The power output (horsepower) of stock propeller aircraft

[Grant Exploit]

Typically, as the thrust produced depends on the propeller used and the airspeed, propeller engine performance IRL is measured in horsepower or kilowatts. As stock propellers require a constant amount of electricity to run, we can find their in-game power consumption in units per second easily—in fact, by just looking at the Resource bars. However, there are 2 potential ways to convert this into real units:

1. A solar panel of a certain area pointed ideally at Kerbol from Kerbin will produce a certain amount of charge per second. An in-game power-per-unit-area figure can be calculated from that. Compare that with Earth's 1361 W/m³ ideal power-per-unit-area figure. This will of course depend on the efficiency of the solar panels used, but assumptions can be made.
2. More reliably, the Realism Overhaul mod suite has a conversion factor from units of electric charge to Watts in case a part specifies its power consumption that way.

So, it should be possible to measure the power output of stock propeller engine. It should also be possible, though difficult, to measure the mechanical efficiency of the engine by taking into account the rotary's* moment of inertia, angular acceleration, and cruise angular velocity. 

Has anyone ever thought of this before?  Regardless, if you have made a stock propeller aircraft, please post the power output of the planes and engines you've made, as well as preferably their masses. Posting mechanical efficiency would be really awesome. 

*Most KSP stock props are technically rotary engines.

[Starman4308]

It's been looked at, and found to be utterly ridiculous.

 

[magnemoe]

Solar panels are very OP in KSP, take an basic rover and you can drive forever using a few solar panels. 
You could simply go after how much electricity is used for accelerating an an mass up to an speed. 
best to use an heavy truck and an small battery, you would run out before air resistance was an issue and you will get maximum speed. 
 

[Guest]

Electricity in general is kinda broken. You can also run ISRUs off fuel cells running off fuel generated by the ISRU, which is very weird because IRL "ore" is water, which the ISRU splits into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis -- i.e., the ISRU would be extracting much more energy from the LfOx it produces than it is using to create it from water. This is obviously impossible.

It also falls under "things SQUAD should not fix" because it's definitely more fun this way.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

Electricity in general is kinda broken. You can also run ISRUs off fuel cells running off fuel generated by the ISRU, which is very weird because IRL "ore" is water, which the ISRU splits into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis -- i.e., the ISRU would be extracting much more energy from the LfOx it produces than it is using to create it from water. This is obviously impossible.

It also falls under "things SQUAD should not fix" because it's definitely more fun this way.

The cars are fun, ISRU is kind of stupid however to fix it they need to add nuclear reactors. think large and heavy tank who generates power and heat. 
 

[Guest]

Just now, magnemoe said:

The cars are fun, ISRU is kind of stupid however to fix it they need to add nuclear reactors. think large and heavy tank who generates power and heat. 

Wouldn't even be that large. Smallest RL nuclear reactor that's built for space that I know of is the Topaz-1, and that only weighs 320 kg.