Electric airplane

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fg

Allow me to answer on Le Chaud Lapin's behalf...these are of course,
simply my guesses as to what he would say... he is always welcome to
answer on his own behalf



If the "?" does not follow a question that I can easily respond to
with obfuscation and hand-waving, or an insult that I can react
indignantly to, then I must ignore the sentence completely.


Fail to exist in the real world.


I will build my fully pressurized airframe out of commodity building
materials that can be purchased from Home Depot and Walmart, and
whichever major electronics chain happens to have a sale on Blu-Ray
players (gotta pimp my ride with hi-def entertainment system). These
materials will be commodity, but lightweight, such as tinfoil and
carbon fiber-looking plastic (real carbon fiber would be too
expensive). Any leaks in the airframe will be plugged with spackling
compound. Fiberglass insulation will allow me to maintain a
comfortable temperature inside.


The first thing I will do is attempt to figure out the transfer
functions for the turbulence in my head. This is how the Blue Angels
do it; it is not the result of thousands of hours of flying as
everyone believes. At the first sign of turbulence, a pilot must think
about the transfer functions (convolution, Fourier, Laplace), work it
out in their head. Don't fight the humps. It's just like riding my
VFR-800 at 240 km/h (150mph US). Most pilots don't seem to understand
how much math is involved in flying. They learn by role. As an
engineer, I am trained to think about the math, to ask "what is really
going on here?" when my aircraft starts to wiggle.

bg
+fisting stopped

Sounds about right...

 

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Oh, now I learn something - if an aircraft has GPS and/or radar
altimeter, does it also require a pressure one? If so, is that for
usefulness in areas where there is chance to interact with aircraft that
have pressure altimeters and no other altimeters?
Or is this so that all aircraft can clear mountains (and each other
at the same time?) based on controller instructions (or navigation
maps) that assume adjusted-to-current pressure altimeters, which also
assume that the pilots keep their pressure altimeter settings current then
and there?

All airplanes in the US (other countries are similar) must have at a
minimum:

An airspeed indicator
A pressure altimeter
A magnetic compass
A fuel quatity indicator for each tank
An oil pressure indicator for each engine
An oil quantity measuring device for each tank (e.g. a dipstick)
A tachometer for each engine

 

[[email protected]]

Oh, now I learn something - if an aircraft has GPS and/or radar
altimeter, does it also require a pressure one? If so, is that for
usefulness in areas where there is chance to interact with aircraft that
have pressure altimeters and no other altimeters?

All vertical coordination is based on pressure altitudes.

Or is this so that all aircraft can clear mountains (and each other
at the same time?) based on controller instructions

The pilot, not the controller, is always responsible for terrain
clearance.

(or navigation
maps) that assume adjusted-to-current pressure altimeters, which also
assume that the pilots keep their pressure altimeter settings current then
and there?

Yes, but not entirely. In some areas, "regional pressure settings" are
used: that's a pessimistic forecast of the pressure over some region for
the next hour - so for that period you are guaranteed to be higher over
the terrain than the altimeter is indicating.

Also, above some defined "transition altitude" (the actual value varies
from place to place) altitude is defined by "flight levels", which are
effective altitudes (in hundreds of feet) based on setting the altimeter
to standard pressure (1013 mb, whatever that is in inches.)

Provided you're high enough to be guaranteed clear of the mountains,
it's only the relative altitude of nearby aircraft that matters, and
using standard pressure means you don't have the problem of constantly
resetting the altimeter (and getting the data to reset it to, in remote
areas.)

[this is from a European perspective - there may be some differences in
US practice]

It is the same in the US except we use 29.92" instead of 1013 mb.

Such things are pretty concistant world wide by treaty.