Will they SHARE their Secrets?! Electric Aircraft Safety culture
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- Опубликовано: 10 окт 2022
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What are the #safety barriers surrounding the production and application of #EVTOL #aircraft and how will that affect the way we fly? Will companies share safety information for the greater good of #aviation ? Let's explore...
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode. Enjoy checking them out!
Sources
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Videos
• OUR FIRST FLIGHT: Boei...
• Wisk On-Demand Air Tax...
• CityAirbus NextGen
• The World's First Auto...
• Jetson ONE - World's F...
• The eVTOL Challenge
• Archer Receives Specia...
• Rolls-Royce | Spirit o...
• Making eVTOL a reality...
• Making eVTOL a reality...
• Aerospace Engineering:...
• Aircraft Development U...
Articles
www.flightglobal.com/eviation...
verticalmag.com/news/lilium-e...
newatlas.com/aircraft/de-havi...
www.bbc.com/future/article/20...
• Aviators, British Airw... 
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I downloaded Curiosity Stream months ago. It really is a great app full of documentaries on countless things. Worth every penny and more honestly.
Are they no longer bundling with Nebula?
@@bearcubdaycare you can get Nebula if you sign up using a code from creators who are part of Nebula, like Wendover, Hai,Real Life Lore, Polymatter, Real Engineering, Real Science, Mustard, Jet Lag, Neo, RMTransit,Not Just Bikes, Practical Engineering and many more
@@bearcubdaycare Now you bring it up, when will Mentour join Nebula? 😅
@@justintaverniers4887 good question: leaves me wondering if he just hadn't thought of it, or if there is some reason why he feels it works be counter productive to his own goals for the channel?
@Mentour any comment?
And you, Petter, contribute to the safety culture by making this information available in an understandable way to those of us who are not aeronautical engineers.
Soo true. Just 1 man with a team on RUclips
He has a gift as a communicator.
eVTOLs are in fact much harsher on their batteries than electric fixed wing aircraft, just as a helicopter takes more fuel to fly than a fixed wing plane. In terms of getting them into service quickly, with all the regulatory hurdles you describe, expect electric fixed wing planes well before the eVTOLs
In London, rotorcraft are restricted to a narrow channel following the Thames. A mate of mine cut a corner in his JetRanger and got the mother of all bollockings from the CAA.
As a software engineer, I can't caution people in safety systems enough, that the culture we have in software is absolutely not compatible with safety systems. The move fast and break things, is a great way to ship non-safety projects because it shortens the feedback cycle allowing you to make smaller changes in direction to optimize at arriving at a correct solution after a few iterations. However, that same reason is not compatible with safety systems. I worry about software culture invading aviation.
DO-178C is very strict on software development, so unless this standard gets a major rework which would allow for "move fast and break things" style software development to set its foot into aviation, I don't see a real risk for that.
@@Mezgrman Do you trust the software that was installed on the 737 Max? Once two planes went down, they had to fix the software. I doubt it is yet properly fixed for the reasons the OP stated.
@@SrssSteve yes I do, especially now after the crashes and all the scrutiny that was put on the code.
As a software engineer. It's important to distinguish general enterprise software engineering from what's being done in aviation. It's a completely different process and a completely different frame of mind. It's important not to treat the entire software industry like that mobile app from some startup because reality is that is just scratching the surface of our industry.
@@SrssSteve The issue with the 737 MAX was not the software. It was the entire system design that was oriented towards avoiding retraining of pilots. No amount of software quality improvement could fix that.
Siemens had an incident with their electric airplane prototype a few years back - lithium battery caught fire mid-flight, two pilots dead.
The problem is that companies doing these airplane designs are not really good at batteries, and they underestimate how complicated batteries are.
P.S. my company is producing and selling batteries and battery management systems to these builders, so I'm following this closely.
I feel like I have to disclose something: My paper airplanes haven't been performing as well as is expected in this industry, on more than one occaision they have lost their pitch and roll authority during test flights. We are working on this issue and promise to improve our safety record going forward.
My paper planes have been legally grounded due to the alleged flammability of the wings.
@@trueriver1950 You shouldn't have signed that contract with Qatar Airways.
This kind of safety culture would benefit so many other sectors of society. Learning from truth and transparency saves more lives and property than lawsuits ever will.
and Donald Trump clearly believes so, after all he called his Twitter-alternative Truth, which proves he is scrupulously honest...
As a pilot, a drone operator, and a researcher on Advance Air Mobility, it has been evident that a great culture clash will happen when more drones, VTALs, conventional air traffic, and even space traffic start to share the same airspaces.
As a pilot I agree.
The whole EVTOL movement (their timelines, their plans to move forward and the likes) it all feels rushed sometimes.
Manufacturers are expecting “innovation at software speed” (this is from Acubed’s website)
Hopefully they don’t cut corners to get this “innovation at software speed”
@@nikobelic4251 don’t forget to mention that once this starts getting more into the casual consumers, there’s most likely gonna be a drop in safety. Doubt 100 hour inspections/annual inspections will do the trick. Also with a lot of people refusing to maintain their own vehicles like with worn tires, not checking oil, rusty and destroyed frame and parts, no way this shit should work in aviation.
we already see space traffic clashes in FL. NASA/CCAFB/Spacex/ULA/etc are trying to work with the FAA. the space coast wants to hit 45+ launches a year and that will need a system better integrate air space closures as it does impact flights to places like Miami. The idea is a fully integrated system is the nearly whole day NOTAMs would become a thing of the past, As soon as the booster clears a block the air space would reopen. now with RTLS they would probably keep it closed until the rocket was legs down again, but most land on boats far out to sea these days.
The process you talked about where Boeing commented on Airbus' 321XLR, doesn't really sound all that much different than peer reviewing in science and medicine, at least in concept.
I am a drone guy, I've been flying multirotors for more than 7 years so I'm versed in the technology. I think it will take a lot of time until they can make this things safe enough to transport people.
Good. Leave the lithium in the ground.
While fun for small scale personal usage, e-aircraft are just as likely to become commercial as e-trucks are - which means quite unlikely. Batteries are just too heavy
Battery improvements are basically at a standstill at this point, either we make more efficient motors or we have to look for better energy density sources.
Petter is THE BEST keeping us all informed in such an articulate manner👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽.
I very much appreciate the clear distinction you create between the reality and theory of flying and flight technologies. A "meta" episode like this, disjointed from a specific technology or incident.
Well-crafted and well said. It's one interesting aspect of the way Rotorcraft manufactures and eVTOL start-ups seem to dance around each other.
Thanks to your adverts, Ive gotten Manscape (love it on my bald head and nethers) and Curiosity Stream. Love that too.
Focusing on safety actually helps develop more information for those of us who enjoy observing industry advances through evolving technologies. I'm excited about this one and - now in my 70s - can't wait for it to become reality before I pass on. 🙂
LiFePo4 are not fire hazard instead of LiOn and LiPo. However, they have about 20-30% less capacity with same weight.
Those rotors seem pretty light, i'm not sure they can perform an autorotation in case of total (or even partial but major) power loss while in vertical flight.
That seems unlikely given the mass those seem to have, well as how fast helicopters autorotate down. Then again its probably rich mofos who can only afford these so number is low, but then again if these become anyway from few to small minority, globalists will start to ban normal planes, like they have done with cars. In the end there is just minority who can afford these things and ridiculous costs of maintenance that comes with EV's and in large chunks and everyone else is boned since traditional planes become too expensive to operate and own due globalist legislation or hell even impossible or just dangerous due ban on high octane fuels.
I've been up close to a couple of these eVTOL craft. Those little propellers are a lot tougher than they look.
I think the reason many of these vehicles look like helicopters is because autorotation is the best option in case of power failure. The plan for most of them is intra-city travel.
I don't see passenger Elec aircraft becoming common anytime soon. Batt tech needs a leap.
I sure hope that ballistic parachutes will be mandatory for these e-copters
Look for parallels in the world of computing: the introduction of personal computers in the world of mainframes. It was the wild west amidst the rule-bound!
Thank you so much for all your time and effort in making these videos. I appreciate the high-quality, well-researched, information you share here.
Nice work, as always 👌 thank you for sharing!
As always, very educational! Thanks, Petter.
I like the ideas of redundant motors and props, and a segmented battery pack that can jettison a section that has become a hazard to the aircraft, removing it to a safe place outside the skin until you get to a landing pad where you can drop the failed part and then land. A lithium battery on fire is a lot less of a problem if it is hanging 3M under the aircraft.
I’m wondering what pilot certification would look like, how airspace would be established once a number of these take to the skies and lastly what their weather limits be
For the most part, they are starting off with type rated commercial pilots. Pretty much the same thing as an airline (except maybe not ATP)
Then they plan to add more automation and bring in less experienced pilots. Eventually they hope to remove the pilot from the aircraft and have him fly one or multiple evtols from the ground.
There are a few exceptions like Whisk which wants to go straight to pilotless flight and Lilium and Vertical Aerospace that haven’t mentioned removing the pilot but that’s the general goal when it comes to pilot certification and the likes.
You might want to check out what NASA is working on in their Aeronautics end.
Safe integration of non-piloted aircraft into piloted aircraft airspace has been an ongoing project. Weather, airframe design, alternative fuels, communication/deconfliction - they've got a little bit of everything under study.
@@BigBlueJake I’ve looked into that extensively
@@nikobelic4251 I figured you were all over that stuff even more than me. But B Wade Greene might want to have a look.
A pilot is a pilot regardless of propulsion, but being an aviation mechanic for these things will be a strange new world. Air traffic control will be interesting in amongst skyscrapers.
@@nikobelic4251 any idea how military drones for in to that? Or do they get a free pass because they are designed to kill people anyway and nobody really cares about collateral damage so long as the dead are not Americans...
Super important video! Thank you Petter ❤️
I think shining a light at NASA with their SABERS project, which have recently had some incredible breakthroughs with solid state batteries, might be a good idea. Much safer and more energy density, and with the new technology can even exceed lithium batteries on charge and discharge rates.
EV aircraft looks like a fun hobby. Unless we find a way to change physics, we are limited to hobbyist only. Maybe short hopper flights and one man long range aircraft. Just my opinion.
Thanks for this video. The culture of safety in our industry is paramount and everybody working in it has this at top of mind through every shift they work.
In my opinion, electric aircraft is just a hype, not a hope, because of three reasons: First, due to the safety reason as you explained. Second, the energy density of the battery is much less than the fuel has. Third, the weight of the battery is constant time overtime, so it is affecting the airplane structure's strength, especially the landing gear when it landing. This is like an airplane that have to make emergency landing just after it take off, it has to dumped the fuel before it landing to reduce the weight.
Makes 100% sense, I do like to see people try though, because superior battery technology is always a good thing imo
There are already some electric aircraft in service, and they'll stay because short-haul flight is practical.
Short-haul flight.
@@absalomdraconis how long it can go, and how long it takes time to recharge its battery?
informative and easy to follow- thank you!
At least for fixed wing, we accept single engine design where the engine could cut out at any time, and as electric motors are very reliable, I am not worried that this will be difficult to do safely. However VTOL is a different case, where redundancy will be required. One challenge in both cases, is that lithium ion batteries should really not be fully charged all the time, to improve battery life and reduce risk of fire. However if the batteries are not fully charged, less flying time is available. Some batteries are extremely safe, like LiFePO4, however are heavier. So there are still some hurdles to overcome, but I am optimistic.
So actually - a pro tip if you have a drone, e-bike, EV or anything using lithium ion batteries actually, keep the SOC between 20-80% as much as possible, if you don’t really need full range, like for your daily commute or just taking a few pictures or short video with your drone, and your batteries will last many times as long as if you go 0-100-0% all the time. And store your batteries at 40-50% SOC when your toy(!) tool or vehicle is not used for an extended period of time.
Yes. That's also why Li cells are usually delivered with around a 40% to 50% charge: it maximises pre-sale shelf life
Don't also forget about concept of flying cars introduced by companies like Aeromobil.
Very informative. Thanks!
Glad you liked it
Great video Petter. So many fascinating points and a lot of factors for future aviation advancement.
Regarding the paint issue for Qatar, I really feel for them because those definitely pose a public perception of safety risk... It's a shame that this is a stale mate situation
My understanding is that Qatar Airways has been dishonest in its complaint against Airbus. During the height of the pandemic, many (probably most) of the fleet of all airlines were idle and Qatar Airways saw an opportunity to lessen its financial losses by blaming the groundings on the paint issue so that Airbus was consequently taking the financial hit. With that, it's very difficult to have much sympathy for Qatar Airways. Petter made an excellent video explaining the situation.
Burt Rutan gave some excellent talks at Oshkosh about how the FAA has *harmed* aviation safety by stifling innovation. Homebuilt aircraft had in-cockpit weather years before airlines and corporate aviation, for example, because of Government regulation. Or, as Burt called it, “government incompetence.” Do you believe that benefited safety?
You would be wise to consider a dose of healthy skepticism in place of your “absolute certainty.”
Now I'm appreciating the aircraft industry even more, I'm loving the healthy competition that works toward the betterment of human kind.
Another great video
Apart from aircraft-related safety, what about air traffic considerations when presumably many will be operating in a relatively small city environment?
I've seen some really neat electric aircraft, such as the Lilium Phoenix 2. So there's probably a niche market. But my take on bulk commercial aircraft, is to use the current technology, with hydrocarbon fuel. The hitch is to get renewable energy cost so low, to synthesize hydrocarbons fuels, at a cost as little as current fuel, that's drilled out of the ground. That way, they are both carbon neutral, and economical. In the long term, this is possible, as renewable energy cost will drop. Be smart about it. Don't waste lithium ion batteries on grid storage, while heavier, but lower cost existing battery technologies, are fine, as long as that battery doesn't need to move, so light, energy dense, batteries are wasted in this use. The main reason the industrial revolution happened, is that cost, primarily energy costs, dropped to 1/10th, or 1/100th of that, using older methods.
My understanding regarding the sharing of safety-critical proprietary information and trade secrets, is that this is a major part of what regulators are for. I don’t doubt that aircraft manufacturers like would try to compete on safety, if not for the fact that they all know full well that even when they’re the first ones to come up with the best solution to a safety issue, it’s going to be turned into a certification requirement and sent out to all their competitors.
At best, it’ll just buy them some time by forcing competing manufacturers to go back and redesign some of their systems.
As for battery fires, they’re a symptom of an unfortunate difficulty you’re always going to be faced when you’re storing a huge amount of potential energy in a very small volume. Conventional fuel also fundamentally has this same problem. It’s an extremely flammable, volatile fluid, that needs to be correctly contained at all times (during storage, transport, at every stage of every single component involved in the system, all the way up until controlled ignition).
Think about how complex modern fuel systems are, and imagine the consequences if something were to go badly wrong at any point at all within that system - and take a moment to appreciate the amount of engineering that’s gone into ensuring that never happens (and that if something goes wrong anyway, it can be managed long enough to safeguard life).
My guess is the problem of battery fires will be solved - i.e. reduced to an acceptable level - given a little time, like it was for fuel/gasoline fires.
I am a ham radio op. We use batteries for hand held radios. Also, batteries for off grid operations for 25 to 100 watt radios for various ham bands
Battery power is challenging for us. I am not surprised your industry issues with these batteries and aircraft.
Peter, you need to look about your ham Foundation Licence. Should be easy for you
"You want to support the work me and my team does..." Why do I feel like my English teacher would have thought about the sentence?😊 Being an African I know a white man who is a pilot cannot make a grammatical error 😀
*Good to know.*
Can hope they keep the batteries for the engines and the systems for keeping the plane posible to fly separet.
Didn’t Boeing have a serious problem with lithium battery fires in their 777s post FAA approval? I seem to recall an incident at Heathrow in 2015 which attracted worldwide attention.
They had issues with it on the 787. 777 I am not sure,
If the OS crashes while flying and rebooting does not fix the problem, just reinstall the OS.
Battery packs weigh twice todays fuel loads, scratch this insane idea.
Batteries have 1,000btu while jet fuel has a whopping 135,000btu. Batteries have been slowing down in progression in past decade due to the laws of thermodynamics, these evtol’s are just a bunch of toys for environmentally disconnected millionaires and billionaires.
Also just to mention, it’s aviation regulation to have 30 minutes of fuel during daytime extra after landing, and 45 minutes during nighttime after landing, so these toys can barely comply with these regulations right now still.
Great video. And nice to hear your take on Beta Technologies. They’re an excellent example of a small (but rapidly growing) company that’s doing it right, and for the right reasons. They’re a very aviation-focused company, not just concerned with electrifying it. They feel so strongly about aviation that they offer free flight training to all their employees, and encourage them to get their private pilot licenses - which has the added benefit of hugely boosting business for nearby Vermont Flight Academy. It’s been exciting to see the advances Beta has made, and I’m looking forward to seeing where their technology goes.
11:31 that looks like terminal 5 at EGLL.
4:42 Bjorn looks like you in alternate universe where you are fed up to your work and spouse. :D
safety is number priority!
Thanks
Thank you!
8:57 - anything to declare?! 😂😂😂😂. Maybe it’s the BPWS (brown proximity warning system)?
Surprised Joby was not mentioned in the video.
You say at 3 mins 20 secs that EVTOL's and electric aircraft in general cannot use batteries from a Tesla, but that is exactly what they do use. The RR NXTE which you show stock footage of used 18650 cells, identical to a Tesla Model S, Volocopter use 21700 cells, identical to a Tesla Model 3.
"They never compete on safety."
Boeing: Hold my MCAS.
Thanks for a fun interesting video.
A question in my mind is how quickly such a plane could land if there were a battery fire. I've seen videos of out of control lithium batteries fires, including one that consumed a bus. It strikes me that such a fire might cause more than just smoke in the cabin, and might progress rapidly. It seems that such questions will need to be answered convincingly.
Yes, these fires are very difficult to extinguish. I wonder if the batteries could be sealed and filled with an inert gas such as carbon dioxide?
@@Phiyedough wouldn't help, Li-Ion batteries carry their own oxidizer, they could even burn in a vacuum... the only thing you can do is make sure the fire doesn't spread to the entire battery or to other parts of the aircraft by putting in firewalls and vents, and then land ASAP.
@@Phiyedough These batteries generate their own oxygen whilst burning so co2 would not affect a fire in the least.
Sadly, the Comet crashes killed off De Havilland as a jet aircraft carrier business, despite the Comet being made safe. Such a shame because IMHO, they are the most beautiful of their kind. No other jet plane can compete with it. Concorde had its very own beauty, but she was "beyond normal". Maybe one day a fuel will be developed which will be as green as possible and suitable for supersonic planes. I might even be persuaded to get on one of those!
Are there any statistics on crashes of commercial aircraft, looking at weather, and duration of flight, ect?
If things go wrong it would be a lot easier to land in perfect weather as opposed to landing in a storm.
NTSB and its equivalents in other countries would have that sort of data.
Parabéns 👏
I think Ev plane with an inbuilt range extender can give good miles and if battery gets discharged or any problem. That range extender can give few more miles. Vertical landing and take off is not possible. Only propellors will work
Thanks for the video.
While we are speaking of "green" (maybe) future, I would like something about "alternative" gas/fuel.
In general aviation, we use mostly 100LL, a new lead less gas has been approved by FAA, can you tell us more about this G100UL and the various "UL" gas.
With turbines, the fuel is JetA1 mostly, and what is the possible future?
BTW, I wonder why is hydrogen considered as "green house" effect proof: its combustion products contain water (vapour), but water vapour *is* a green house effect gas....
"As safe as they can possibly be" until they're got at by the manufacturers and the airlines!
Dont know... i think boeing competed on safty with their 737 max by reducing safty to save money.
With no retraining to safe money, watering down the cerifiction and trying to push the fault under the carpet.
As of today, we still even dont transport Teslas on board Northern-Baltic ferries just like that. Strict protocols in place. It was few years ago, when we didnt even take them on board at all. Looking from a seafarers point of view, one how acts as one of the firemen on a ship - I dont think these will succeed that much with the safety and reliability.
A lot of these companies like to say that by protecting these batteries from starting a chain of fires is just dumb to me. We all know in aviation that if an in-flight fire occurs, either you do anything you can to get on the ground, or you become an asteroid in mid air. I mean, when teslas are on fire, firefighters can barely do anything to stop it and have to let it burn out, now who’s to help you when your now 3,000 feet high?
@@poochie5543 Exaclty... We were told in training to leave them batteries be (just try to evacuate and keep the fire from spreading). You cant do much with traditional fire fighting gear (inside tight loaded car deck on board a vessel). The batteries can catch up fire again, again and all over again. Dangerous nonsense.
@@habahabatsutsut2657 yeah we need to move away from Lithium NMC based battery (what most ev's use that can catch fire) and swap over to a less flammable battery chemistry like LFP or LTO (the kind of battery chemistry that you can literally put of much of holes in a cell). At most they'll do is just create a bunch of smoke (never getting hot enough to auto ignite other cells and cause the famous thermal runaway event NMC is so well known for).
Ill sacrifice some range for improved safety (only reason ev makers are using nmc batteries).
My primary objection to many electric aircraft is the fact that discharged batteries weigh (effectively) the same as charged batteries.
This means that MTOW is no more than MLW
Hallelujah!
Unfortunately not all Aircraft manufacturers seem to stick to stringent safety rules. As an example, a US manufacturer even changed the location of their manufacturing plant from Seattle to another state to circumvent the more stringent rules in WA and safety engineers were sacked when they complained about the non adherence to safety procedures. As a result there were some crashes and the air-crafts of a particular type were grounded for an extended period of time. On another topic the electric aeroplanes sound great but the batteries are not the way to go. There are motors that would circumvent this problem (eg the Adams motor) but they are not manufactured for profit reasons. To say it with the words of JP Morgan: If you cannot put a meter on it I do not want it. But this might change in the not too distant future. Otherwise, as a PPL holder for 40 years, I find your videos quite interesting.
Great piece. As a professional drone pilot, I struggle to get even some CLIENTS to adopt a safety attitude. eVTOL culture was borne out of and adopts a LOT of the attitudes of drone culture. Whereas professional aviation thinks safety first, eVTOL/Drones culture is typical "no big deal" (until it is). I wouldn't go near an eVTOL without ballistic chutes and other redundant safety systems. Because drones and eVTOL glide like a brick (there isn't even an opportunity to auto-rotate).
i've seen the result of a flight controller screw up. because of my First Robotics Competition background i always take safety very seriously around my rc planes and even my drones always making sure that if there is anyone else nearby is aware of what the machine is about to do. i usually don't mind if people stand next to me and see what the drone is doing but i don't let anyone go anywhere near that thing with spinning knives that can cut off your fingers when i'm about to take off with it. and preflight briefings are also a good way to let people know what going to happen
In that case I wonder how long an eVTOL company will last after a major accident? There was a regular helicopter connection between Helsinki and Tallinn. The company that operated it was often advertising to get the business going. Then one of their helicopters came down mid flight, killing everyone on board. Mostly business people who enjoyed that fast and easy connection. Afterwards I've never heard of the company again, and don't think anyone tried to replicate their business model. There's the existing boat lines and regular planes, as always, but as far as I'm aware, no helicopters.
Maybe when we ban (untaxed) kerosine travel, just like it happens with taxed cars, trucks, etc.
Love your work but can you please consider getting rid of the whoosh noise between scene changes. Us engineering types can usually work out when a scene has changed without an audio prompt :) If the noise is deemed essential, can you please remove the bottom octave or two as it is most annoting on playback on a system with a subwoofer.
Nice video Petter .... BUT .... your message concerning "aircraft manufacturers and their commitment to safety" - What about Boeing's shocking dealings with respect to the computers that led to 2 avoidable fatal crashes of their MAX aircraft?
That Rolls Royce plane is beautiful
Planet is running low on litheum, so I if this is gonna be "cutting edge", it cant run on litheum batteries (unless you have an internal combustion engine back-up) \m/
It's going to as safe as a FAR 25 aircraft. Same redudance requirements as a Part 25. It will be safer than helicopters.
with these big drones, if you lose an engine you also lose control of the aircraft. Helicopters can lose all power but the pilot still has control and can auto-rotate safely.
That's a big reason these have eight or more props, as opposed to say four. If one fails, its pair can shut down or throttle back to preserve control at the expense of lift or speed. Losing one of four doesn't really allow this. I expect many of these designs will have recovery parachute systems in place on production models.
@@strehlow Multi engine aircraft are way more dangerous than Single Engine Piston because they have 1 source of fuel.
8 electric engines still only have 1 source of electricity.
The concept of losing control if for whatever reason your motor can't turn is a fundamental flaw that can not get certified until they rectify it.
Also CAP's parachutes have about a 2000' deployment altitude and the idea that they are a cure all in aviation is good marketing but simply not the reality. Yes CAP's can save lives but they have a narrow flight envelope in which to do so.
eVTOL are a very very long way off getting certified.
@@HoltAircraft True, they're not a panacea, but they do contribute to the overall safety.
Battery redundancy is important too. Having packs split so pairs of motors are fed together would go a long way here. If a battery fails, pairs of rotors would stop, preserving control.
It is likely that loss of half would still allow for an unpleasant, but controlled descent and landing that people would at least walk away from. And the tilt-wing designs may have a decent glide profile, which would give more time to find a safe landing spot.
The lithium ion batteries probably aren't going to be best in the long run due to the fire risks. But others like lithium iron phosphate are approaching similar energy densities with drastically reduced fire risks. But to have practical VTOL aircraft, current batteries probably aren't quite there yet.
STOL use much less energy for takeoff and landing, so when there is some room to roll, that would significantly increase range.
@@HoltAircraft Multi engine aircraft are safer as usually you can lose at least one and keep flying. And most larger aircraft have multiple fuel tanks spread about. All the engines aren't using a single source. And small twin engine craft typically have wing tanks. Each engine typically uses its own tank(s), and fuel can be deliberately moved between them if necessary.
@@strehlow I don't know what EASA are going to say but I don't want to get on a quadcopter until the rotor has a helicopter style of pitch control so that in the event of power loss you still have control.
Also little propellers would not give you the same glide ratio and speed that large rotors of helicopters give you.
The rotor systems and batteries are two separate issues, neither of which I like.
I can see EAV maybe doing short horizontal takeoff, but they need to be able to glide and land horizontally for safety sake. Otherwise, they are just an electric helicopter. And conventional helicopters are not practical (or safe) for large commercial passenger service.
The main role foreseen for these vehicles is intra-city air taxi. Japan is dead serious about making something like this work.
A British plumber can make one in his backyard shed. See Colin Furze on RUclips for details.
I think evtol aircraft is more similar to helicopter than airplane. But somehow they are force to meet high airplane safety standard.
If this "Safety Culture" really exist, please explain why nothing is done until two 737 Max fall out of the sky, as just one example. It seems the rule followed in reality is the "Allowable Failure Rate".
Are these overheating problems with batteries the same as Samsung experienced with their Galaxy Note 7 and in resent years other Galaxy phones, which were 3-4 years old? Is there some sort of chemical inside the batteries that prevents the batteries from overheating? I know that in my company, we use electric busses for transport, but to prevent the batteries from overheating, both during operation and charging overnight, a oil heater is installed, which runs a generator of sorts to always keep the batteries at a optimum service temperature, thus preventing a fire to occur.
Batteries generate heat, the higher the energy density, the more heat they create, temps above around 130 f get a destructive runaway reaction going. BMS systems balance and keep voltages within cell voltage parameters, 4.2 v max for lipo, 3.6 for lifepo4. At freezing temps, both act dead. Both need to be heated and cooled to be kept within boundaries.
I am extremely sceptical of any EVTOL and UAM products just because of noise. I don't want to live in a city where there are 100s of propeller planes flying around the whole day, cities are already noisy enough with road and public transport vehicles.
The constant talk about safety would have been more meaningful (and true) if Boeing didn't admit that it lied to and misled the FAA during certification of the 737 MAX, basically hiding MCAS, resulting in MCAS not being mentioned in manuals, which directly resulted in an unsafe plane. When a manufacturer lies to and misleads regulators explicitly and exclusively to get its product certified, everyone is perfectly justified in questioning the safety of not only that product, but all of the manufacturer's products (because we don't know what else they lied about).
Fewer people are killed in our EV than our competition.😊
I highly in doubt about such things. Not so much for Safety in 1st place. ... Have you realized that all Videos of fancy "personal flying devices" have nice music and never the original sound? ... There is a good reason for this and i think this will be a blocker for use in populated areas.
In the wake of the ongoing COVID pandemic and North America's abysmal road safety record, I kind of thing safety is not really a big deal.
Or at least actual safety is not really relevant, what matters is public perception which is governed far more by the media than it is by actual safety.
Buying a few major news organizations would probably be cheaper than the culture of safety that they have built. Hopefully no airplane manufacturers realize this...
I don’t want all these evtol things cos the skies above my head will look congested. We like the cars as they are and the commercial airplanes as they are.
Many VTOL electric aircraft are nothing but large multi-motor drones which fly by hanging on the props. With this configuration, if the power stops, you then fall like a stone with NO means of flying recovery. Why? Due to both the magnets in the multiple motors and the minimal rotational inertia of the small multiple props, you can neither completely disconnect from the power source for free prop blade rotation, nor can you reverse prop pitch - both functions which are available in a helicopter to auto-rotate, and thus use the large main rotor as a parachute. A wing of some sort (fixed or rotating), or a deployable airframe parachute, is an absolute necessity for any chance of a survivable landing in ANY aircraft, if you go down with it.
Safe until that lithium fire at 34,000 feet! Ever see a lithium fire? They are all going to die when it happens!
What exactly is an eVTOL aircraft?
vtol means vertical take off and landing, e goes for electric
I feel like this video was made in an alternate universe where the 737 MAX saga didn’t happen. Boeing intentionally and knowingly didn’t care about saftey. Sadly I think Petter is too idealistic about the industry :(
He flies Boeing... He is a Boeing yes man
🇬🇧🙋🏾♀️Oh my days these things are real? 🤯
I've stood next to the the white one that looks like a helicopter with the ring of small rotors on top. I've also seen one that looks like a 4-wheeler ATV (quadbike) crossed with a huge quadcopter drone. The ones with two wings, each holding a row of propeller blades, and varying ways to move between vertical and horizontal flight - there's been at least one on display at AirVenture the last few years I have been attending. The wildest one is something called the BlackFly which did fly at AirVenture Oshkosh 2022.
@@BigBlueJake 🤯wow🤯
Since we are on the topic of safety what happens if you loose engine power? On current jet airliners you can glide your way down. These so called "new and improved" aircraft do not have the gliding capability. "Oh but they are VTAL aircraft so if they get low on batteries they can just land anywhere right"? If over land then possibly yes, but what about transatlantic flights or transpacific flights what happens if you get low on batteries then? Let's say it looks like they have plenty of electric charge to make it across the ocean but halfway through the flight they realize they don't have enough charge how will the fix that situation? Also if these aircraft run on electric how will they fit the nessisary size they need in order to get hundreds passengers across the globe? They can't even do a 20 seat configuration. What would most likely happen is these so called "eVTAL aircraft" is they will not have the capabilities to make traveling better. Lets not forget the fact that they are propeller aircraft. They do not have the ability to cruise at high altitudes. The max height most propeller aircraft can cruise at the highest 10,000ft. So these aircraft are also much slower then a jet engine aircraft. The only way I can see these aircraft used is to possibly replace cars and now instead of driving everywhere you go now you fly everywhere you go. Now how would that be safe?
Batteries are considered for local flights only (to be replaced by trains in Europe). Intercontinental, well anything over 2h: hydrogen. Dead end?
I keep wondering: In case the electrical system fails catastrophically for whatever reason in such an aircraft, would it drop out of the sky like a stone? Or would it be able to autorotate like a helicopter, using its potential energy to get to the ground somewhat safely, even though probably not gracefully?
if the aircraft has a an electrical failure for what ever reason even during forward flight it would still be able to generate lift for the wings and be able to glide. unless it is purely vtol then a ballistic recovery system would need to be employed to save the aircraft. the tilt rotor designs could easily just glide when in forward flight but would still need a BRS for hover. electric motors just simply stop dead when they lose power, so auto rotation is not going to work while the aircraft is hovering or in forward flight.
Boeing must have missed the note that aircraft manufacturers don't compete on safety… 😐
Flying is easy. The real estate to land on is hard.
I ain’t flying in one of those contraptions.