Reiner Stemme is already onto building one...
He stole my great idea!
:^)
Sept. '17, having flown (~90% soar'd, time & distance) to Moriarty from Boulder!
i need to remind myself, but i think it was originally a brief "tow" out of Boulder
a brief power-up in the vicinity Taos
and a brief power-up again to insure pattern-altitude right before landing at OEO
ran into some fun old-timers while there! The sailplane (N151JW) burns fossil fuel today. But i'm serious about replacing it's internal combustion engine with an electric motor, batteries, and some PV, with the PV mounted on a hangar, with a high-angle of attack on the panels/modules themselves, to readily shed snow in the Winter, and dust/ash/pollen in the Summier-months. Perhaps some PV on the ship itself is eventually in order. A typical launch now lasts a few minutes to a few 10s of minutes, but that's generally climbing at a "high-burn rate". Cruising at, say 65 knots can be done at a much lower rate of burn.
If i can get a good, high launch, plus keep some battery in reserve for a "save" or two, without spewing any CO2, that'd be sweet. Of course, if there is PV on the ship itself, that would be ideal, but i do not know if that is possible. TBD. The Stemme S10 is quite a sailplane, and not a bad aeroplane (all things considered),
but motoring around really isn't my thing. Electric aviation is really taking off, and i want to be a part of it.