It may be too hard to do a good retrofit. If you basically have to tear the entire plane apart and rebuild and recertify it to put batteries in the right places, maybe the costs aren’t worth it for potential customers.
I know many planes use their wings as fuel tanks but given the weight of batteries maybe that doesn’t work.
I agree it’s interesting. Not a small undertaking.
Generally all the weight of the fusaage has to go through the wings anyway so it is structurally more efficient to put weight on the wings in the first place.
And they do that with fuel?! Neat!
Yup.
On a 737 they can put about 8k pounds per wing.
Even little planes like Cessnas have wing tanks.
Wow wow!
Might see planes just a smidge differently now :)
In sailplanes we add up to around 200 litres of water to wing tanks in single-seat gliders (empty weight typically around 280kg) to improve the high speed performance (typically up to 270 km/h these days) and ability to fly comfortably in turbulence.
It's surprising what you can fly formation with, even without an engine [1] :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0icOICQLTc
Dumping (most of the) water before landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Yv-V7eozk
[1] this particular glider does have a small engine for takeoff, but maximum speed with the engine extended is 180 km/h and here they are flying at 280 km/h.
What a rabbithole this is now :D
That glider next to the world's fastest aircraft (in 1953) dressed up for a fight, how about that.
And they can water the grass...
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So several thousand $ to get trained and certified and finally be ready to get towed and soar...
but just a few hundred (California) to try for half an hour behind a pro in the cockpit--oh yeah!
...omg they let you fly the thing for another couple bucks!!!
If it's a pro then they'll be sitting in the back seat so you're in the front seat the same as you will be when you fly solo.
Here's a video of me taking a student for their first lesson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZN21xzsRo
That's in a DG1000, actually this exact one ZK-GGR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeueijUoL70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ShTUTiqlM
And how that looks from the other end of the rope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRxcJR-zipI
And from the door of the hangar (using the runway in the opposite direction). Turn it up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUnXuMVhKfs