alt Hacker NewsQuoting myself:
> Hybrid aircraft? What if there was a battery large enough for takeoff and landing, a small motor (or pair for redundancy) for cruising and to recharge the battery, and motors and fans or propellers wherever is best from an aerodynamic perspective.
Would this be better than a conventional design? I don’t know, but availability of very high power-to-weight motors would help.
Possibly in some designs. It comes down to a weight issue. The entire weight of the hybrid system needs to be less than the weight saved by installing a smaller ICE engine.
Take a modern small aero engine like the Rotax 912. It comes in an 80hp version that weighs 122 pounds and a 100 hp version that weighs 144 lbs. Hard to beat that kind of power/weight.