Cardboard Carriers in Peace and War

Dean Sigler Electric Aircraft Materials, SAS, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Recent news items herald the incredible return on investment the Ukrainian army is getting from its use of small cardboard aircraft.  These literally boxy bombers are doing in Russian aircraft and possibly tanks with surprising capability.   They may have had an initial inspiration in 2017. Everfly, Otherlab, and Star Simpson At the 2017 Sustainable Aviation Symposium in San Francisco, Star Simpson of Everfly, an affiliate of Otherlab, showed off a cardboard drone intended for humanitarian missions. Read about the craft, its many acronym-related affiliations, and its missions here. Ukrainians and Their Cardboard Air Force On a less humane, but equally important mission, an Australian version of the “pizza-box” technology is wreaking havoc on the Russian Air Force and even Russian tanks. The Sydney (Australia) Daily Herald reported on August 29, “Australian-made cardboard drones have been reportedly used to help bomb a Russian airfield as the Ukrainian military steps up its attacks on Russian territory.” According to the report, Sypaq drones …

eCSTOL: Longer Range Commutes on Less Power

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Competition is growing in the electric Vertical Take Off and Landing market, with 407 potential builders listed in eVTOL News.  Vertical flight takes power, though, and with available batteries limiting range, most such vehicles can make only short hops.  Alternatives that allow speedier, longer flights, in the form of electric Conventional Short Take Off and Landing (eCSTOL) aircraft are in development. Such craft offer the benefit of requiring less power for takeoffs and climbs, being more aeronautically-based than power-based.  Airflow, for instance, claims operating costs for their eCTSOL craft is one-third that of an eVTOL or helicopter. We will look at three eCSTOL craft that seem to making headway at this time.  The infrastructure (in two cases below) to support their flight may already exist. Airflow Curt Epstein, writing in Future Flight, under the headline, “Infrastructure Needs for eSTOL and eVTOL Aircraft May be Closer than Imagined,” notes the “intense study” being undertaken.  Speaking at the Vertical Flight Society’s  Electric …

Aquifer: Flow Batteries and Rim-driven Motors

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, SAS, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

In a highly unusual approach, two NASA researchers have combined a flow battery system with a rim-driven propeller drive system.  Presenting at the Sustainable Aviation Symposium 2019 at UC Berkeley,Robert McSwain and Jason Lechniak detailed their AQUIFER Project, currently underway in the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. On Day  Two of the Symposium, Jason headed the presentation with a discussion of the implications of this and McSwain’s work on overall energy economy and NASA eVTOL discoveries.  Robert followed with a technical description of the Nano Electrofuel (NEF) Aqueous Flow Battery and Rim-driven Motor (RDM). “AQUIFER establishes technical feasibility of an early-stage technology, a high-energy density, aqueous-based, flow battery, resulting in a near-term increase of 1.7 times range over an all-electric battery, while retiring fire and explosion hazards associated with lithium-based chemistries. The… flow battery will be integrated with a rim-driven motor (RDM) as a multi-functional design to eliminate conductive EMI and weight from long cable …

SAS 2019: Dr. Sangita Gupta and ASX

Dean Sigler SAS, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Two years ago, the Airspace X (ASX) MOBi  promised to achieve passenger costs equal to an Uber Black ride.  More importantly, the company promised that it might take back our lives, eliminating the frustration and wasted time lost in traffic gridlock. We caught up with ASX at this year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium, held at UC Berkeley. Dr. Anita Sengupta, co-founder and Chief Product Officer for the firm explained the current outlook for ASX.  Where the MOBi-One (Mobility-One) looked like an offshoot of Airbus’s Pop-Up modular vehicle, it is now close to one of Uber’s concept craft used to guide designers. Dr. Sengupta’s background as aerospace engineer, rocket scientists and veteran of the space program has led her from deep space back to earth and to more terrestrial flight regimes.  She explains that transition in this short video. She started her career at Boeing Space and Communications, helping launch vehicles and communications satellites. She went on to 16 years with NASA, …

The 2019 Personal Aircraft Design Academy (PADA) Trophy

Dean Sigler Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Honoring John Langford If one stays with a line of work long enough, one will accomplish mighty things.  That’s certainly true for John Langford, Chief Executive Officer for Aurora Flight Sciences.  His decades-long career, start his decades-long career, starting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and culminating his company partnering with Boeing, has explored almost every aeronautical discipline.  For this perseverance, he was awarded the 2019 Personal Aircraft Design Academy (PADA) Trophy. Aurora Flight Sciences’ Chief Technology Officer, Tom Clancy, was on hand at the 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium at UC Berkeley to accept the award for Langford.  Clancy has worked with Langford since their MIT days, building and flying several human-powered aircraft, including the 1974 Daedalus.  That aircraft flew the 74 miles from Crete to Sicily over the Mediterranean Sea, still the human-powered distance record.  He and Langford went on to design, build, and fly an astonishing range of aircraft. Putting solar cells on Daedalus gave them a pilotless airplane …

The I.D.E.A.L. Becomes Real with JabirWatt

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, SAS, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Dr. David Ullman taught mechanical engineering and project management for over three decades, and his books on the mechanical design process are consistently sought after.  His current project, JabirWatt, is hangared at his home in Independence, Oregon, and combines the internal combustion propulsion of its Jabiru engine with the lift-enhancing addition of four electric ducted fan motors on the wings.  A project partner, Vince Homer, lives nearby on the airport.  Both have hangars filled with things of genius, including the well-instrumented wind tunnel on which David tests his ideas (or I.D.E.A.L – Integrated Distributed Electric-Augmented Lift). Slightly different from the approach promised in his presentation at last year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium, the modified Jabiru sacrifices its rear seat for a large battery box to power the (now) four electric ducted fans (EDFs) atop the inner part of the wing.  He’s since presented at this year’s CAFE Foundation symposium and at AirVenture 2019. Different From a Maxwell Your editor has joked …

Sustainable Aviation Symposium 2019

Dean Sigler Announcements, SAS, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium is moving to a new date and location – and a new inclusiveness. The University of California, Berkeley Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) will host the 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium (SAS) on October 7-8 of 2019.  SAS 2019 is focused on safe, quiet, electric aviation solutions to the most pressing problems of our age: climate change, urban surface gridlock, and the need for integrated community and urban planning to enable high proximity aviation at meaningful scale. Dr. Jasenka Rakas, founder and head of the Airport Design Studio at the University of California at Berkeley, and Sustainable Aviation Foundation founder and President Dr. Brien Seeley will co-chair the meeting that will present a challenging review of aviation’s green future. This year’s symposium will convene thought leaders to answer these core questions: Which systems will win a dominant share of the market and why? How will “urban air vehicles” be made “airline-safe” and autonomous? What new technologies are …

Sustainable Aviation Symposium – Free on YouTube!

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The 2018 Sustainable Aviation Symposium was a master class in aircraft design, electric and hybrid power, and the strategies that will make green flight a reality in our near and distant futures.  The considerable knowledge imparted in that gathering is now available for your education and enlightenment on YouTube. Better than (Most) Cat Videos Go here to see the entire 2018 Symposium program, complete with links to a video of each speaker’s talk. Or go here for the library of presentations on YouTube. Either link provides high-quality video of the 20 presentations from this year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium.  You will see all the slides in each presentation and hear each presenter’s eloquent exposition.  These range from the simplest of garage-based projects (your editor’s attempt to build the world’s cheapest electric airplane) to far-ranging inquiries into the real-world blessings and possible consequences of having an aerial armada of commuter vehicles hovering over our cities. Like potato chips or peanuts, you probably …

Sustainable Skies in San Francisco – the Sequel

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Getting personal once more, this entry highlights my adventures at the 2018 Sustainable Aviation Symposium as reported in the first person. The Sustainable Aviation Symposium for 2018 began its Saturday session with J. Philip Barnes, the Senior Technical Fellow at Pelican Aero Group, who expanded an idea he has been developing for several years – that of flying on energy generated and stored by a self-launching sailplane’s motion through the air.  With both a single-seat Coulomb Keeper and larger Faraday First model to analyze, Phil turns to seminal works by Glauert and MacCready to create a motor/generator coupled with a propulsion fan that doubles as a propeller and windmill.  Clever use of switching in the control circuitry should enable high-efficiency prolonged flight exceeding what would be possible with batteries alone.  Phil’s website is well worth checking out, providing historical and engineering insights at every opportunity. Boris Popov, founder of BRS (Ballistic Recovery Systems) has saved 380 lives (and counting) with …

Sustainable Skies in San Francisco

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

I’m writing this in the first person, rather than the usual third-person voice that allows me to remain objective about things on which I report.  In this case, I have been the recipient of much joy over the last ten years from being an observer of the ongoing progress in electric aviation. Dr. Brien Seeley, founder of the Sustainable Aviation Foundation, asked me to begin writing a blog about electric aviation in 2009.  One of my original postings concerned a Kitplanes Magazine contributor, David Ullman – who was this year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium’s keynote speaker.  In 2009, he predicted a great future for electric aviation – most of which has come to pass, and some of which he is creating in his hangar with his fully-instrumented wind tunnel and ambitious blown-wing design.  He proposes something called USTOL, Ultimate Short Takeoff and Landing, aircraft that will use a dynamic relationship between their power and lift systems.  His vehicle for demonstrating this …