Switching battery mid flight

I am new to paramotoring and I like everything about this paramotor other than the flight time so I was wondering if I would be able to switch out the battery mid flight or connect say 4 batteries at once. The increased weight of carrying more batteries shouldn’t be an issue, I just hope I could get up to maybe 2 hours of flight time.

With the battery chemistry we need to make this work at all there is no practical reason not to have all of them connected when you take off. What would you save? Some wire length perhaps. I do fly with 4 batteries and some people fly with up to 8. The number of batteries is not the issue it’s the mass-power density. The best batteries for the X4 right now are the Bonka Lithium Polymer batteries OpenPPG has sourced for the X4. Lots of people have been scouring the world for a better solution. It doesn’t exist yet.

At current mass-energy density of the best batteries for the job we fly for max 20minutes cruise with 20lbs of batteries and up to 40minutes if you want to carry 40lbs. The increased weight is absolutely an issue. Partly because you have to run with it and partly b/c your wing has to carry it. Two hours of flight time is 120 minutes so you need to carry 120lbs of batteries.

Grejen,
That is an interesting observation! 1 lb of battery per minute of flight!!!
Fairly accurate from my experience flying an X-4
John

Well you can always go to a single prop unit. The SP130 gets nearly 2 minutes of flight per lb of batteries due to the power system being more efficient. Based on that info I want to build a trike with a 90lb battery pack. I figure I could get over 2 hours with it.

A trike would allow you to carry more battery but you then also have to carry the trike frame. Still you’d be ahead a bit on the deal. Perhaps Paul and Zach are working on a trike next.

I like to fly to have 10 minutes of power when I’m back over my field. This means I have a practical limit of ten minutes of flying around. If I carried four more batteries I would triple that to 30 minutes of flying and retain the ten minute reserve.

for these values you have to be magician to reach them :wink:

Paul must be one. Not sure how he does it.

Two minutes of flight per pound of battery would be pretty amazing.
Lets do some math

4kwh is double a bit more than 8 Bonkas which would be about 40lbs as well. They have something with a slightly better density than LiPos maybe. And the claim is triple the flight time. 60minutes/38lbs or 96seconds/lb. That’s a very light pack and a really efficient motor/controller/prob setup.

“You are right to be skeptical, 30lbs is not the all-up weight of batteries as there is a case, bms, wires, plate, thermal silicon sheets.”

I was just going off cell weight. There will also be another almost 10lb for all the other battery stuff.