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High Voltage

** The Volt packs 700 pounds of lithium-ion
batteries under the floor. These batteries will
take you 40 miles.**
Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The author's positive experience with the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid car, introduces the concept of extending electric range with a gasoline engine.
  • The article proposes applying plug-in hybrid technology to airplanes, acknowledging that purely electric flight is currently impractical for most aircraft due to battery weight constraints.
  • A hybrid aircraft design would combine batteries for initial power and reserve with a small, efficient engine-generator (genset) for cruising, aiming for significant fuel efficiency improvements.
  • While experimental hybrid aircraft are being developed, the author questions whether the efficiency gains will ultimately justify the added complexity and cost for practical personal air travel.
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(December 2011) For the past week I have been driving a Chevy Volt. The Volt, as you are undoubtedly aware, is a plug-in hybrid — GM’s, and I believe America’s, first mass-produced car of this type. I was staying at Truro, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and it was fun to make a 25-mile round trip to Provincetown for breakfast every morning without ever using a drop of gas. No doubt the euphoria of independence from the gas pumps to which I have been tethered all my life would eventually have worn off, but during my brief affair with the Volt, I loved it dearly. We took our host out to dinner to make up for the blip in her electric bill.

Why am I telling you this? Because we are entering the age of the plug-in hybrid airplane.

Peter Garrison

Peter Garrison taught himself to use a slide rule and tin snips, built an airplane in his backyard, and flew it to Japan. He began contributing to FLYING in 1968, and he continues to share his columns, ""Technicalities"" and ""Aftermath,"" with FLYING readers.

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