks for a 2 week avionics upgrade. Still saving up for new landing gear that insurance wouldn't cover, and need to get my rigging redone during annual this Feb.

Still a pretty bitter taste in my mouth.
 
Dan Thomas said:
With the 185-lb payload of the prototype (with the pilot), it is obvious that a battery-operated Beaver is not yet commercially viable. The key to the success of this project is advancement of battery technology. The pace of this advancement is such that McDougall expects to have a commercially viable electric Beaver in service in southwestern British Columbia before the end of 2022.

And there it is. There are no workable batteries for commercial ops. The technology isn't there yet.
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He's one of many persons that expect a battery density breakthrough just because time is passing. The much discussed Li-S battery is still beset with intractible problems, and there isn't much else out there in the chemical battery world.
 
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Why on earth would you do this with a Beaver first? Plenty of others on floats. I'd try at least proof of concept with something like a Murphy Moose.
 
Racerx said:
Why on earth would you do this with a Beaver first? Plenty of others on floats. I'd try at least proof of concept with something like a Murphy Moose.
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All along the West coast, from southern B.C.to San Diego, quite a bit of what passes for "green" is all about image. Anybody remember coastal State and Provincial politicians (including Arnold) falling all over themselves to breathlessly announce the Hydrogen Highway? Want to guess how many of the hydrogen powered buses are still running in Vancouver or Whistler a decade after the Winter Olympics? ;)

From Maple Bay to Victoria's inner harbour to Sea Island the ubiquitous image of the B.C. coastal air taxis is a de Havilland Beaver on floats. Harbour Air should be commended for a) underwriting some serious experimentation, and b) recognizing an electric Beaver makes a much more compelling promotional image for the company than if it was playing around with an electric Hawk XP on amphibs, or an unrecognizable homebuilt from Chilliwack.
 
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3393RP said:
He's one of many persons that expect a battery density breakthrough just because time is passing. The much discussed Li-S battery is still beset with intractible problems, and there isn't much else out there in the chemical battery world.
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What problems are those with the Li-S battery?

As for the "chemical battery world", here's list of work from the past year, in only the American Chemical Society journals. Some of those are reviews, some of them pertain to other aspects of batteries (cooling, for example):
https://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearc...reMonth=&BeforeYear=&startPage=0&pageSize=100

This obviously doesn't include work published in ScienceDirect, The Royal Society, and other journals. I agree that few of these will become commercialized, but there is a lot happening in the "chemical battery world".
 
Silly people.
The power industry is not going to allow high density, low cost power solutions (batteries, super capacitors, or anything else.) Because by Law, they are guaranteed a profit, and their profit comes WAY before your needs and welfare.
 
Shepherd said:
Silly people.
The power industry is not going to allow high density, low cost power solutions (batteries, super capacitors, or anything else.) Because by Law, they are guaranteed a profit, and their profit comes WAY before your needs and welfare.
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:confused2: Doesn't the power industry make money when people plug into the grid to charge their batteries?
 
Dan Thomas said:
From https://copanational.org/en/2019/12/12/harbour-airs-e-beaver/

With the 185-lb payload of the prototype (with the pilot), it is obvious that a battery-operated Beaver is not yet commercially viable. The key to the success of this project is advancement of battery technology. The pace of this advancement is such that McDougall expects to have a commercially viable electric Beaver in service in southwestern British Columbia before the end of 2022.

And there it is. There are no workable batteries for commercial ops. The technology isn't there yet.
Click to expand...
I think they meant before the end of 2202.
 
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Shepherd said:
Silly people.
The power industry is not going to allow high density, low cost power solutions (batteries, super capacitors, or anything else.) Because by Law, they are guaranteed a profit, and their profit comes WAY before your needs and welfare.
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Most methods of generating electricity are rather difficult to throttle quickly. Nuclear and fossil-fuel plants welcome the opportunity to even-out load by charging stuff at night.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Most methods of generating electricity are rather difficult to throttle quickly. Nuclear and fossil-fuel plants welcome the opportunity to even-out load by charging stuff at night.
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Or pumping water into stored energy facilities:

i-73J5CLS-X3.jpg
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Most methods of generating electricity are rather difficult to throttle quickly. Nuclear and fossil-fuel plants welcome the opportunity to even-out load by charging stuff at night.
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Even funnier since they used to use the downtime for maintenance, as the night loads get higher they need more nukes, but we aren’t approving them...

So they build (or don’t decommission) more coal and nat-gas peakers to take over while other stuff goes offline for the quick maintenance stuff.

Something has to take over those loads.

And then there’s nuke refueling... can’t do that in one night. :)

A continuous load is kinda a bad thing right now, but they’re generally good at tossing whatever type of plant is needed at the load demand.

If we’d approve new nukes... not so bad. But then still almost a decade away. Should have started that quite a while ago. Ohhhh well.

This prof has fun presentations... quite a catalog of interesting stuff.

 
Cap'n Jack said:
What problems are those with the Li-S battery?
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Still preferring to be obtuse, I see. If one were to go by press releases by OXIS, it appears the Li-S battery will be available in months and perform miracles. Articles by actual researchers provide a more sober outlook, and there hasn't been much progress since our last discussion about this two years ago.

There won't be a Li-S battery available for Harbour Air in 2022. There won't be hundreds of E-VTOL air taxis buzzing around the skies in five years.
 
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Palmpilot said:
:confused2: Doesn't the power industry make money when people plug into the grid to charge their batteries?
Click to expand...

In my area, when you put solar panels up the power companies pay you pennies on the dollar for what you produce. If the power grid goes down, you can't run your home off your own solar cells. "Safety reasons"
You can't install a highly efficient vertical axis windmill for any reason. There are zoning ordinances against them. But you can install the old fashioned pinwheel windmill, as long as you sell your "product" for pennies on the dollar to the power company. Oh yeah, you can't actually power your house with it if the grid goes down. It automatically disconnects you from the windmill "for safety reasons".
I haven't checked in the last three years, but you can't build a battery wall in your house to run your house if the grid goes down. It's illegal. "Safety reasons"
The game is rigged, people, in favor of the "house".
 
3393RP said:
Still preferring to be obtuse, I see. If one were to go by press releases by OXIS, it appears the Li-S battery will be available in months and perform miracles. Articles by actual researchers provide a more sober outlook, and there hasn't been much progress since our last discussion about this two years ago.

There won't be a Li-S battery available for Harbour Air in 2022. There won't be hundreds of E-VTOL air taxis buzzing around the skies in five years.
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No, I'm not being obtuse. As we did have a discussion about this two years ago, I was wondering what new difficulties came about.
No one mentioned Li-S that I could see for the Harbour Air project, besides you. E-VTOL air taxis are another non-sequitur in the context of this thread.

Articles by actual researchers provide a bright outlook, and there has been great progress since our last discussion about this 2 years ago.
Here's another way (very simple) around the polysulfide problem- just add glutamate:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.9b06934
Here's another company working with LiS:
https://polyplus.com/

Will LiS become a preferred battery technology? I've no idea. I'm not going to write it off just yet. Something else may be better in that search I gave you. I do know from personal experience that sometimes good ideas take a long time to commercialize, even if they are very simple. Smaller companies are much more agile that way. Batteries are complex, and getting something new into an existing market, where the existing products are "good enough" isn't easy. Add to the mix our litigious society, it becomes more difficult to get something new on the market.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
That's an awfully expensive conversion to basically throw the plane away...
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Beavers don't die. They get rebuilt to live again.

I was part of an online seminar and Harbour Air was a presenter. They are looking to prove out the concept and slowly make improvements as the technology improves. They said the aircraft as it stands has a lot of extras to monitor systems and they expect updates to the battery system shortly.

Maybe Viking will design a new e-Beaver from the ground up.
 
Shepherd said:
In my area, when you put solar panels up the power companies pay you pennies on the dollar for what you produce. If the power grid goes down, you can't run your home off your own solar cells. "Safety reasons"
You can't install a highly efficient vertical axis windmill for any reason. There are zoning ordinances against them. But you can install the old fashioned pinwheel windmill, as long as you sell your "product" for pennies on the dollar to the power company. Oh yeah, you can't actually power your house with it if the grid goes down. It automatically disconnects you from the windmill "for safety reasons".
I haven't checked in the last three years, but you can't build a battery wall in your house to run your house if the grid goes down. It's illegal. "Safety reasons"
The game is rigged, people, in favor of the "house".
Click to expand...

Never heard of a transfer switch?
 
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Has anyone ever tried building a plane with a gas/diesel generator powering electric motors?

I've read about the ones which still use batteries along with a turbine generator. I'm talking about just an ample sized generator through an inverter which powers the motor/s.
 
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I've thought about that as well. I figured the extra weight of two types of power generation was a non-starter.
 
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Timbeck2 said:
Has anyone ever tried building a plane with a gas/diesel generator powering electric motors?

I've read about the ones which still use batteries along with a turbine generator. I'm talking about just an ample sized generator through an inverter which powers the motor/s.
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Like a diesel locomotive?
 
GRG55 said:
logic free zone
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I would love to come to the defense of my home state but unfortunately you were right.. I stay for the weather and geographic topography

3393RP said:
expect a battery density breakthrough just because time is passing
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Yes! and they're idiots. Tesla also has made it seem like this tech is here.. what people don't realize it's just how heavy those batteries are, for a fairly limited output. A car spends the vast majority of its life below 30% power and makes use of regenerative braking

GRG55 said:
quite a bit of what passes for "green" is all about image
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Yes! It's awful :(
Many people have also no business in engineering or aviation or really any real field other than being investors who see an opportunity to turn a quick profit then sell it. Tweet some nonsense about carbon free air travel with an artist rendering of an ugly airplane, build up a ton of interest and capital, then sell it to some other sap

Palmpilot said:
:confused2: Doesn't the power industry make money when people plug into the grid to charge their batteries?
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..they make money even if you have solar and are operating in a net surplus. SDGE still charged a host of fees just to be plugged into the network even if you were consistently selling power back into the grid.. which, is sold back at a fraction, I don't believe as an option anymore, and there's a limit to how how many panels you can put on your house based on the prior year of electrical usage. The utility companies do everything they can to keep a captive audience and the law makers capitulate

Timbeck2 said:
Has anyone ever tried building a plane with a gas/diesel generator powering electric motors?

I've read about the ones which still use batteries along with a turbine generator. I'm talking about just an ample sized generator through an inverter which powers the motor/s.
Click to expand...
These designs are a bit of an enigma to me.. if you can put a propeller directly onto an engine then why is it advantageous to instead plug that engine into a generator, have that generator feed batteries, have those batteries feed a motor, and put the propeller on that motor. Lots of added weight and opportunities for energy loss thanks to entropy, efficiency, etc. In cars it makes sense since people spend a ton of time idling and not moving and slowing down, but in an aircraft where you generally need at least 65 to 75% of your available power I just don't see where the saving lies.. it's not like you are going to charge those batteries up on descent and then use them for takeoff
 
Timbeck2 said:
Has anyone ever tried building a plane with a gas/diesel generator powering electric motors?

I've read about the ones which still use batteries along with a turbine generator. I'm talking about just an ample sized generator through an inverter which powers the motor/s.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, every time you convert energy from one form to another, loss occurs. The rule of thumb for motors / generators is 75% comes out for 100% in. Locomotives apparently can accept the losses in order to get an infinitely variable transmission. An airplane probably could accept those losses as well, but I’m not sure what the design advantage would be. Performance and/or payload would be compromised, at best.
 
Salty said:
Like a diesel locomotive?
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Of course in that application, the added weight is a feature, not a bug.

I'm amazed that the dynamic brakes still burn off the energy as heat instead of capturing it in a battery. I assume that the amount of batteries they'd have to drag around isn't worth the savings. Kind of like in an airplane.

The one explanation of the hybrid drives in aircraft that I've heard that makes some sense is in the vtol arena. Routing electrons to multiple rotors is a lot easier than mechanical drives. You can put both the weight of the engine and the thrust wherever you want it.

I can't remember which podcast it I was listening to, but the guest basically said that the professional investors are starting to figure out that e-vtol is still probably decades away if ever, and that the only practical solution will be replacing the batteries with a generator. What doesn't make sense to me is why these presumably smart people think it's going to be more successful than commuter helicopters were promised to be.
 
Jim K said:
I can't remember which podcast it I was listening to, but the guest basically said that the professional investors are starting to figure out that e-vtol is still probably decades away if ever, and that the only practical solution will be replacing the batteries with a generator. What doesn't make sense to me is why these presumably smart people think it's going to be more successful than commuter helicopters were promised to be.
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Whaaaaaat?! FAA promised STOLPorts were the wave of the future in the 80s! LOL
 
Shepherd said:
In my area, when you put solar panels up the power companies pay you pennies on the dollar for what you produce. If the power grid goes down, you can't run your home off your own solar cells. "Safety reasons"
You can't install a highly efficient vertical axis windmill for any reason. There are zoning ordinances against them. But you can install the old fashioned pinwheel windmill, as long as you sell your "product" for pennies on the dollar to the power company. Oh yeah, you can't actually power your house with it if the grid goes down. It automatically disconnects you from the windmill "for safety reasons".
I haven't checked in the last three years, but you can't build a battery wall in your house to run your house if the grid goes down. It's illegal. "Safety reasons"
The game is rigged, people, in favor of the "house".
Click to expand...
Not in my experience. PG&E now pays me retail for any excess energy I produce. Also, if I install batteries I can get a failover switch that keeps my house powered and disconnects me from the grid. That’s to keep the line workers safe. I would have to double my solar production to make having a battery make sense and we rarely have outages so it’s not worth the time and expense.
 
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Crashnburn said:
Not in my experience. PG&E now pays me retail for any excess energy I produce. Also, if I install batteries I can get a failover switch that keeps my house powered and disconnects me from the grid. That’s to keep the line workers safe. I would have to double my solar production to make having a battery make sense and we rarely have outages so it’s not worth the time and expense.
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Lately we have had a rash of power outages. I would bet we have had over a dozen in the last few weeks. They are normally a few hours long
 
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