Technologies for creating hybrid electric vertical take-off and landing eVTOL aircraft, as well as the energy sources for them, are rapidly developing all over the world. In many countries around the world, and especially intensively in the U.S. and Europe, the development of multi-rotor copters and convertorcraft is underway. The unifying factor of such aircraft is a specialized electric motor.
In Russia one of the organizations working in the field of eVTOL is Engineering and Design Center Ecolibri, which is developing a passenger plane for vertical takeoff and landing with pusher propellers for horizontal flight. At the same time, the center is creating the Ecolibri EM-01 electric motor, which will be the first all-electric aircraft engine of the new generation. It can be used both to create electric passenger planes and for unmanned aerial vehicles. The main feature of the EM-01 is the electric drive with a gearless transmission, which allows to increase the energy characteristics, reliability and engine life.
The editors of the website Aviation of Russia turned to Alexei Butrimov, general director of B-Jet aviation company, with a request to comment on the innovative development of the Russian team.
“One of the main advantages of the electric motor is its compactness associated with a minimum number of moving parts, such as bearings, shafts, adjustment mechanisms and so on. In turn, the smaller number of parts also increases the overall reliability of the entire device. Undoubtedly, the new electric motor is the safest and most environmentally friendly of all existing types of motors,” said Alexei Butrimov.
The main problem, in his opinion, is finding a power source powerful enough to keep the aircraft in the air for a long time.
“At the moment, there are no such powerful batteries that could ensure the flight of a large aircraft. So either hydrogen systems will be used or some new type of battery that can be used on large planes. But such power sources still need to be invented,” believes the head of B-Jet.
Right now, many manufacturers around the world are working to improve the efficiency of battery power sources. However, electric cars, even with the most powerful battery, cannot yet drive more than 300 km. “In Russia, this problem is exacerbated by the lack of qualified engineers and designers,” believes Alexey Butrimov.
Despite the fact that the country has the necessary capacity for the production of new electric aircraft engines, it will not be possible to quickly establish such production. According to the expert, this is due to the lack of a number of components, including microcircuits which are practically not produced in Russia. He thinks that it will take 5 to 10 years to replace the necessary imported components. After this it will take several years to pass all the tests and certification.
“I do not think that in the next 10 years there will be airplanes that will transport cargo and passengers on electric power. Right now there are prototype planes that fly on electric motors, but they fly for a short period of time, about 30 minutes. They are small, light-engine planes. They do not cover all the needs of aviation, because they do not allow you to carry large amounts of cargo and many passengers, ” said our website Alexei Butrimov.
