Range anxiety in an air race! 

It’s like for like I think. An hour for an hour.

@@TheFlyingReporter . Thank you Jon .. I know it’s early days for this type , but in all honesty for a aeroplane with such a limited endurance and charging time , I find it difficult to see much of a market for it .

@@davidcartwright5591 It seems their main target right now is that it is intended for flight training. a quick look around indicates it has a similar new-price as their conventional comparable designs, with a fuel cost less than a tenth. i expect they use it partly to get real world testing on some components lifetime, waiting for range to increase.

Type rating in a light aircraft??? Hmmm

@@douglasb5046 you’re right it’s not a full type rating like a jet, but an extended checkout on the Pipistrel Velis Electro. You need 5 hours of flying and about 10 hours of theory where you learn about the electric powerplant and the specifities of the machine.

@@douglasb5046 its not a SEP, so yes...

They'll need to get substantially better before they can become widely used. They are pretty much useless for flying from A to B right now. They are quite useful for flight training where are you going to be staying close to the airfield the whole time (that probably covers less than half the training, but it saves a little money and a tiny bit of the environment). They'll be much better in a few years, though. Range was a big concern for the first electric cars but is now no concern at all for the vast majority of users. The 10 minute rule is because they are staying close to the airfield for the entire flight so can easily return and land should there be a problem.

@@thomasdalton1508 . I can’t imagine even in the training environment they are a good alternative to a conventional aeroplane . 50% of its available utilisation will be take up hooked to a charger . No school aircraft makes money when it’s stuck on the tarmac . If they were the good aeroplane we are lead to believe , flying schools would be buying them in numbers , and they are not .

@@davidcartwright5591 Training aircraft aren't particularly expensive to own. They are expensive to operate. Leaving them sitting on the ground isn't a big problem. (They cost about €175,000, so if you have to buy two so you can alternate them while they charge and your cost of capital is about 5%, that's about €9,000 per year. Even if you only use it 500 hours a year, it only needs to cost €18 an hour less to operate (and it probably saves you more than that) and you are better off.) Some schools are using these now. I think the biggest drawback is logistics. You have to operate a mixed fleet of electric and piston, since you can't do everything in the electric. Mixed fleets always create a logistical headache. The price is also a little high if you compare to second hand piston aircraft (there obviously isn't a big second hand market in electric planes yet).