Honeywell and Safran have teamed up to create EGTS International, a company that makes Electric Green Taxiing Systems for airliners. Honeywell has extensive experience with auxiliary power systems and Safran makes “world-class landing gear systems.” Put them together and you have the self-powered landing gear which made its public debut at the Paris Air Show this week. Others have been working on the same type of system, but EGTS is the first to show the technology off at an air show. Besides making the display Airbus A320 one of the quietest airplanes moving across the tarmac at the show, the system could save airlines up to four percent per flight on fuel burn. As the EGTS web site explains, “Because an aircraft’s main engines are optimized for flying rather than taxiing, they burn a disproportionate amount of fuel during ground operations. With a short- or medium-range aircraft spending up to 2.5 hours of its time on taxiways every day, …
A Light Twin in the Business Community
Announced at Friedrichshafen’s Aero Expo and displayed (at least in model form) at the 2013 Paris Air Show, the Elektro E6 is the technology platform for a future, all electric transport aircraft. With low CO2 emissions, noise and vibration, the six-seat, two-motor airplane features full carbon composite structure. Solar cells on its high wing could help extend the range for this machine to 500 kilometers (310 miles), predicted if battery developments continue at their current pace for the next six years. The light twin would boast a payload of 480 kilograms (1,065 pounds). The E6 comes about as part of an Agreement of Cooperation between PC-Aero GmbH and EADCO GmbH. Rosario De Luca’s EADCO (European Aerospace Design Consultants), capable of supporting new designs from conceptual review through manufacturing has worked on projects for Boeing, Airbus, Fokker and Fairchild Dornier, along with Eurofighter. Calin Gologan’s PC-Aero has seen the inception and test flights of the Elektra One, Solar One and the creation …
EADS’ Electrifying Threesome at Paris Air Show
EADS (European Aerospace Defense Systems), known colloquially as Airbus, highlighted its Paris Air Show chalet at Le Bourget with three examples of the work from its Innovations Workshops. All projects are part of the European Commission’s “Flightpath 2050” initiative, conceived to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 75 percent, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions 90 percent and noise 65 percent from 2000 levels by 2050. EADS thinks electric and hybrid propulsion could become an alternative to fossil fuels within that timeline, with several projects highlighting, “the willingness of EADS to invest in technologies that today, tomorrow, will further reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from aviation.” E-FAN Working with Aero Composites Saintonge (ACS), the IW Research and Technology Group has developed and built the trainer all-electric “E-Fan” dedicated to general aviation. Created in only eight months, this jet-like machine makes use of sailplane design and ultralight-type composite construction to house its two electric motors and two 65-kilogram battery packs in its wings. Motors appear …
What a Month This Will Have Been
With Solar Impulse descending on Washington, D. C., the Cross USA flight reached a symbolic conclusion, bringing the future to a capitol that seems resistant to even modest change, let alone radical departures from current, conventional reality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n64tAJs_c8w With one hop to go in its journey, Solar Impulse has spread the message of what might be if we have the will to overcome the inertia brought about by our well-lobbied legislature. Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard have one more opportunity to challenge the world to adopt green energy when Solar Impulse goes to New York City. Monday, they met with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, with whom they participated in an energy roundtable and news conference about the technology that made their flight possible. Doubtless, they shared their mission’s primary object, furthering the global “Clean Generation” initiative – “a movement of likeminded people ready for change; ready for greater investment in technological innovation for a cleaner future.” As the partners explain …
eUP Looks Up and Downloads Data
John McClintock, co-founder of eUP Aviation in Lumby, British Columbia, recently spoke with your editor on changes he and Randy Rauck are making to their Electravia-powered hang-glider trike. They’ve recently campaigned Green1 up and down the Pacific Coast, demonstrating its self-launching and soaring capabilities over California deserts, at Torrey Pines, and in the mountains of Oregon. John was pleased to report that the trike came through that 7,700 kilometer (4,774 mile) bouncing trailer torture test with a perfect bill of health for the e-drive system and its installation. Not content to just enjoy their flights (which they did) the entrepreneur-engineers kept careful records of the details of each flight using an on-board Flytec 5030 hang gliding instrument to collect flying data, and their custom-specified Electravia data display and recording option to capture information for the e-drive system. eUP Aviation Inc. have expanded the raw data into a Digital Journey Log, which will allow customers to demonstrate the care and use …
A Flying Bike! But the Pilot’s a Real Dummy
We reported here last year on a flying bicycle being designed by Duratec Bicycles and Evektor Aviation using Dassault 3D CAD software. The companies revealed their actual flying demonstrator at a press conference this week, but the pilot stood nearby with a radio control transmitter while a mannequin was flown around the large room. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUUmRXNR52M For now, it can do that for only five minutes, but Michael Duchek, technical director for Duratec, has hope. “Because the capacity of batteries doubles about every ten years, we can expect that in the future the capacity would be enough for the bike to be used for sports, tourism or similar things” Its six propellers arranged much like a quadrotor, currently popular with design teams intent on delivering tacos, burritos, pizzas and even sushi by air, the bike’s greater weight and bulk make it more of a handful to fly. Pilot Jan Spatny says, “It’s not as easy (to control) as a toy or …
Longer Life and More Energy
Who wouldn’t want both? Researchers in Germany and America are making great inroads on lithium battery energy density, while adding some hope that batteries may someday outlast the vehicle in which they are installed. Ulm, Germany, where the Berblinger Competition encourages economical flight, may be a resource for making such flight possible. The Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und WasserstoffForschung Baden-Württemberg (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg, ZSW), has announced what they claim to be world-beating cells in terms of cycle life. Dr. Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens, Head of the Accumulator Material Research Department in Ulm reports, “After 10,000 complete charging and discharging cycles with a complete charge and discharge cycle per hour (2 C), our lithium batteries still have more than 85 % of the initial capacity.” This would be equivalent to a full charge and discharge cycle every day for over 27 years. With active materials exclusively from Germany, the Ulm battery competes with those manufactured in Asia for power …
Randall Fishman’s ElectraFlyer ULS – a Gateway Plane
Appearing before attendees at the 2013 Electric Aircraft Symposium, Randall Fishman’s spoke of great accomplishments and grander visions. “ElectraFlyer ULS & Electric Ultralight Airplanes, the path to approval for all electric aircraft?” showed ElectraFlyer’s history and the ambitions Randall would like to play out. A pioneer in ultralights, Randall has been flying hang gliders since 1972, produced the first continuously powered electric aircraft, flew the first electric airplane at Oshkosh’s AirVenture and claims a primary interest of bringing practical, user-friendly electric flight to as many people as possible. Between 2005 and 2007, he designed, built and test flew his first electrically-powered trike. Making its first take-off on April 29, 2007, by May 2 it had made a one-hour flight. Ever more venturesome, Randall modified a Moni motorglider with an electric motor and flew that at AirVenture in 2008, for which he won both the Stan Dzik Memorial Award for innovation and the Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award for “outstanding contribution to …
Stanford scientists develop high-efficiency zinc-air battery
Battery researchers, including those at Stanford University, have been focusing for years on improving lithium batteries of multiple chemistries. While IBM tries to create the 500-mile battery based on lithium-air reactions, and ReVolt in Portland works on perfecting a long-lasting zinc-air cell, Stanford researcher Hongjie Dai and his team claim to have “developed an advanced zinc-air battery with higher catalytic activity and durability than similar batteries made with costly platinum and iridium catalysts.” The resulting battery, detailed in the May 7 online edition of the journal Nature Communications, could be the forerunner of something with greater endurance and lower cost than current efforts. Mark Schwartz, writing for Stanford, quotes Dai, a professor of chemistry at the University and lead author of the study: “There have been increasing demands for high-performance, inexpensive and safe batteries for portable electronics, electric vehicles and other energy storage applications. Metal-air batteries offer a possible low-cost solution.” Lithium-ion batteries, despite their limited energy density (energy stored per …
Making Graphene and Carbon Fibers Even Lighter and Stronger
While scientists at Columbia University have used chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to create large sheets of stronger-than-average graphene, a research team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found ways to weave stronger carbon nanotubes. James Hone and Jeffrey Kysar, professors of mechanical engineering at Columbia University, learned that the enormous strength of graphene is usually achieved in only small patches. The “grain boundaries” for larger sheets were often far weaker than the theoretical strengths of which the material is capable. That strength is phenomenal. Hone explains, “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.” Results of their study were published in the journal Science. The paper’s lead author, Gwan-Hyoung Lee, a postdoctoral fellow in the Hone lab, says, “Our findings clearly correct the mistaken consensus that grain boundaries of graphene are weak. This is great news because graphene offers such a plethora of opportunities both for …