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Aircraft Battery Trials: Concorde Sealed Wins

To hear some owners tell it, buying an aircraft battery is like playing the lottery: You buy your ticket, cross your fingers and wait around to see what happens. Some owners-those lucky enough to get five years out of a battery-ask whats the big deal? But the poor sap who buys two batteries in as many years has a more cynical view. Is this any way to run an industry? Were not sure, but our tests and owner surveys reveal a wide disparity-not to mention a vein of customer ire-in battery performance and longevity. In this article, we'll examine aircraft battery options to make sense of it all. Upfront, we'll say that the smart money rides on sealed battery designs from Concorde, with flooded models from Concorde as second choice and Gill flooded products a close third

Kim Santerre
Verified

To h

ear some owners tell it, buying an aircraft battery is like playing the lottery: You buy your ticket, cross your fingers and wait around to see what happens. Some owners-those lucky enough to get five years out of a battery-ask whats the big deal? But the poor sap who buys two batteries in as many years has a more cynical view. Is this any way to run an industry? Were not sure, but our tests and owner surveys reveal a wide disparity-not to mention a vein of customer ire-in battery performance and longevity. In this article, we’ll examine aircraft battery options to make sense of it all. Upfront, we’ll say that the smart money rides on

Aircraft Battery Test

sealed battery designs from Concorde, with flooded models from Concorde as second choice and Gill flooded products a close third.

The quintessential old-fashioned battery with its need for cleaning, maintenance and periodic addition of distilled water, is called a flooded cell. This battery type has the potential to leak corrosive acid or vent corrosive fumes, hence the battery box should be carefully maintained. A flooded battery is also more prone to vibration damage than a sealed battery. A flooded battery loses 1 to 1.5 percent of its charge per day sitting in your airplane when not on a trickle charger.

FLOODED OR NOT?

A flooded batterys main strength is that it has slightly greater resistance to excess charging abuse compared to a sealed battery. Liquid electrolyte driven off by excessive charging can be replaced, within limits. A flooded cell is also less sensitive to cheap battery chargers, as long as they don’t output more than 4 amps or so.

If a flooded battery is put into initial service without bench charging, allowing the airplanes charging system to bring it up, it will suffer reduced capacity and shortened life. A sealed battery arrives charged, but should be fully charged on the bench, too. In fact, Gill sealed batteries have a “charge-before-use” sticker on them.

Current state of the art for aircraft batteries is the so-called sealed battery, also known as a valve-regulated lead acid battery (VRLA) or an absorbed glass mat (AGM) battery. This refers to the design of the internal active and plate insulating materials. Since there’s no liquid inside, these batteries can be installed on their sides or upside down, which they may very we’ll be in a homebuilt. Some aircraft

Kim Santerre