A Manned Swift Takes Flight

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Dr. Steve Morris is President of MLB Co., an enterprise specializing in low-cost, compact, remotely piloted and autonomous aerial surveillance, mapping and monitoring systems.  On December 23, 2009, he and his associates test flew their first man-carrying, directly-piloted craft – an electric one. Pilot Brian Porter made two flights totalling about 20 minutes in a part 103 ultralight Swift hang glider to which was attached a custom-built pilot/powerplant/landing gear module.  Power was by a Randall Fisher-supplied ElectraFlyer motor coupled to a reduction system built by Dr.  Morris and his associates at MLB. Despite limitation imposed by the motor controller’s maximum current and propeller efficiency limited to 65-75 percent, the airplane demonstrated performance within 10 percent of calculations.  Its rate of climb was 335 feet per minute, maximum level flight speed was 60 miles per hour, and it cruised on 4.6 kW.  Duration, range, rate of climb, and lift:drag are expected to improve when a pilot fairing streamlines the very open cockpit on the current version. Dr. Morris will present his …

Two Motors and Everything but Coffee

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Pierre-Jean Beney may be the first to fly an electrically-powered paraglider with a tricycle wheeled chassis. Using a Trikebuggy, itself a unique platform, Beney mounted two Hacker A200-8 motors with 220 Amp controllers, a tidy reduction system, and his own microprocessor board to drive the motors with a combined throttle and kill switch. The board, according to Beney, also monitors the LiF2PO4 batteries, RPM, and will soon be connected to a global positioning system (GPS) to measure speed, “and eventually make coffee!!!” Other anticipated changes may include different motors, including a larger, direct drive type. The motors are each capable of producing 15 kW and can handle 185 Amps of current continuously, with 300 Amps peak. Beney provided your editor with a brief tutorial on the difference between powered paragliders (PPG) and powered parachutes (PPC). “This is not a powered parachute, it is a powered paraglider (you can tell by the shape of the wing which is very rounded compared …

Doing More With Much, Much Less

Dean Sigler Uncategorized 1 Comment

This dictum from Paul MacCready that we can do a great deal more with far less material expenditure is well realized in a big way by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with their new type of solar cell. Using about two percent of the silicon semiconductor material normally required for crystalline cells, and achieving a high level of energy conversion, the new cells may also be relatively inexpensive to manufacture. As noted by Harry Atwater in Caltech’s press release, “These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials…” Atwater is Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech’s Resnick Institute, which according to the press release, “focuses on sustainability research.” Arranged like rug fibers in a vertically-oriented array, the individual silicon wire solar cells comprise a small portion of the total horizontal area of the cell, the rest being an inexpensive polymer substrate. Atwater …

Registration Now Open for EAS IV

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation, Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Registration for the Fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium (EAS IV) is now open.  Intense interest in this year’s excellent program, with experts from around the world providing the latest in design, technology, and real-world examples of electric flight, has produced an added benefit for this year’s attendees.   Formal presentations are only one means of exploring a wealth of information at this year’s Symposium.  The CAFE Foundation, hard-pressed to include all presenters, has scheduled Theme Dinners – an opportunity to hear short, thought-provoking presentations and enjoy lively discussions with the faculty, all accompanied by the great food and fine wines for which the Sonoma Valley is renowned.   This expanded program has already drawn an overflow of presenters.  We anticipate a similar high level of interest from attendees – and therefore urge you to register now to ensure your place at the Symposium.  Early registration for the day-and-a-half of presentations is $299, with special rates for students and media representatives.  The Foundation has arranged special room rates for attendees with …

Structures as Batteries – or Is It Batteries as Structures?

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Imperial College London and its partners, including Volvo, have announced a  £3.4 million (about $5.44 million) project to develop a new energy storage material that could act as a structural material in cars.  The lightweight, carbon-fiber-based material could replace traditional materials in the car’s structure while storing electrical energy.  This dual-purpose material could save the weight of separate batteries, increase the strength of the car’s structure, and improve overall vehicle performance. Dr. Emile Greenhalgh, of the College’s Aeronatical Department, and coordinator of the project, sees other opportunities for this material. “We are really excited about the potential of this new technology. We think the car of the future could be drawing power from its roof, its bonnet (editor’s note: hood, to you Yanks.) or even the door, thanks to our new composite material. Even the Sat Nav could be powered by its own casing. The future applications for this material don’t stop there – you might have a mobile phone that is as thin as a …

Hybrid Hopes or Hype?

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Batteries are achieving increasingly high capacities and outputs, though at a frustratingly slow pace, especially for those of us who want that much hoped-for lightweight power pack that will make the electric backpack helicopter of our dreams a practical reality.  For cars, a viable and attractive alternative to pure battery use in hybrid propulsion is described in an Earth2Tech entry supplied by Dr. Seeley.  That entry describes a three-step approach to making ultracapacitors and batteries into friendly allies in propusion. First, ultracaps should not compete with batteries, but enhance them. “Second, get creative to bring costs down quickly. Third, embrace the niche.” The big problem with batteries is being able to take in or put out large amounts of power without reaching a thermal meltdown point. Batteries are good at storing energy, though.  Capacitors can take on or release large power bursts, but have only about 5-percent of the energy storage capacity per weight of the best lithium batteries at …

A Dream Nearing Realization

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

Certain objects stir deep feelings upon first viewing.  DESiE is one such object. Its name alphabetizes its description, as translated and explained by one of its creators, Wolfgang Liehmann.   D = doppelsitziges = double-seated E = Enten = duck/canard = tail first S = Segelflugzeug = sailplane i = mit integriertem = with integrated E = Elektroantrieb = electrically-powered engine This two-seater, electrically-powered, canard sailplane has been a labor of love, taking 13 years to reach its current stage, and projected to take another three before its first real flight.  In the meantime, diligent toil and breaks for X-Plane simulated flying are leading toward an aircraft that Wolfgang says, “Shows very satisfying behavior with respect to stall and glide properties.”  Starting in 1993, the DESiE team found that motors of that time were not as powerful as they are now.  Wolfgang’s approach to solving that problem is indicative of the cleverness of the overall design.  He used six brushless DC …

Big Nano

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

A solar cell manufacturer that boasts of 100 times thinner panels than current silicon solar cells, and production rates 100 times faster than with the methods usually employed in the industry will definitely catch our attention.   Nanosolar, of San Jose, California, makes a CIGS-based solar film claimed to be thinner and much less expenive (ultra-low cost, according to Nanosolar) than silicon-based panels.  CIGS stands for copper/indium/gallium/selenium, the primary components of the new film.  Coated onto a thin aluminum substrate, the CIGS ink is literally printed on, the nanoparticles providing a demonstrated efficiency of up to 16.4-percent, verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).  Initial production runs are producing panels of at least 11-percent efficiency.  While currently only half as efficient as the best production silicon solar cells, the high-speed manufacturing process promises to enable low-cost installations and future improvements in efficiency would lead to the light, flexible, powerful panels that could make solar-powered or augmented flight a commonplace.  The company’s white paper on their technology should give readers an insight into a promising new development …

And Now For Something Completely Different

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Tolstoy, in War and Peace, wrote that, “Among the innumerable subdivisions that can be made in the phenomena of life, one can subdivide them all into those in which content predominates and those in which form predominates.” One group attempting to meld form and function is the Land Art Generator Initiative, a group attempting to “bring together artists, architects, scientists, and engineers in a first of its kind collaboration. The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative is to design and construct a series of land art installations across the UAE that uniquely combine aesthetic intrigue with clean energy generation. The LAGI viewing platforms will be tourist destinations that draw people from around the world to experience the beauty of the collaborative art creations here in the United Arab Emirates. At the same time, the art itself will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid with each land art sculpture having the potential to provide power to thousands of …

Half a World Apart, United in Their Research

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Dr. Yi Cui, a winner of the 2004 MIT Technology Review World Top 100 Young Innovator Award (among other notable awards), and Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, was a distinguished presenter at the CAFE Foundation’s Third Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium last April. He talked about the structure and manufacturing of lithium-ion cells, and the material limitations placed on the performance of those cells. His breakthrough in using nanowires in the cathode promises an 80-percent gain in the cell’s charge-holding ability, equivalent to ten years of the normal cell improvement of eight percent per year. The good news was somewhat of a letdown for many, who were hoping to hear of a total 10X performance improvement for the entire battery. Dr. Cui advised attendees that the introduction of similar improvements in battery anodes would be required before that quantum leap in performance could be achieved. In the meantime, as reported in our entry, …