What surprised me was how quickly that Airbus turfed the all electric eFan. If Airbus stopped before burning through more piles of Euro, it's going to be interesting to see what Peter can do.

What’s surprising is he went from physically impossible to pure fantasy. At least the Bonney Gull flew once.

Oddly, just today:

"A380 superjumbo to test experimental open fan engine"

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airb ... index.html



This has been researched before, the GE UDF:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_GE36

Canceled in 1989.

So perhaps jets are becoming more like props? What exactly is the difference between "turboprop" and "open fan jet"?

The other aspect of this story is that A380s must be salvage value if buying one for a test bed makes sense.

Mike C.

I think Douglas Aircraft was doing that in the 1980s, when I worked there. I believe it was the MD-94 or MD-95??? Basically, the DC9-Super 80 with unducted fans.

Marketing. And virtue signaling.

This quickly and efficiently points out some of the flaws in Peter’s second pipe dream.
https://youtu.be/Nxx44-CB4Ws

This quickly and efficiently points out some of the flaws in Peter’s second pipe dream.
https://youtu.be/Nxx44-CB4Ws

Ya, that's some brutal reality for Peter. It's hard to imagine that even if it's built, and some are sold, that it will be anything close to a successful venture (as a business). But, people love to imagine something bigger than themselves, and they'll throw money at the dream.

I actually didn't realize that ducted fans had SO MANY ISSUES!!! Eek!

I can quibble a bit about some of this linked critique video, however. For example, I think that he claimed that a Tesla "Large Drive Unit" (LDU) motor weighed "70 pounds". That's so far off the mark that I wonder how many other things weren't properly researched. Just the rotor (the internal spinning part) of the Tesla LDU weighs exactly 60 pounds.

The actual weight of the entire LDU, with inverter and motor controller, reduction gearbox, and the motor assembly is about 330 pounds. It requires 1.5 quarts of oil, which in a continuous duty application would need more oil, plus an oil cooler, pumps, etc. Let's say 10% more lubricating weight, and at least 10% for glycol coolant system weight.

Also, he claimed that a "50 kWh battery" weighed 700 pounds! That's some dinosaur old technology, because at the current "state of the art" energy density of 250 wh/kg, the cells would weigh:

440 pounds = (50 / (250 / 1000)) * 2.2

Add 10-20% for all the additional hardware required (cooling, pumps, Battery Management Computer, fuses, contactors, plus redundant contactors, emergency disable of some kind, wires, cables, etc.

Let's say 500 to 550 pounds for the battery system.

Assuming that Peter would use only the most advanced cells that would be available in the years into the future that this project will cover, it's reasonably safe to say that 300 wh/kg cells will be available:

366 pounds = (50 / (300 / 1000)) * 2.2

... plus 10% to 20%.

Well, whatever you guys did to gang up on Peter was way before my time posting or reading this forum. I'm absolutely confident that any vestige of class or humility was thrown aside for the full pit bull attack against Peter.

Many of you, particularly the folks that I have blocked on this forum, seem to be quite proud of themselves, actually.

Nice edit... thanks...

Been tried many different iterations, all flops

Not at all, some ducted fans have been HUGELY successful!

Mike C.

rinse, lather, repeat
and it looks like bell-bottoms are making a comeback as well

Peter operates under different laws of physics compared to EADS etc.