Elon Musk said that Tesla will make battery which can last for million miles. So probably in the next few years there will be a (small) airplane powered by an electric motor rather than by fuel.
If this happens, will controlling the electric airplane be easier? The CG won't shift as fuel is consumed. But the constant battery weight probably will problem to the maximum landing.
There are a few electric aircraft now, and because batteries hold far less energy than fuel, they're low-performance and short-range compared to normal aircraft.
If we imagine that at some point in the future we'll have batteries that can match fuel, the answer would be: Only slightly.
Back in the 60's and 70's, airliners regularly carried a flight engineer, who's full-time job was to monitor the engines and tweak various controls to keep them running properly. Now that's almost entirely automated. Pilots still have a checklist to follow to start the engines, and things to monitor during the flight, but it's a small part of their responsibilities.
Even if switching to electric propulsion completely removes this, it won't make a huge difference to the pilot. (and that's assuming that the electric system has nothing to monitor or adjust)
The aircraft handling is unlikely to be affected significantly, although there are be minor effects:
Fuel gets used up, so electric planes will have to be designed with stronger landing gear.
Electric motors are easier to scale, so it's easier for small aircraft to have multiple, counter-rotating motors to eliminate torque swing.
The battery is the heaviest part of an electric power system (and for one with hours of endurance, by an order of magnitude), so fitting a motor with excess power has a relatively smaller weight penalty. Electric power systems are good for providing short bursts of high power between long periods of cruising. Unfortunately this is more useful for a car than an aeroplane.
It would be much easier to design an electric power system for an aerobatic plane. Supplying fuel and lubrication while flicking between positive and negative G takes careful design.
Electric motors are quiet, but they are still transferring lots of power into the air, which is inherently noisy.
Ultimately these are all minor effects compared to the elephant in the room, which is that batteries are far heavier than fuel.
Robin makes a lot of great points, but since we are talking on a purely hypothetical case lets have fun and take it to supersonic speeds.
Let's assume that somehow batteries have the required energy density to be used to run some sort of low-bypass electric turbofan to propel our aircraft to high speeds where the neutral point of the aircraft starts shifting aft on typical configurations. Additionally, since batteries do not change weight as energy is depleted, the CG stays at the same place so the static margin of the aircraft would start to increase on a statically stable aircraft as the distance in between the CG and NP increases. Hence, either the control surfaces must be sized to ensure controllability through the whole flight envelope (low speeds and high speeds), or another system must be developed to ensure that the aircraft remains controllable. The Concorde and the TU-144 used a fuel transfer system to move fuel from the center section of the aircraft to containers located in the back, as to shift the CG aft proportionally to the NP movement. Theoretically, an electric airplane could shift its battery storage, but batteries have a pre-established shape, so shifting that mass may be difficult. Also, sizing the control surfaces for high speeds, rather than slow speeds (as is usually the case), could create extra aerodynamic forces that would create extra drag and/or extra stresses being put on the body.
One solution could be to make the aircraft unstable at low speeds, and as the neutral point moves past the CG at very high speeds the aircraft would then become stable. But this would increase the complexity of flight and an advanced controls system would be necessary.
I can't wait for the day that batteries have the energy density required to propel aircraft past the speed of sound, but for the stability and control people there will be a lot of challenges lol.
