Already holder of all the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) world records for light electric aircraft, Jean-Luc Soullier of AeroSkyLux has announced his latest endeavor, the Etlantic Project. Since he achieved these records in a microlight MC-30 with a Lynch-type Electravia motor, he has searched for a higher-performance airplane and power system. SUB-CLASS TYPE OF RECORD PERFORMANCE DATE CLAIMANT STATUS ID RAL1E Speed over a straight course 189.87 km/h 2012-09-29 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16638 RAL1E Altitude 2366 m 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16497 RAL1E Distance over a closed circuit without landing 50.13 km 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16496 RAL1E Speed over a closed circuit of 50 km 136.4 km/h 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16495 Working with Windward Performance in Bend, Oregon the Luxembourg-based organization has developed a version of the Duckhawk sailplane that will be “exclusively powered by clean energy.” According to the …
Cheap and Dirty Fuel Cells – Good News for Hydrogen
Hydrogen fuel cells would be just about the most wonderful power producers in the world if they weren’t so expensive and so finicky about their diet of hydrogen. Their catalysts, usually made of costly platinum, can be destroyed by impurities in the gas. Making high-purity hydrogen is an exacting task and adds to the expense of operation. Two studies by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory; one in conjunction with researchers at South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), show that it may be commercially possible to make less expensive catalysts with available materials, and in one case, use “dirty” hydrogen that would otherwise destroy fuel cells. The reduced price of making such hydrogen would further add to operational economies. Green Car Congress reports that Brookhaven and UNIST have discovered, “a new family of non-precious metal catalysts based on ordered mesoporous porphyrinic carbons (M-OMPC) with high …
Plasmonics – Not a New Rock Group
A good deal of what we see in life is counter-intuitive – things like pushing forward on the control stick when the airplane stalls and is headed downhill already. Plasmonic metamaterials as designed by University of Pennsylvania scientists have counter-intuitive properties, such as breaking light that strikes them into surface plasmon polaritons with shorter wavelengths than the original incident light. This quantum-like reaction occurs when, “Light hitting a metamaterial is transformed into electromagnetic waves of a different variety—surface plasmon polaritons, which are shorter in wavelength than the incident light. This transformation leads to unusual and counterintuitive properties that might be harnessed for practical use. Moreover, new approaches that simplify the fabrication process of metamaterials are under development. This work also includes making new structures specifically designed to enable measurements of the materials’ novel properties. Furthermore, nanotechnology applications of these nanostructures are currently being researched, including microscopy beyond the diffraction limit.” Scattering,rather than gathering light rays, seems counter-intuitive, but the scattering …
Tehachapi 2013 – Baby Bowlus and Silent Electro
Tehachapi is a one-time railroad stop, 4,000 feet in the high mountain desert near Mojave, California. Trains don’t stop there very often these days, but multi-engined, two-mile-long bearers of cargo and commerce run over the tracks 50 times a day, making the long haul toward Bakersfield or Mojave. Hawley Bowlus helped build the Spirit of St. Louis and later taught the Lindberghs to fly sailplanes, with some lessons taking place in the high desert air above Tehachapi. Today, the once bare hills are covered with over 5,000 wind turbines, their giant rotors pointed into the prevailing westerlies. At the base of these hills, Mountain Valley Soaring has a base, and Jeff Byard has a hangar that hosts the annual meeting of the Experimental Soaring Association. Members gather to hear talks on the history, technology, and joy of soaring – and get in some flying between – or instead of – lectures . This year, the Labor Day weekend centered on …
5X Batteries? How About 70,000X Solar Cells?
Matt Shipman of North Carolina State University News Services reports on a connector that could allow stacking solar cells without losing voltage. This stacking could allow cells to operate at solar concentrations of “70,000 suns worth of energy without losing much voltage as ‘wasted energy’ or heat.” This could have tremendous implications improving the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reducing the cost of solar energy production. Stacked solar cells live up to their name, simply being several cells stacked on one another, with their layering leading to up to 45-percent efficiency in converting solar energy into electricity. So far, the big drawback has been the junctions between cells, which tend to waste the energy from the connected cells as heat. Dr. Salah Bedair, a professor of electrical engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work says, “We have discovered that by inserting a very thin film of gallium arsenide into the connecting junction of …
Eurosport Crossover First Flights
Tom Leite of Portugal’s Eurosport Aircraft shares this first test flight video for his firm’s Crossover, a Light Sport Aircraft that can extend its wings to become a sailplane, or bring them in to become a cruiser. Its twin motors can be tucked into the sides of the aircraft, its retractable gear allows further slimming, and its multiply-slatted Fowler-type flaps allow quick takeoffs and slow landings. This type of advanced thinking is complimented by the craft’s electric power – perhaps a sign of things to come in the light aircraft arena. From its Facebook following, the Crossover seems to attract crowds wherever it goes.
Green Speed Cup Day Two – A Clear Winner
Robert Adam, one of the organizers of the Green Speed Cup in Germany and pilot of the Flight Design CTLS that ended the competition in seventh place, shared some information on the challenges faced by pilots in this year’s event. “We had 12-15 knots crosswind today (only a little less yesterday) and Tim-Peter (-Voss) managed this demanding taildragger (the SPACEK s.r.o. SD-1 microlight) calmly!” This very light and short-coupled airplane flies with a variety of two- and four-stroke engines, but Voss’ had a Verner JVC-360 four-stroke unit of 38 horsepower. It averaged a little over four liters per hour fuel consumption per 100 kilometers (59 mpg) over the practice day and two contest days. In the Green Flight Challenge, it would have been penalized for being a single-seater and thus having a lower passenger-mile-per-gallon figure than the two, and even four-seat entrants. The TDI turbo-diesel DA-40, for instance, would have had a 4X passenger mile per gallon figure if that had …
Competition Heats Up in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries
Founded in October 2010, NOHMs Technologies has developed a battery based on lithium-sulfur chemistry. In April 2013, the company was awarded a $500,000 Phase II SBIR Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to scale a novel low-cost manufacturing process for long-life sulfur cathode composite materials. NOHMs (Nano Organic Hybrid Materials) will locate to and use facilities at the Kentucky-Argonne Battery Manufacturing Research and Development Center and the University of Kentucky’s Spindletop Administration Building. NOHMs is developing electrode, electrolyte, and separator products as a 3-part solution for high-energy, low-cost, long-life, and safe batteries. NOHMs says its composite sulfur electrodes—carbon nanoparticles infused with sulfur developed at Cornell – can deliver a specific capacity of 550 mAh/g for hundreds of cycles. Next-generation cathode materials being developed will exceed 800 mAh/g, according to the company. The company claims a class of novel, non-flammable electrolytes that yield >99.9-percent Coulombic efficiency (CE) with high ionic conductivity and high thermal stability. Most researchers rarely mention battery separators, …
Green Speed Cup – Training Day is Over and Day One Establishes a Record
Happily for those of us who champion the idea of electric aircraft, the practice day and day one of the Green Speed Cup in Strausberg, Germany fetched a world electric aircraft distance record for e-Genius and an outstanding showing for all concerned. This beginning for the third running of the Cup sets a high standard for the coming days. The Green Speed Cup has elements of soaring flight through the use of thermals, careful speed flying that emphasizes fuel economy, and precise flight planning with attention to the planned route, winds aloft, and power settings. Green Speed Cup organizers map out a series of triangular routes to test the limits of piloting skills and airplane efficiency. As the organizers explain, it’s all pretty simple: “To fly ‘green’ you have to know how fast to fly and which power setting to use. This depends on the current wind-profile, on the current lift and on several other parameters like the aerodynamical properties.” …
Even in Second Place, VC200 Dominates Awards
Volocopter has evolved from a pilot sitting on a Pilates ball surrounded by multiple model airplane motors to the VC200 – the first Volocopter to carry two people, according to parent company e-volo. As recipient of a 2 million euros grant from the federal ministry of economics and technology, e-volo has worked with a research and industry syndicate to craft the VC200. A sleeker, more finished-looking project than the original flight vehicle, the VC200 held pride of place 15 meters above the crowd attending the “GreenTec Awards” in Berlin, Europe’s largest environmental and economic prize. Completed just in time for the event, and assembled in the auditorium where it received its award, the first prototype of the VC200 was an ever-present reminder of its green credentials. Although the little “David” company earned a second place award, with “Goliath” Airbus taking top honors, “We are proud that we are placed tightly behind a global player such as Airbus,” said e-volo-CEO Alexander …