HomeMade Electric Airplane
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as an example of a hobbyist building and flying a real human-carrying electric plane, and as a channel worth following for DIY aircraft builds.
What it is
Peter Sripol shows his homemade Part 103 electric airplane flying, built from hobby brushless motors and batteries. The video covers the first flight out of ground effect.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2018 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends donquichotte · 2018-08 · on “One man designed and built the ultimate bush plane”
Insane timeline indeed! I wish I had a work ethic like that. It's interesting how he tells that as a child, he was encouraged by his parents to "always finish his project, no matter how much you disliked it". I wonder what the reliability of this beast is like, but I guess only time will tell. If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff (fiberglassing fuselages, building cockpits...), Peter Sripol, a model plane enthusiast, made his own DIY plane that can carry a human with hobby grade brushless motors: [this video]
Cites netgusto · 2018-04 · on “Airplanes that fly on electricity debut at Fresno’s Chandler Airport”
Also: A DIY electric airplane made by a hobbyist (Peter Sripol; check his channel out) [this video] The 7 parts build footage : [LINK]
Cites jmpman · 2022-04 · on “A detailed look at the S-300P anti-aircraft missile system”
These missiles mimic the radar signature of a full sized plane. They’re extremely expensive, but can absolutely be used to force the SAMs to expend their missiles. I’m thinking of something a few orders of magnitude cheaper. Flight need not cost millions. Airfoils used for human powered flight produce planes weighing 300lbs, powered with only 300 watts. Scale this up to a 3000lbs flying bomb, using 3kw, or less than 5HP. Let it slog along at 40km/h, and in an 8 hour transit, they’ve covered over 300km. If electric, that requires just 24kwh of batteries, contained in 5 Tesla battery modules at 55lbs each, for 275lbs of batteries. Each module is around $1500 used, so $7500 in batteries. Foam a
Cites jmpman · 2022-04 · on “A detailed look at the S-300P anti-aircraft missile system”
[this video] Just needs to be optimized to get above anti-aircraft range, and with a sufficient range. Mount a large enough bomb along with sufficient gps guidance and terminal optical guidance (make it a threat they can’t ignore) and they’ll have to shoot it down.