Earthstar Forums

Hi Lee
The. eGull with a 11.4 kWh or kilo Whatt hour battery
Will take off, climb to 2000 feet and than cruise for a total of 1:10 including the climb and decent and landing.
Climb speed is 60 and cruise is 63 mph. For a total distance covered of
69.78 mi. Or rounding it off 70 mi.
That will cost $ 1.48 @ 13 cents pr kWh after being plugged in to the wall outlet in the
Living room or anywhere for approximately 9 hr. The cost if it had a 503 Rotax for fuel and oil
Would be $21 cruising at the same speeds. The HKS would cost $ 9.22 at the same speed using auto premium.
And mobile 1 at oil change. The battery will last 3000 charge cycles with a replacement cost of $7450, =$ 2.48 pr hr bringing the total cost pr hr for electric flight to $ 3.96 pr hr for electric, no other maintenance should be required.
Your Rotax engine will need over haul. The book calls for 300 hr TBO. At about $1800 prorating that = $ 6 pr hr and than there is maintenance witch is around $5 bringing the cost to $ 26 for the Rotax.
The HKS has a digested TBO of 1000 hrs at a cost of $1600. = .62 cents pr hr = 9.84 pr hr. Plus maintenance of about $ 1.5 = $ 11.34 pr hr.
So to sum it up. eGull =$ 3.96 pr hr.
Sorting gull with 503 flown at same speeds As eGull = $26 pr hr or roughly 6.5 times more expensive than eGull.
Sorting Gull with HKS same airframe, = $ 11.34 per hr or roughly 3 times more expensive than eGull

The eGull will travel 6.1 mi per kW= 2 cents pr mi. Your electricity rates are probable less.
Some thing to chew on.
I did I forget to mention that the ware and tear on the plane and pilot is also greatly, I mean, GREATLY reduced!
I love flying Electric! Feel free to check my math and logic since this was of the cuff.
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone

Thank you; Beautiful!!
Please elaborate "And mobile 1 at oil change"
Also, for quick charging - ChaDeMo, and maybe 240V chargers too - read something called "on demand charging" by the utilities, like ~$28 per hour. Wonder how much that costs for a full charged eGull (or a zero motorcycle, or any ev any pilot has)

Oh boy! Isn’t the math fun! My Gull 2000 with a 503 is burning about 4.5 gallons per hour at cruise of 95-100mph, and I’ve been paying $3.99 per gallon for premium auto fuel, and If I for simplicity assume added climb fuel is offset by less fuel in glide to landing. That math will give me about $17.95 for fuel and the oil I use is Lucas semi-synthetic at about $8.99 per quart and assuming about 50:1 in the oil ratio which will cost me about $.72 more per gallon or about $21.19 per hour to operate. Now as I think about another engine, (my 503 has about 370 hours on it now), and the cost per hour difference, It would take many, many hours to pay for itself with fuel savings, but as always there are other factors. Starting out with a new airframe, and given the power choices that we have now it would would be a no brainer for me to go electric, or. . . . . . . . . . if my money ship came in just sell the 503 and go pure electric and by-pass the HKS option. Or for some very different fun, strap on a couple of large model airplane jet engines like an Englishman did to a similar looking plane to ours that I saw on YouTube. Oh watt fun, huh??

Is there a TBO on the motor and controller?

And do you have to allow for a 30 min day, VFR reserve?

Pat

Yes. Thank you, Kess; now a gallon of gasoline gives ~33kWh +- 10% depending on the oil field. A steam genie ought to cost like $5 an hr; only a prototype could tell actuals & TBO, which may be even better. Without oil & NOx. Even the Engiro RE20-2 ought to cost similar at this scale, maybe a few dollars more. Still feels unusual that plugin hybrids are slated for 2035 to go mainstream, according to a few reports i saw. maybe i'm missing something...

Wonder what's the equivalent mass of gasoline (or ethanol) of the eGull battery like the Chevy volt,

It is to bad that the internal combustion engine can only use 15 to 20% of that energy.
And the electric system uses 85 to 90% of the energy it receives.
And it can run on energy that is produced by any means or any fuel. And the fuel is much more
Efficiently converted in large scale processing plants than in small engines in vehicles that have to run most of the time
At something other than there optimum point. And than there is nuclear power plants that currently only use 1% of there fuel mug get 2,000,000 or 2 million times the energy as gasoline per volume out of there fuel. And I am plugged in to one of those. And there carbon foot print is next to nothing per kW by comparison to petrochemicals!
Wen we use gas in our car we can only use gas.
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone

It's good there are three startups active on continuous combustion with heat recovery. One professes to match diesel efficiency with a clear path to higher efficiencies for autos. one is a six cycle diesel inspired by a lawn mower with poor economy. Another is a big stationary solar & compound steam engine (terrajoule). Though the only TBO i have read so far was EPA's 40hp steam engine in 1973 at 250 hours. They dint try jet engine solid lubricants then for some reason, and a few other things

eGull though has a more stringent weight requirement which is quiet solvable. by 2035, a small steam genie could be powered by a cup of something nuclear. wen Albert E. said, he not only plays dice, but throws them in hard to find dark corners; a dove's simile may have sounded nicer, catching a grown up bird must be the hardest...

rc