Tucker Gott, the most popular PPG youtube channel, has been doing a 4+ part series on the SP140. Overall I’d say that it’s been a good fair review, pointing out the tradeoffs but also highlighting the things that are amazing about the SP140. Hopefully gets a wider audience excited about electric!
I watched one – seemed to be a fair assessment. We all know its about the batteries. Until we get a big density change there is going to be limitations…5 more years is my guess for mainstream cells with another 50% capacity for the same wieght?
Cheers
Doubt it. I’m guessing in 5 years we will have batteries with a 400% capacity improvement.
THats what is necessary to put Eppg on par and above gas.
If you could fly 3-4 hours on a battery of the same weight as it currently is, thats the game changes to switch to electric.
Even then, imagine a battery half the weight with 1.5-2 hrs flight time.
I really think a 4X improvement in energy density is what is needed, and lab tested batteries are already hitting those numbers. Just not commercially available yet.
I don’t know about that. In the past 5 years we have only seen about a 7% increased density in high-power commercially available cells and almost no change in low power and high energy density cells. There is a lot of promise for increased density, but production limitations alway get in the way.
To be fair, idk why Tucker has a consumption of 4,7kW at level flight with his Ozone Spyder 3. in his last video at 06:16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZh03WiF1o
I see 3,3kW with the same wing and size. So not sure if its the tri-blade he is using(mine is two blade) or the fact that he has his trims in neutral(mine is fully down - thats how you fly most efficient if you read the manual)
Probably he are using a triblade, bi blade for me is the best option.
My all up weight is 107kg flying a 20m Little Cloud-GT 2.0. Close to sea level my average energy consumption for cruising is around 4.4kW.
I was also surprised that an over 60% larger glider only gave an 8% increase in flight time (Referring to Tuckers Spyder 3 Test)
One thing he does not mention is actually consumption which I think is quite important. If I remember correctly, in his previous videos with smaller wings I saw a consumption of around 5.3kW So of course if your battery is 3.8kWh and you use 5.3kW then everybody understands that he will not make it to one hour.
So yeah his small wing was 5.2 and big wing 4.7 which gives you about 10% in difference if we talk about efficiency, so not that far of your 8%
At 5:15
Something does seem off. 4.5kw on that size of wing and a pilot as small as tucker seems way too high.
Nobody flies trims in around here (where Tucker lives). An “average joe” longevity test would not be reasonable if he flew trims in. Yes, the wing has a more efficient configuration, but the test was not to maximize longevity but to provide a reasonable “average joe” longevity. Also, keep in mind that the density altitude here is higher than many.
