Comment by phire

> That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start the generators during critical phases

I somewhat doubt that. Part of the advantage of the design is that the generators don't need to be sized as big enough to power take off, climb and a potential go-around on landing. They only need to be sized as big enough for cruising.

So powering them up during critical phases wouldn't help with safety. If anything, normal operating procedures might actually require shutting them down during critical phases.

What this does mean is that the batteries need to be reasonably full when it comes into land, possibly as high as 50%. And most go arounds will require immediately powering up the generators, so it probably needs to be fuelled for all but the shortest flights.