Quote Originally Posted by Dorsal View Post
I think it is an issue of range. It is fairly typical to cruise at 75% power (very different than car), not sure how you get more than about 30-45 min flight time from the example above. While it maybe true that many flights are less than an hour I can't imagine owning a plane with that fundamental limitation. As others have stated it is getting closer but not there yet in my opinion. One place this does work is small booster motors for motogliders.
I agree with most of this post but I do see a bit more potential.

Since most flights leisure flights are an hour or less, a guy that only wants to do that type of flying could benefit from one. I used to be in a flying club that had 2 airplanes and the less than an hour for a typical flight is absolutely accurate from my experience. I was also one of the flight instructors for the club and the longest flights of the month were generally the flight instruction flights. If our flying club had an electric LSA and a C-172 instead of 2 C-172's, I would guarantee that the electric LSA would have gotten as much use as it could handle. The only potential problem I see is recharge time or I see some systems looking a battery swapping.

A pure flight training type environment might be ideal at this point in time. This use would get benefit from a lot of regenerative capability (TOL's)

From a personally owned airplane perspective, I'd do it as a second airplane if I had that much disposable income to play with. I think it would be an interesting and fun project and could fill the evening flight role with another airplane serving the travel duties.. Due to the range limitations it wouldn't be practical as an only airplane because I do like to make short trips from time to time.