EP 6 The Elextric Vehicle Show - Pipistrell the E-Airplain-
The Electric Show!, all about EV and much more!
Film and edit by William Ranieri
Film and edit by William Ranieri
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00Hello, nice to see you again Deepak. Thank you very much for having me on this freezing
00:21cold day in an airport hangar with a beautiful charger behind me. How are you?
00:26Very good, very good and welcome to Damon's Hall. Thank you, I mean I've seen this plane
00:30up in the air at the last Electric Vehicle Rally but I've never seen it in person and
00:33finally I'm going to be able to go up in the plane today and take our viewers with
00:37us. Indeed. So tell me about your history as being a pilot and how did you get into
00:41the electric plane world? Oh gosh, it's a very long story but to make it short and not
00:48boring I've been flying now for 55 years and I never imagined I would ever fly in an electric
00:55aeroplane when I started flying and since the last two years we've been using this
01:00electric aircraft in our flight school here at Damon's Hall. If I wanted to learn to fly
01:05and I came to you guys and I was offered to fly in an electric aircraft, does that mean
01:09I can still fly a normal aircraft? A petrol engine aircraft you would say yes and the
01:14flight training includes both the petrol engine aircraft like what we have behind us and the
01:21electric as in front of us. The pilot training includes both systems of propulsion. I see,
01:29so it's kind of a no brainer for people to go to this. Yes and the Pivisrail petrol engine
01:35aircraft looks the same, behaves the same, the controls are the same in the cockpit and
01:40they fly similar, just the noise levels are low and of course the electric aircraft has
01:47zero emission in flight. And for you guys, I'm guessing you used to teach in petrol
01:53aircrafts? Yes. So the fuel saving? Fuel savings or operational costs are less than a third of
02:00the petrol engine aircraft. So with that margin we can afford to invest in new aircraft. And I
02:08mean obviously in the future, I'm not sure if you're doing it now, obviously I'm guessing
02:11there's a larger cost to purchase an electric aircraft than a petrol one. They're the same
02:16cost. They're exactly the same cost. That is incredible. So can you pass the savings on now
02:20or in the future to the people that want to train to become a pilot? No, we want to make a bigger
02:25profit. Yeah, I like that. Don't be silly Harrison. That's great. Because any business without making
02:33a profit is no business at all. No, you're right. And I guess we see that with a lot of people at
02:38Uber, you know, they're going to electric and you can pay a premium to get into an electric
02:42vehicle. And people do appreciate that we are offering zero emission flight training,
02:48especially younger people who are more aware of the importance of climate change, of the effect
02:56it has on their, not just the lifestyle, but on their future. I mean I paid extra to get my
03:03driving licence in an electric vehicle. Yes. And I didn't mind paying extra, you know, because I'm
03:08doing what I wanted to do. And I feel glad that I've never driven a petrol vehicle.
03:12And good for you. Yeah, good for me. And my first flight today in an electric plane is going to be,
03:18you know, I'm quite guilty. I fly quite a lot. And to see this future of an electric plane sitting
03:24right in front of me, I would never know that's electric if I walked past it. I mean, I asked you
03:27earlier, there's another one sitting down there and that's a petrol one. And I asked if it was
03:31electric and they look identical. Yes. So this plane specifically, how, tell me the details. I
03:37mean, the battery size, what can it do in terms of, you know, I'll compare it to a car, for example,
03:42battery size wise. So this electric aircraft is called the Velis Electro. It's made by Pipistrel
03:49in Italy. Okay. The batteries are assembled in their own factory, the individual cells. There
03:56are 1,152 cells in each box, which is about 75 kilos. And there are two battery boxes. Each is
04:05about 11 kilowatt hours. Okay. So you have 22 kilowatt hours capacity. And that can go what
04:12sort of distance? It will cover about 100 miles. That's crazy because I used to have... In flight.
04:17In flight. Not on the roads. Because I used to have a Renault Zoe that had a 22 kilowatt hour
04:23battery, the first ever Zoe. Exactly the same battery size. And that would only get me 60 miles
04:28on the road. So I can go in a plane and I can do more distance with the same battery size. Correct.
04:33Than a car. Correct. Isn't that incredible? It is. And I've got an electric car and I compare that
04:40to the aircraft consumption. Yeah. So the aircraft flies for one minute on 2% of charge,
04:49while the car drives for two miles for 1% of charge. And I might be driving at 30 mile an hour
04:58while the aircraft's doing 80 mile an hour. It's incredible. So the distance covered with the
05:03aircraft is more than by the car, even though the aircraft uses more battery power. I mean,
05:12last year when you competed, you flew from London. From here. From here to Brighton. That's
05:19right. And it cost you something like £6.81 or something incredible like that. That is mental.
05:26It's crazy. So takeoff and landing. So I'm guessing the takeoff of the plane is going to
05:30use a lot more power. Talk to me about that. The Velice Electro will take off in the same
05:38distance as its petrol engine sister plane in about 200 metres of grass runway or tarmac runway.
05:45And do you see that the percentage whilst you're taking off is dropping
05:49quite rapidly? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So there's a special, there's a different technique
05:54of takeoff. In the petrol engine aircraft, you would go to full power and keep that full power on
06:03until you're at, say, 500 feet or 1000 feet. While in the electric aircraft, you lift off the ground
06:10at full power in a couple of hundred metres, maybe 10 seconds, and then reduce the power output so
06:18that you have a longer endurance. Well, it's similar with an electric car really, I suppose,
06:24isn't it? You know, if I need to, if I'm accelerating on the motorway, I try to, you know, be easy off
06:29my accelerator to get that extra range. That's right, yes. Same to the car, same to the electric
06:35aircraft. Correct. And this, so charging-wise, so you couldn't plug it into a normal plug socket
06:41like my car is charging right now, could you? No, it's not designed to be charged in a three-pin
06:49socket, simply because it's designed for flying school use, where you fly one flying lesson,
06:57come back, and you want it charged at a rapid charge rate. So it has a three-phase power supply
07:03requirement, and then it charges at 32 amps at maybe 10 kilowatt hours, or on a warm day it will
07:12take 18 kilowatt hours. So that tops you up that 20 kilowatt battery pretty quickly. Yes. And after,
07:17I suppose, if you're doing those flights and coming back to recharge, the battery's already
07:20pre-warmed anyway by that time. Correct. In flight, the batteries do get warm. There's a special
07:26cooling system where the batteries are liquid cooled. They're not just air cooled, but they're
07:30liquid cooled, and that ensures a stable temperature in the battery box. It also ensures, it aids
07:40longevity of the batteries, so they're all at a stable temperature throughout its cycle. Yeah,
07:46I suppose if you're landing and taking off and charging, you're going to want a decent battery
07:50that can last the life of the aircraft. Well, I'm looking at it, and all I want to do is get in.
07:54Well, let's go fly. Yes, indeed. Amazing. Let's go.
08:05Here we go. So quiet. Yeah.
08:18I'm surprised how smooth it kind of is. It's not as expected.
08:25Oh, there's a bit of a rain shower out there. Great. I've got to chase away from them.
08:40Well, I've never tried normally, but I mean, even if I take my headset off, it's not too bad.
08:46I'm going to do a power check here. I need at least 60 kilowatts.
08:59Ready? I'm ready. Okay. We're ready guys,
09:02so let's take off in the first ever electric aircraft in the UK. Let's go.
09:46So