Ben Berry’s father, Ben Berry, Sr., was a Tuskegee Airman, part of the second wave of African-American recruits who fought their way into the Army Air Corps in 1943. Instead of fighters, this group learned to fly the B-25 Mitchell bomber and was to launch from aircraft carriers for tactical attacks on Japan. Following the war, Ben’s father earned an aeronautical engineering degree, and applied his skills to solving a worrisome pitch stability problem on the XB-70. He designed the control systems for the X-15 project – which required a mix of aerodynamic controls and thrusters. Perhaps this proud background helped his son recently become Chief Technology Officer for the City of Portland, following a career as Chief Information Officer for the Oregon Department of Transportation, Regional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for a major hospital chain, and in senior leadership positions with the Royal Saudi Air Force, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian International Airports, and Hughes Aircraft Company. In his spare …
HB-SIA Across America
This morning, Andre’ Borschberg and Bertand Piccard revealed the potential route for Solar Impulse’s Across America mission in a press conference at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, California. The airplane is fully reassembled after being brought to America on a Boeing 747. Test flights will begin March 30th, and a technical flight “to test the aircraft’s mission readiness” for the coast-to-coast flight will take place March 30th. According to the Solar Impulse project, “The voyage will start in San Francisco on May 1st with stopovers in Phoenix (Arizona), Dallas (Texas), Atlanta (Georgia) or St. Louis (Missouri) on its way to Washington D.C. and New York City. The exact dates for each leg are undefined, as weather conditions play a factor in our flights.” The team promises, “Finally, we wanted to let you know that the Solar Impulse team is working very hard to open the hangar doors to all supporters and enthusiasts that wish to see the airplane. Working out …
Reanimating a 30-Year-Old Canard with an Electrical Charge
The CC01e, a tiny, single-seat canard design by Frenchman Claude Chudzik, flew for the first time in 30 years years, now powered by an Electravia-supplied motor system. Taking off from Nangis airport, team member Frederic Laude gingerly guided the airplane on its single circuit of the field. He reported some tendency to “marsouine,” or porpoise, of which he’d been forewarned, and managed to keep the pitch oscillations in check. Based on the team’s report on their blog, he accelerated to 60 knots (69 mph), pulled lightly on the stick and “jumped” off the runway. You can see the porpoise-like bobble immediately after lift-off, and Frederic’s ability to get things under control quickly. Once on track, he reached 94 knots (108 mph) in the pattern and managed a reasonable landing on the craft’s single-track landing gear. Originally flown with a 25-horsepower two-stroke engine, the aircraft has been reconfigured for a Lynch-type, 50-horsepower motor, controller and battery package supplied by Electravia. …
On a Clear Day, I Can See My iPad
Dr. Brien Seeley, President of the CAFE Foundation, shared the news of an exciting breakthrough that could make the see-through parts of an airplane’s solar collectors. Most solar collectors have a black or near-black look because they are absorbing light in the visible spectrum. Pulling energy from infrared or ultraviolet spectra invisible to the human eye allows Ubiquitous Energy’s Clearview Power translucent film of to be laid over iPad and Kindle screens and keep them charged constantly. Consider the possibilities of such films covering the Plexiglas or carbonate canopies on aircraft. Even those portions could then be energy collectors. On craft such as electric sustainer motor powered sailplanes, the glazed area comprises a large part of the total fuselage surface area. According to the MIT Technology Review, “…The transparent solar cells are made of various organic layers, deposited one at a time on top of a glass or film. This process could easily be integrated into thin-film deposition systems found …
Audi, Joule and SolarFuel Announce e-Fuel Production
Biofuels have issues – and like a sulky mate, hit us repeatedly with contradictory demands or unanswerable questions. If we plant fuel crops everywhere, their growth leaches the soil and their use as an oil/fuel substitute deprives the starving billions of food. This intractable reality seems to leave us nowhere to go. Audi, and its partner Joule (in America) are promoting a non-fossil compressed natural gas made by a process that mimics photosynthesis, and that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere as part of its makeup. Audi has a clever plan, as presented at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2013 Government/Industry Meeting. In Europe, SolarFuel will provide motive power for the first Audi g-tron compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. Joule explains its process: “Unlike fuels produced from agricultural or algal biomass, Joule produces fuels directly and continuously from sunlight and waste CO2 – avoiding costly raw materials, pretreatment and downstream processing. The company’s Helioculture™ platform uses photosynthetic microorganisms as living catalysts to produce fuel, not …
Can You Top These?
Anne Lavrand of Electravia sends news that Jean Luce Soullier’s speed record set last September has been ratified by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). He now holds four FAI world records, and Ms. Lavrand’s total climbs to five, including the speed record set by Hugues Duval flying the MC15E twin electric Cri-Cri down Le Bourget’s main runway at 283 km./hr. (175.46 mph) during the 2011 Paris Air Show. 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 Soullier hit 189.87 kilometers per hour (117.72 mph) in his …
World’s First Electric Tilt-Rotor Aircraft
AugustaWestland, after keeping the world’s first electric tilt-rotor aircraft under wraps for nearly two years, is letting the public in on its exciting new design. According to the company, “The tilt rotor technology demonstrator is completely electric powered; designed to hover like a helicopter and convert to a fixed wing aircraft in forward flight thanks to its two integrated rotors which can be tilted through more than 90 degrees. The demonstrator performed its first unmanned tethered flight in June 2011 at AgustaWestland’s Cascina Costa facility in Italy and has since performed untethered hovering flights inside a secured area.” Emulating Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey flight characteristics, Project Zero affirms that AugustaWestland thinks tilt-rotor technology is “the best layout for the future of fast vertical lift aircraft.” VerticalMag.com explains the aerodynamics and controls of the new vehicle: “During cruise, the wings will provide most of the lift, with the blended fuselage and shroud also making a contribution. ‘Project Zero’ has been designed …
New “Leaf” Turns Over More Energy
Scientists have been working on imitating nature’s ability to photosynthesize the sun’s energy, much as plants turn that energy into food for their health and growth. Daniel Nocera, for instance, created an artificial leaf that split water into oxygen and hydrogen that could fire up a small fuel cell and run an electric light. According to a Science Pub lecture your editor recently attended, an eight-ounce glass of water can power a 60-Watt bulb for 20 hours. Nocera, in a Pop! Tech talk, claims an Olympic-size swimming pool could supply all the world’s energy needs. Nocera now works at Harvard, but researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his former home, are taking his work further, detailing all the limitations that keep his “artificial leaf” from giving off more storable energy. As explained in the MIT press release, “The original demonstration leaf, in 2011, had low efficiencies, converting less than 4.7 percent of sunlight into fuel… But the team’s new …
Could This Be the Ford Bi-Motor?
The original Ford Tri-Motor had a body by Ford and three Pratt & Whitney radial engines arrayed across its nose and wings. The Phantom Eye has a body by Boeing, and two 2.3-liter Ford engines fueled by the hydrogen the airplane carries in its bulbous fuselage. It first flew last June, but hit a snag on landing, or at least dug in and twisted a landing skid, rendering it inoperable until this year. Boeing performed software and hardware upgrades, including strengthening the landing gear. Its second flight was a big success with a successful landing – a great one even, since the airplane is reuseable. This is particularly helpful for Boeing, which funded the project out of its own pocket. The company commented on the expectations raised by the flight: “Boeing’s liquid hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system completed its second flight Feb. 25, demonstrating capabilities that will allow it to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions for up …
What Do You Have on Your DVD Burner?
Richard Kaner and Maher El-Kady have “micro-scale graphene-based supercapacitors” on their front DVD burner, showing an energetic alternative to saving all those ‘80’s rockers to disc. Dr. Kaner is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and professor of chemistry and biochemistry. He and graduate student El-Kady are using a “consumer grade” LightScribe DVD burner to make dozens of micro supercapacitors on what looks like a typical DVD. Dr. Kaner’s research lab hosts 17 undergraduate and graduate student researchers who’ve helped amass at least 390 papers in four main areas of research; conducting polymers, graphene, superhard materials and thermoelectric materials. Their recent investigation of supercapacitor fabrication seems to encompass almost all of these fields. An abstract for their recent article in Nature Communications hints at the possibilities this research may realize in the commercial world. “The rapid development of miniaturized electronic devices has increased the demand for compact on-chip energy storage. …