Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
...I can just see it now--a stewardess frantically running up & down the isle asking passengers if anyone has any spare BATTERIES whenever their airliner has to go into a "holding pattern" around a busy airport!
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Somehow I doubt that :-) Even if electric airliners someday become practical - well, does the cabin crew run around asking passengers if they happen to have any jet A on them when a flight goes into a holding pattern nowadays?
Even now, there are places where electric airplanes could work, starting with (as mentioned on that other thread) self-launching sailplanes. Then there are possibilities in the Light Sport class, where you may never travel long distances. When you figure that 100LL avgas is now $7.09/gal at my FBO (plus a quart of not-cheap aviation oil every 10 hours or so), and that a major overhaul of an aircraft engine was IIRC about $12K over a decade ago (about $16K now, from a quick search), electric power for sport flying begins to look kind of attractive.
Then too, as with the Tesla, there are people to whom the impact, environmental & otherwise, of burning oil is more important than money.