I have an idea to submit completely free of charge and license-free. It’s about the range of electric flying. Accelerating, starting and climbing only make up a relatively short part of the flight, but it is very energy-hungry and drains the batteries accordingly. An overview by the German Aeroclub quantifies the energy consumption during the climb phase – depending on the machine – by a factor of three to four higher than in the travel phase, both for combustion engines and for electric motors.

Gregor Honsel has been TR since 2006 -Editor. He believes that many complex problems have simple, easy to understand, but wrong solutions.

So why not try to supply the energy for the start from outside if possible? Gliding shows how this could work: There the machines are usually started with a stationary cable winch. Usually these work with old truck diesels, but electric winches are already on the market. So why not the winch launch on small powered aircraft or even on small passenger planes transfer? In this way, the first boost energy could come from the power grid, only then would the on-board batteries have to be asked to pay. And because the aircraft engines no longer have to deliver so much peak power at take-off, they could be smaller and lighter, which would further reduce energy requirements.

The whole thing is of course associated with certain practical difficulties. So I’m not sure whether older machines are built to be statically stable enough that a coupling could be attached somewhere that can withstand a corresponding pull. In addition, the entire handling of the rope is quite complex – it wears out, takes up space and has to be brought back to the starting point again and again. And finally, many passengers should not enjoy being plucked into the sky as vehemently as with a glider pilot. (When gliding, more than a hundred kilowatts of the wind often meet a few hundred kilograms of the plane. The acceleration corresponds to that of a Formula 1 car.)

But all of that could be solved technically. Newly designed machines would have to be prepared for a corresponding coupling, a kind of catapult (like on an aircraft carrier) would probably be more practical instead of a rope, and the acceleration would have to be limited (unlike on an aircraft carrier) to mass-compatible g-values.

As an alternative to a catapult take-off, one could borrow another tried and tested practice from glider flying – aircraft towing. The gliders are not started by a winch, but by a motorized airplane. Transferred to commercial aviation, it would work like this: A powerful electric towing machine brings an electric or fossil-fueled passenger aircraft to the desired altitude and then lands back at the home airport, where it can recharge or replace its batteries. In this way, the passenger plane saves energy. The tug would need a lot of power, but little range, because it can hardly go beyond the traffic area.

All of this would of course mean quite a renovation of the entire commercial aviation and correspond to high investments. But, as I said: the idea is free of charge.

(grh)