Fossil Fuels, Electric Aircraft and Ion-Drives

摘要

Recent developments in hybrid and electric aero-engines has caused me to ponder just how far the design and development of the aircraft motor has come over the last 117 years. The Wright brothers' Flyer engine was an air-cooled, four-cylinder, petrol-fuelled spark-ignition engine that weighed about 170lb (77kg) but produced only 12hp, giving it (by modern standards) a risible power-to-weight ratio. In fact, the Wrights soon realised that - away from the astonishingly reliable wind and favourable density altitude found at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina - their Flyer aircraft needed assistance from a catapult to launch. Nevertheless, their little engine worked, and of the hundreds of thousands of engines built for small, propeller-driven GA types, most were probably various permutations of air-cooled flat-fours, sixes and eights, and were fuelled with petrol. The Continental O-200, is still in production today and can trace its direct lineage all the way back to the A-40 of 1931.