Anyone ever considered whether you can take the e-bike concept of adding peddle-powered/e-bike motors and controls and creating a peddle-power trike? The trike motors and props apply power as long as you apply peddle force; you stop peddling to coast. You use the same motors as e-bikes and batteries… four motors with four batteries. Mount it all on a fixed frame (motor/props on a swing-up armature on the trike that can be lowered flat for storage). Fix on the batteries and plug in, attach the parasail, and start peddling!
I thought of something like that once and threw down some scetches. My idea was more of a standard glider mixed with a human powered airplane and an e-bike. An e-bike style aircraft isn’t really the most convenient, but it would be cool to see one anyway.
Recently we just got a couple of ebikes - one the things I like was the battery package and the dock/slide rail lock system they use.
They are 48v 20ah packs. Ebikes dont need a lot of current vs flying. I estimate you would need to do 2s6p minimum - so 12 pieces to handle the 250-300amps you need to take off.
As for the Bike motors — my 750w motor is about the same weight as the SP140 motor, They are definitely way behind in the power band in bike motors for size. Motor torque more though so I wonder if there is some possibility there. I also have a 20" 1000w GoldenMotor vector hub motor. Take that 20" torque and redrive to a small sprocket?? Beyond my scope of thinking! Still more power needed to keep a prop moving for that need thrust?
Well, they’ve got those reclining trike bikes that would make for the foundation given from which you can look at mounting the X4-type central plates and fold-out motor mount armature on to.
I, too definitely like the battery/slide lock connector that my Rad Power bike has. And, the fact that the charging port is built right in using standard 110V charging plug. The convenience is certainly there to simply unplug from overnight charging, slide the battery into its connecter rail and start’er up!
That is exactly the type of concept I was thinking of.
Another option (and question posed earlier today) is whether you could mount on a trike a lithium ‘car’ type battery on to a trike (about the same weight as 4 e-bike batteries) and power a good e-motor with that.
That was quite the machine!
Now… if it could be lightened up, e-motored, and could have the wing exchanged for the paraglider, we’d have a viable contraption!
The thing about flying, even paramotors, is that you’re going to need like 5 horsepower just to stay in level flight. That’s around 3,700 Watt. A Tour de France rider can burst like 600 Watt for a short amount of time. A normal human can put out about 100 Watt over a reasonable amount of time.
There is a definate weight to “human” power ratio.
most of the vehicles are winged flight but it is basically the same.
Believe it or not, most of those vehicles are LIGHTER than
the paramotors and the man/women used to power them are
in very good shape.
they also are able to “coast” during their journey.
There have been some successes but by the time they get to the
“finish” line, they can barely walk. It takes a huge amount of human
energy to power human flight machines.
