I got an “Unavailable in your area” message when clicking on that link. (I live in Chicago, IL, USA)
It recognized my location and knew my local channel was WTTW.
Banned me from watching the video.
Damn. Here's what it's like to fly in an electric plane — the third revolution in aviation - YouTube This is part of it.
In-air recharging? It’s done with regular fuel - although only in the military (as far as I know). The “source” plane wouldn’t necessarily have to be an “electric” plane, but would need a lot of charging power on board…
IANAP but I’m thinking it would stall. Otherwise conventional planes would just cut power on descent the same way a car driver takes his foot off the gas when approaching a red light. And that’s not what they do.
Once it’s one the ground this might work.
In principle, you could implement something like regenerative braking on an airplane… except that braking of any sort isn’t something that an airplane does very often. And when they do, it’s mostly because they’re about to land (or have already done so), and if you’re about to land anyway, then you can just plug in once you’re on the ground.
On a small plane, you cut the power and the airspeed causes the prop to windmill; since it’s fixed to the engine, the engine idles at that speed (after all, you want response from the engine, not to have to try to restart it at a critical time).
As the jokes about perpetual motion and fans indicate, any regen power comes from airspeed. In a car, the momentum of the car provides regen - in a Tesla, for example, lifting your foot off the accelerator produces noticeable “braking effect”. Time it right and you almost never touch the brake.
In an aircraft, the windmill effect driving a prop would have the same effect - slow down the aircraft, more air resistance. This would be a handy tool - vary regen to change the air-braking effect when you need to slow down, or while maintaining airspeed but descending. However, my guess is the amount of energy you could recapture from this would be limited; ordinary aircraft can slow and descend using just the air resistance on the whole aircraft. Plus, this would come into play mostly when approaching the airport to land, and so recapturing power would be of minimal benefit unless the battery is so close to dead that you should not have gotten to that point.
Just read this yesterday, shows what the current technology is capable of. “long-distance demonstration of electric aviation endurance”. Note that it had legs “up to 38 nautical miles” with a usual leg of 30 miles before recharging.
Note that that 38-nautical miles was not the maximum range of the plane. If you read the article, you’ll find that he always ended up with more than 50% battery charge on each leg, which is significantly more than the FAA-mandated 30-minute reserve for VFR flights.
I don’t see commercial aviation will be going away or even mostly going away. Even a TGV train won’t get me from Minneapolis to a Florida beach anywhere remotely as fast as an airplane. Looking at a virtual picture of a Florida beach isn’t any kind of substitute for being there.
Most businesses have already figured out that Zoom calls are a thing but there’s still a lot of people flying.
As with so many things a good mix is the best choice.
A car is probably best for up to 150 miles. About a three hour ride. Easy. Cheap. Not too onerous.
A high speed train (let’s say 250 mph on average) is probably best for 150 miles to 750 miles.
A plane is best for anything over that or, of course, crossing water.
For example, Chicago to New York is about 800 miles. A train averaging 250 mph can do the trip in a bit over three hours. A plane can do it in two hours. But, when you add in time to get to the airport/train station and considering trains usually go to the city center (and associated costs and time getting to the train station/airport) all of a sudden a train does not look too bad. Probably more comfortable too with better food.
If you are going from New York to LA then yeah…flying wins. Minneapolis to Florida too. Not to mention crossing an ocean.
In a perfect world they all have a place and make sense and you have options.
There’s a sweet spot for TGV-style trains. Keep in mind - Minneapolis to Orlando is about 1300 mi as the crow or e-plane flies; that would be 7.5 hours at 180mph on a top-of-the-line TGV. But then, you’d probably fly to Chicago or Atlanta and change planes unless you got the right direct flight (yes, Minneapolis is a hub too, so likely). Still there’s time in the airport, time to get to the airport, etc - all relevant depending on the relation of the airport vs. train station downtown to your final destination. .
If the trip was offered overnight, arrive refreshed at 8AM after being rocked to sleep the whole way, it might have appeal. (Except for those annoying whistle stops in Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, Atlanta)
But for shorter hops - say NYC to Chicago in a bit over 4 hours - the time taken to get to the airport, through security, etc. for a flight might compare. Even LA to San Francisco might be acceptable, if they could figure out how to build a rail line without gold-plating it. LA to Vegas? The Boston-NYC-Washington route is an obvious one.
I’ve been on the Shanghai Maglev which does 410km/h (250mph) and Japan threatens to commercialize an even faster train. At 250mph Minneapolis to Orlando would be 5 hours or so which starts to compete with the hassle of air travel.
There is no high speed train in the world that averages anything close to 250mph.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/worlds-high-speed-trains-railways/
The fastest RUN in the world (that being point to point, non-stop), is in China, at 317 kph, or 197 mph. The average speed of the top 10 fastest runs is about 250 kph, or 155 mph. When traveling cross country you have to account for various stops along the way, making the average speed lower. Average speeds for new High Speed Rail appears to be closer to 180 kph, or 111 mph. This accounts for curves, time spent braking and accelerating, etc. And if you have to partly share existing track, you slow way down and also get delays for track clearance, making you throttle your speed even more.
Count on the average speed from New York to Chicago, with multiple stops in between, to be more like 120 mph, plus or minus 10-20 mph.
I think that pushes the ‘window’ for HSR to be more like 300 miles to 750. And 300 woild be marginal. A 300 mile trip hy a fast HSR is maybe 2.5 hours, while by car it’s 5 hours. If I waste half an hour on each side with taxis, waiting for train, security, etc, I’m only saving 1.5 hours out of 5, and for that I am paying two taxi fares, a train fare, and I don’t have use of a car at my destination. And if the train station is out of the way or in the opposite direction from where I’m going, it might be close to a wash. For that I am paying several hundred dollars more for the trip.
And if my alternative was driving an electric car, I’d be helping the planet by driving the car. The most efficient train around is at least twice as wasteful of energy per passenger mile than an electric car with one person in it. Pack four people in an electric car, and compared to a train with the average efficiency of Amtrack, the car would be sixteen times more energy efficient per passenger mile.
There is now. Your link is a couple of years old.
No, that’s a maglev. No one is talking about building maglev trains in the US.
And ‘a couple of years old’ is nothing in this industry. The state of the art isn’t changing much. Maglev trains have been around for decades - they are just very expensive and difficult to build and operate, so you don’t see them much.
Japan is in the process of building a maglev train from Tokyo to Osaka. It will start running part of the service in 2027 (not the whole route yet). It is expected to make the 250 mile trip from Tokyo to Osaka in 67 minutes.
Nobody is building a maglev in America. The cost per mile is way out there. The Chūō Shinkansen you are talking about is estimated to cost $82 billion dollars, and it’s a 178 mile route.
One interesting thing I discovered looking this up is that the Japan inter-city express rail system uses a LOT of steel. Apparently a single train wheel loses about 68 lbs of steel every 2 or 3 years, and a complete ICE train can lose 8 metric tonnea of steel from its wheels over the same period.
Whatever the technology, it’s a high-speed train, in production, with speeds over 250 MPH. Therefore there is at least one high-speed train in the world that averages something close to 250 MPH. Your statement didn’t say “…which is planned for implementation in the U.S.”
Okay, you win. There is a train in the world that will go faster. It’s just not one anyone is contemplating for the US, and therefore has no relevance to the debate.
The point is, there’s a sweet spot for TGV where population density and distance are “just right”. That occurs in mainly in Europe. In China, it’s also driven by the population not generally having cars and being willing to tolerate longer rides. Another factor is city density. If your destination is likely inside the destination city’s transit area, especially the downtown, there is less need (indeed, more hassle) having a car to park at the destination.
In the USA, it mainly occurs in the northeastern eastern seaboard (Boston to Washington) with Chicago and Ohio being the outlier extra extended zone. The only other place might be LA-Frisco-Vegas.
I was on the Shanghai maglev a decade ago. It’s fast and incredibly smooth.
People are certainly talking about building one between Baltimore and DC, if you consider publishing a draft EIS to be talking. Although that’s only 40 miles. Whether it’s a good idea or gets built is probably not a discussion for here.