Extend Breguet range equation for electric aircraft
Desired capability or behavior.
The Breguet range cruise phase in 2DOF equations of motion currently fails if the aircraft does not change mass between timesteps (i.e. all-electric aircraft). This is because mass is the integrating variable and is expected to change between timesteps. The equations of motion need to be extended to support electrified aircraft.
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
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Associated Bug Report
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A "universal" breguet range equation that can handle any aircraft may not be possible because it would need a generic propulsive efficiency which is difficult to get from some engine models, such as tabular data. We have access to total fuel consumption, change in battery state of charge (total electric power consumption), and thrust so something might be possible?
Creating a separate "all-electric" breguet range phase is simple and straightforward, and is a reasonable limitation. The user would need to choose if they want to use the fuel-based or electric-based breguet range phase . In this case, we eventually need to derive a non-breguet cruise phase for 2DOF so we can fly hybrid aircraft using it.
This is being implemented in PR #686.