With a steady stream of prototype implementations of its prior electric and hybrid powerplants behind it, on Tuesday MagniX revealed its latest model, the magniAIR electric motor for general aviation aircraft, at Sun ‘n Fun.
While previous MagniX motors have aimed at larger applications, such as the de Havilland Beaver and the Cessna Grand Caravan, the magniAIR proposes a solution for lighter aircraft, with its first flight planned in the Bye Aerospace eFlyer 2 in combination with MagniX’s Samson battery, which stores 300 watt hours per 2.2 pounds. “At the end of the year, we’re going to fly our advanced RV-10 all electric [aircraft],” Reed Macdonald, CEO of MagniX, said at a press briefing at the show.
The magniAIR produces 175 kW (about 230 horsepower) and weighs about 120 pounds. It is designed to work with existing fully electric MagniX battery packs, such as the Samson 300. While the initial forays will be in experimental aircraft, with MOSAIC implementation on the horizon, MagniX sees its future in applications such as flight training, for which the eFlyer 2 is targeted.
But the company plans more category expansion to come. “We’ve got two flights planned in rotorcraft; one in partnership with Robinson Helicopter Company that will be flying an all-electric R66, and then following that we’ll be doing an all-hydrogen R66,” said Macdonald. “So if you think about it, in 20 years as a company we’ve flown six aircraft. In the next 12 months we are going to integrate and fly four aircraft.”
“We are very excited to bring the marvel of electric flight to a new segment of the market,” Macdonald said. “magniAIR electric engines coupled with our industry-leading Samson batteries can be used for any application currently powered by a 120-175 kW piston engine. Thanks to magniX’s full powertrain, integration is simple and cost effective, bringing electric flight to kit plane builders and enthusiasts.”
At 1785 hours, my Mattituck TMXO-360 is still going strong, but eventually will need to be overhauled. I would LOVE to replace it with an electric powerplant. Adapting it to the RV-7 firewall forward area, batteries in the … wings? and elsewhere, making W&B work, all that is a daunting prospect but I’d at least like to try. Go MagniX!
The weight of an IO-360 is around 300lb vs. the Magnix’s 120lb and fewer accessories, you’ve got almost 200lb capacity and plenty of space for batteries right there in the engine bay.
Even better!
Ref autonomy, 20 years ago I flew 4 hour legs, going from Virginia to the Colorado front range in a day and Portlandia in 1.5 days. I gradually shortened flights to 2.5 hours for various physiological reasons, now 2 hours, taking a more comfortable 2 days to get to the Rose City.
By overhaul time I’ll be happy to go fly for an hour or so, land back at my home airport, and declare victory! If my 50,000 mile F-150 Lightning is any indication, currently abundant maintenance chores will diminish dramatically.
It does not matter much what the electric motor weighs. The battery of a Prius Prime weighs ~ 275 lbs, that would be good enough for a maybe 30 min flight in your low aspect ratio RV, much more on a sailplane. That is just enough for your IFR reserve!
And when said battery is empty, it still weighs ~275 lbs.
True today, but battery tech is gradually improving. Local flights will someday be enough for me.
By my math, battery energy density (kg/Wh) needs to improve by a factor of 6 – 8 to become comparable with energy density of 100LL (plus the additional weight of an ICE upfront). The math is based on the typical consumption of 10 US gallons per hour for about 140 hp (around 100kW), so around 28kg for 100kWh. The battery from this article gets 3kWh per 10kg. Add the weight difference between an engine and a motor, and you arrive at 6 – 8 (depending on the size/power).
Over the past 30 years of development, battery technology has been improving at a fairly steady pace, doubling its capacity per kg every 10 years or so. Simple math implies that we’ll reach parity in as little as 30 years.
In real life, nothing is that simple, but I think we’re now close to the point where electric small planes are at least feasible (if not comparably practical).
I think the weight is not as big compare to the commercial airline. In the GA, we tend to fill up rather than fill up just enough with reserve. Most GA airplane mission is local flight with an occassion long cross country trips. 2 hours is the max for most GA pilot
Someone please check my math…
Power required for a 172 in level cruise flight is about 100 HP or about 75 kw. That would mean a battery capacity of about 115 kw-hr for a one hour training flight with FAA-minimum 30 minutes Day VFR reserve. At an energy density of 300 w-hr/lb, the battery would weigh 383 lb. With an engine weight of 120 lb (compared 172R’s 300 or so), the propulsion system runs 500 lb. That would leave about 380 lb payload, or a bit less than the average 21st-century pilot plus one — barely do-able. Now make that a 2-hour XC flight with 45 minutes night/IFR reserves (not enough for my personal minimums) and the propulsion system weight goes to 810 lb leaving room for only a 70-lb pilot.
Not exactly a feasible option unless they can more than double battery energy density.
Your math is a bit off, energy density of that battery is quite a bit lower: 300wh per kg (not lb).
I posted some math earlier, but the energy density would need to increase by a factor of 6 – 8 in order to reach relative parity. My assumptions were 10gph at 100kW (140hp), which is typical for the 1 metric ton gross (RV10 at 65%). 100LL is 2.73kg/US gallon.
Pipistrel Electro, one of the few (if not the only) production electric aircraft, has battery energy density of around 200wh per 1 kg, so quite a bit lower than the magic battery above. So, technology seems to be moving forward, and eventually, we might get there.
Uglier still. Thanks for the correction.
Someone can check my math, but, using the numbers in the article, I calculate 1,283 pounds of battery for 1 hour of runtime at 175kW. Even at 65% power (a common cruise setting), it’s 834# for only an hour.
It’s not just a motor and battery. There is a large motor controller, very large gauge wiring and the cooling system for the motor, controller, and battery. All this will add 100s of pounds.
Usable E-aircraft are a long way off.
Yes, but all that is less heavy than ICE engine (plus all its fluids), fuel, fuel tanks and lines, etc.
To be clear, I agree, we’re a long way off usable e-aircraft, but how long is relative. Pipistrel electric plane is in production, and used for training. Battery technology seems to double in capacity (for same weight) every ten years. If if keeps going, we’ll have parity with ICE-powered planes in some 30 years.
A ‘default’ RV10 has some 800lbs (362.87 kg) worth of engine plus fuel weight. Remove that, add the motor above, and you’re left with around 680lbs (308 kg) for batteries, giving you around 92kWh.
RV10 with IO540 burns about 10 US gallons per hour, at the power setting of around 140hp (100kW). With the battery configuration as above, it would have less than one hour of endurance at cruise power setting, and at the weight equivalent of full fuel tanks (plus however much you could load in people/cargo before you hit max gross).
Batteries still have a long way to go before they get to parity, but we’re reaching a point of actual usability. With fuel being a major component of airplane ownership cost, and with batteries gradually improving over time, electric propulsion will continue to be on the radar.
I have to wonder why those who advocate electric flight have no problem anticipating a rather large improvement before this technology is feasible for flight, while they compare to ICE engines that are state of the art circa 1970. Why don’t we anticipate the same growth in performance from ICE engines? Just bringing Lycoming and Continental engines up to date in technology has yielded close to 1HP/lb! Even at 60% cruise that is <1.7 lbs/HP.
Just because the transistor went from large to super small and powerful in a short time, that can’t work for all technologies, no matter how much money is poured at the problem.
Also: If you have a 140kW electric motor, you need a liquid cooled motor controller. So that means a radiator in the breeze somewhere, hoses, liquid etc.
The thing is, we’ve seen the pace of improvement of Lycoming for the past seven decades, and can extrapolate from that how far it might go (if it continues to go anywhere). We have also seen the pace of development of battery technology over the past three decades, and it has been steady, so that allows us to reasonably extrapolate where that will go as well.
I have seen very little that would encourage me to believe that Lycoming is going anywhere in the future. Meanwhile, it seems that the battery development continues apace.
I’m not sure why is it that Lycoming doesn’t want to invest in improvement of their engines, but the trend has been fairly clear.
I’m not sure if 140kW would require that much cooling. Current EVs (Tesla and similar) require about as much coolant as does IO-540 require oil.
I haven’t done the math but I’m curious if those that have, are you factoring in efficiency losses for ICE vs electric? My understanding is that an ICE ends up delivering 30% at best of HP generated into forward motion with the rest lost to heat and friction. Versus 70-90% for electric. So for a 180hp engine, to get equivalent power output from electric you’d only need like 60-75hp. No?
Also while I like working on my old Lyc., I’d be willing to trade a significant amount of range for not having to continually maintain and monitor this complicated beast with all those hundreds of parts that have to hold up to truly abominable stresses.
You still need 180 HP at the prop, or a 135 kw motor. So for 3 hrs of flight the battery capacity needed is 405 kWhrs. A Tesla 100 kwhr battery weights about 1,000 lb.
So, the aircraft batter would weigh about 4,050 lb., which is 1,500 lb more than the 2,550 lb gross weight of a Cessna 172.
So, a huge improvement in battery kwhr capacity is needed
Even with the Magni Sampson battery at 135 whrs/ lb, the battery will weigh 3,000 lb.
There is a limit on the whr/lb that lithium batteries can achieve.
Makes sense. I knew I must be missing something.
Wonderful stuff to read about. Costco size pie in the sky. Battery technology is plateauing I believe. A 50 % improvement in a decade when scads of money have been thrown at this endeavour portends the end of battery capacity improvements of any significance in our forseeable future. As you drive around your neighbourhood during the “spring cleanup” take note of all the battery powered lawnmowers and other associated machines that are now disposable. Every three or four years the manufacturers equip their machines with “New, Improved batteries” that are not compatible with older model units or cost more than the new device with “improved” battery capacity. True junk. Electric propulsion aviation is “Pixie Dust” and will remain so probably until small, nuclear power systems come on the market. When they’re available at Walmart you can call me a philistine and agnostic. Until then stick with Internal Combustion Engines and fossil fuels for serviceable, practical flight.
Physics is a b***h!
gravity too.!!!