The Future of the Warbird Movement??

old iron · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:46 pm

And no large airplane would be able to hoist the weight of enough batteries to keep it in the air.

Here is what I tell my students: In the future (after the limits of oil runs its course), airplanes will still need a burnable fuel. The only answer that I can think of is hydrogen (generated by nuclear)...

Kyleb · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:45 pm

old iron wrote:

And no large airplane would be able to hoist the weight of enough batteries to keep it in the air.

Here is what I tell my students: In the future (after the limits of oil runs its course), airplanes will still need a burnable fuel. The only answer that I can think of is hydrogen (generated by nuclear)...

There is still a tremendous amount of oil and gas underground. In the next 25 years, many (most?) automobiles will switch to electric power (batteries), leaving petrochemicals for ships, aircraft, and other vehicles which need higher energy density. Society isn't giving up ships and aircraft powered by oil and its derivatives any time soon.

JimH · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 7:23 pm

GA in the US is still a major consumer in oil products. There was a scare, or threat, 10 years ago that Avgas was going to cease production in 2018. That year came and went and nothing has been said about it since. I think we are safe for at least the next 40-50 years.

Jim

JohnB · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:55 pm

bdk wrote:

The "experts" have been saying this for the past 30 years at least. Those experts tend to be activists projecting their desires to eliminate fossil fuels.

Despite all these dire predictions isn't the US now a net exporter of fossil fuels?

JohnB wrote:

The issue isn't the availability of airframes or even pilot training or the "disparity of wealth" talk (aviation had always been relatively expensive, but people managed a way to do it) it's fuel.

Listening to some of the politicians (and the wealthy activists who have their ear), gasoline will be a thing of the past in 30 years.
IF it's avalable, it will be so expensive to make warbird flying out of reach for many who now do it. If you can afford a Mustang, $30 a gallon gas may not be an issue, but what about the lower end warbirds? Not many guys will be flying L-birds or trainers. Bombers and transports...forget about it.

My point was (or tried to be) that the fuel issue isn't one of a genuine physical shortage of crude, but rather a conscious unavailability due to political decisions.

As far as airplanes needing oil, recently a congresswoman said airlines would be grounded soon and we'll only use high speed electric trains for travel.
A senator from Hawaii said something along the lines of......"Have you looked at a map? That won't work for us. "

old iron · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:34 am

Quote:

old iron wrote:
And no large airplane would be able to hoist the weight of enough batteries to keep it in the air.

Here is what I tell my students: In the future (after the limits of oil runs its course), airplanes will still need a burnable fuel. The only answer that I can think of is hydrogen (generated by nuclear)...

Kyleb replied:

There is still a tremendous amount of oil and gas underground. In the next 25 years, many (most?) automobiles will switch to electric power (batteries), leaving petrochemicals for ships, aircraft, and other vehicles which need higher energy density. Society isn't giving up ships and aircraft powered by oil and its derivatives any time soon.

That there is a "tremendous amount of oil and gas" still in the ground is relative. We are presently at the approximate point (M. King Hubbert's world "peak oil" curve) where half the world's underground petroleum is used, and - sometime this decade - available supplies will begin to decrease and competition for those supplies will increase. We are in an age when science is dismissed by too many, but that is the science of all this (and, for whatever this may be worth, I am a Ph.D. geologist).

As I tell students in my energy courses, there is no such thing as electric "power" - electricity is generated by "power plants" those being presently natural gas, coal and nuclear in that order - to say that we will convert to electric cars ignores the question of where that power will come from.

As the costs (both financial and environmental) of coal and gas increase, what would be the "Plan B" for large-scale electricity generation. Inevitably, we will need to convert to nuclear, with some of that being used to produce the hydrogen for planes/trains/automobiles that use fuel-cells. China is already starting that transition, and has announced that they will be entirely out of coal use during this decade (they are in the process of wholesale construction of nuclear plans).

To take this to the subject of our thread, airplanes in the not-too-distant future (I think within the 25 years mentioned above) will be converting to hydrogen as a burnable fuel. This will be problematic, as hydrogen has only a third of the power per weight of petroleum fuels, which I think means that we will be going towards smaller airliners of more limited range (from 747s back to DC-3s in size). Presumably, much of what we presently do at far-away meetings will transition to Zoom-type technologies - that transition is already started.

In tough economic times, there have always been rich people who drive the equivalent of Duesenbergs, and I would guess that there will warbirds still in the air for decades to come, but those numbers will diminish.

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

Back in the 1970s, there were companies prospecting for oil in Guatemala.

I remember one press report, stating that the oil found surpassed the known amounts of that in Kuwait.

The wells were capped, and assigned military personnel to keep an eye and to protect them.

I remember a company named Basic Resources or Bahamas, and an engineer named Eric Klanderud.

There is plenty of oil underground. In Alaska, too.

Saludos,

Tulio

Firebird · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:52 pm

old iron wrote:

Inevitably, we will need to convert to nuclear, with some of that being used to produce the hydrogen for planes/trains/automobiles that use fuel-cells. China is already starting that transition, and has announced that they will be entirely out of coal use during this decade (they are in the process of wholesale construction of nuclear plans).

Zero chance of that happening, given their coal-fired PS building programme is still ongoing and those already in construction and about to go into construction are not going to be de-commissioned after only a few years use, even if they make the decision to not give the go-ahead for any more, which as of 6 months ago, wasn't looking likely.

old iron · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:38 pm

Tulio:

"Plenty" is a relative term. Anything less than a "Giant Oil Field" is for practical purposes inconsequential. "Giant" here means greater than 500 million barrels (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_oil_and_gas_fields); such fields were at one time found quite often, now these are extremely rare. As a rule-of-thumb, production in a giant will continue for 30 or 40 years. At present, the production in many giant fields - example, the North Sea - are much in decline, while replacement fields of that scale are rare to almost nonexistent.

We are "running out" of oil faster than people appreciate. That we have not already reached the other side of the peak is due to fracking in the US, and increased production in Saudi Arabia; both of these can only provide temporary respite. For what it is worth, claims that US oil production have never been higher than present are absolutely wrong -- there is a lot of misinformation bandied about by special interests of every stripe. American production peaked in 1970 (!!!); declines have been fairly steady since then with secondary peaks when the Alaskan Prudhoe came on line (early 1980s, those field now much diminished) and the more modern fracking.

We will, at some point in the near future start seeing the types of Energy Crises that we previously saw in the 1970s, but this time without us having the oil reserves that we had then. My guess is that we will run into the next crisis much as we did the previous ones: you will think about filling the tank on a Tuesday and decide to wait a couple of days ... between then and Thursday the crisis will hit and we will all be in long lines and at each others throats.

To bring this back to our topic, the effect of recreational (and commercial) aviation will be considerable (Covid would be small potatoes by comparison, in my opinion).

As to Guatemala, that is well removed from known giant oil fields. That "wildcat" happens there I have no doubt, always done with high expectations, but seldom successful. No one "caps" a field that offers good production; even a marginally profitable well would be pumped enthusiastically to improve cash flow and keep the boys in business. You know what you were told, but the reality was likely different. 'Tis the nature of that business.

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

old iron wrote:

Tulio:

"Plenty" is a relative term. Anything less than a "Giant Oil Field" is for practical purposes inconsequential. .

Since I do not have figures, all I can do is write what I remember. The adjective may be incorrect, but the memories I have, were of a public oficial making that kind of statement, relative to the size of the oil find in an area called Tortugas.

There were similar finds in Rubelsanto, and Chinajá, and in all instances AFAIK, the wells were capped.

Not being an oil engineer or a geogolist, all I took from those times, were the concepts that the oil found, was secured for a future, when the mid-east supply runs out. Someone mentioned, that all they have to do, is to screw the "Christmas Trees" onto the capped wells, and they will be in production.

The commentary at the time was, that when the world runs out of oil, the USA will still have something like 50 years or more, worth of oil.

Saludos,

Tulio