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1. Cliff Secord (cliffsecord@nicecrew.digital)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:37:34 JST Cliff Secord

   • Bunsen
   Clown world story of the day:
   
   So here we have eVTOL "startup" Lilium. This company, like so many other recipients of massive (((big tech))) investments, have promised the world with wildly overoptimistic & unrealistic business models performance estimates, and have underdelivered in product testing.
   
   Lilium, despite massive fanfare, awesome renderings & YT videos and a sizeable soy faggot fanboy support network, employing a workforce of over 500 people & developing, building and testing two subscale proof of concept flying prototypes of extremely limited performance capability to show for it, have managed in nine years to burn through €1.4 Billion since their inception...and are on the verge of failure.
   
   As such, like a drug addict, they need more. They are begging the German & French governments for taxpayer money......and said governments, despite knowing good & well of Lilium's failed business and instead of calling for inquiry & accountability, are actually giving these losers forum.
   
   Imagine what any of us here could do with a sliver of that kind of money.
   
   It must be nice to blow through that kind of money and then have the audacity to say "we need more" with total impunity.
   
   Un. Fucking. Real.
   
   https://www.flightglobal.com/aerospace/lilium-highlights-urgency-of-german-government-loan/160160.article
   
   @Bunsen
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • CoQ_10 (coq_10@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:37:42 JST CoQ_10

     in reply to

     • Bunsen
     @CliffSecord @Bunsen You wouldn't know any of this by reading Aviation Weak (sic).
     They have been specializing in giving biweekly blow jobs to this aviation segment, and Lilium is one of their favorite recipients.
     Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • Cliff Secord (cliffsecord@nicecrew.digital)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:43:34 JST Cliff Secord

     in reply to

     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen
     We researched electric powertrains for light GA aircraft for our first 'high profile' client. The mission profile was simple:
     
     1. 265 peak HP
     2. Taxi, Takeoff, Climb, 2 hour cruise at 70% power, descend, approach, waveoff, go to alternate pkus 30 min loiter (a relatively standard IFR cross country profile)
     3. 2000 hour battery life with 1000 charge cycles
     4. Battery must tolerate the elements
     5. Battery volumetric & mass properties must not exceed the equivalent of two 30-gallon fuel tanks
     
     Findings were found in short order:
     
     1. Motor and controller state of the art is there, with existing products available at a very reasonable price point. No issue.
     2. No battery system exists that possess the energy storage, power output, size, mass property, duration, life or ruggedness required, let alone at a truly affordable & sustainable price point that can be practical as well.
     
     There is a possibility of something better than lithium-ion- the flouride-ion matrix. Prototype systems have shown the potential for three times the power output than li-ion, and eight times the storage capacity. Also, flouride is far more plentiful than lithium, and orders of magnitude less toxic, and unlike lithium, can be recycled. The client, a well-established petroleum corporation, is researching and developing this matrix. I cannot say who the client is, but their efforts towards this matrix is very impressive! But, they still have a ways to go. This paper is enlightening, but attached are some key takeaways about this matrix.
     
     https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214993722000501
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:43:34 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen

     @CliffSecord @KarlDahl @Bunsen @CoQ_10 There are some small scale battery ops out there, and they're basically limited to 45 minutes in the pattern during the spring/fall. That's the only real full batt mission on the market, people don't have much use for short-legged planes. We just had the LSAs try to con people into a 3-hour plane with 20 lbs of useful load, and those things have famously FLOWN off the shelves (as in 5 per year at most for the average brand)

     There are some builders looking at the hybrid route as the most realistic, so you'd add something like a Turbaero Talon or TPR90 and recharge the batteries in cruise to the tune of 12 gph or so. It's in an odd space, a couple of the elements are there, so you'd think it would go together pretty easily, but in practice, batteries aren't nearly as robust as we need them to be

   • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl (karldahl@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:43:35 JST Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl

     in reply to

     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen
     @CoQ_10 @CliffSecord @Bunsen A friend of mine is working on a related project, though his specialty is engineering of the cargo space structural components. I laughed when he first told me about the overall project aspirations. These dumbass projects have *some* benefits, like his specialty
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:46:28 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Bunsen

     @CliffSecord @Bunsen The one I love is how they inundate us with "investment opportunities" in their gay kickstarter ripoff. A thousand pie in the sky boomers bragging about beating these companies to market with a pittance, meanwhile the big players have to elbow their airline partners into dumping another 25M into the bottomless pit

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 09:49:20 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Bunsen

     @CliffSecord @Bunsen I can't remember the name but there's a funny story in one little builder that boeing bought out, or killed. However it worked, it looked shoddy and unrealistic, and the firm went bankrupt while whining about getting another big state loan (maybe washington, IIRC?). Then years after the fact the owners are trying to squeeze more money out of it by pretending all their super cool blender renders had golden ideas that Boeing has ripped off

   • Bunsen (bunsen@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:14:37 JST Bunsen

     in reply to

     • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks
     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     @WashedOutGundamPilot @CliffSecord @KarlDahl @CoQ_10 All types of vehicle batteries could be far more durable. I work in a factory and make car batteries for a living. They are designed the way that they are so that companies can make more money manufacturing them. The system of quality assurance is a joke. It's all about how many batteries can be made per month.
   • Cliff Secord (cliffsecord@nicecrew.digital)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:14:37 JST Cliff Secord

     in reply to

     • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks
     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen
     Before I left the Delmarva area for Texas, there was a local airport that, amidst big local fanfare with "elected representatives" present, a small FBO took delivery of two Pipistrel Velis Electro trainers. At the event, the business owner bragged how the costs of going flying 'woudn't be a third' of the costs of their three Cessna 152s they use, how the days of piston engines were done, etc.
     
     When all was said & done, pricing came out.
     
     The C152s dropped from $205/hr wet to $150/hr wet (still beyond rediculous for birds that weren't even IFR equipped)
     
     The new shiny electric toys? $295/hr, and 10 hours of flight training was required for a checkout.
     
     You read that right. $295. For a seriously underpowered aircraft that only holds enough of a charge for maybe 45 mins of operation, meaning you can only operate in the immediate vicinity. These things retail north of $250k, before you purchase required charging systems.
     
     My understanding is that the few other Velis Electro operators demand similar extortion at their locations.
     
     What a joke.
     Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:19:39 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen

     @CliffSecord @Bunsen @CoQ_10 @KarlDahl Yeah I've had some dealings with pipis, but it's a little too identifiable for public release. The fit and finish is pretty sloppy and those velises are an awful, brittle choice for trainers. On the upside, pipistrel does hire some real cuties, they're smart enough to do that. They just don't really train them, so you're on your own unless you befriend someone in their mx division and get an actual poc to use instead of going through the tree.

     So far the cheapest one I've heard of was the little merlin E-lite. It's a kindly old autismo-boomer who makes the rounds at fly-ins with his own tiny C152-alike. It's a cute little project, and he may actually end up selling a few kits sub-$60k....if he doesn't die first. But the economics on his were pretty cool. Probably a real PITA to have it trainable but hey, it's a jumping off point.

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:20:52 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen

     @CoQ_10 @Bunsen @CliffSecord @KarlDahl IDK about car batts but I've heard a lot about QC in lithium batteries, evidently it's a pain to get the good ones from chinkland. It's why the real nerds buy pallets of samsungs from their own carefully vetted contacts when they're building electronics here

   • CoQ_10 (coq_10@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:20:53 JST CoQ_10

     in reply to

     • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks
     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • Bunsen
     @Bunsen @WashedOutGundamPilot @CliffSecord @KarlDahl I've always suspected that car batteries with a longer warranty are the same as the regular ones. You're just paying for a warranty.
   • CoQ_10 (coq_10@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:29:25 JST CoQ_10

     in reply to

     • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks
     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • Bunsen
     @CliffSecord @Bunsen @KarlDahl @WashedOutGundamPilot > 45 mins of operation
     
     Short flying lessons.
     Also, look like if the two occupants weigh more than an average of 190 lbs you're screwed.
     Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 11-Oct-2024 10:30:24 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Boina Roja Enthusiast Karl Dahl
     • CoQ_10
     • Bunsen

     @CoQ_10 @CliffSecord @Bunsen @KarlDahl One of my favorite aspects of plane shopping is telling fat couples they'll need about $150,000 more or to communally lose 120 pounds