Green Flight Challenge – Day One

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation

  Sunday, September 25 marked the kickoff of the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google, a NASA Centennial Challenge managed by the CAFE Foundation, with a thorough technical inspection for each entrant, followed by a weigh-in.  Held at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, the event is an event of international importance, despite the small turnout. With only four entrants making an appearance out of the original 13 that had announced and made it through the rigorous design review, there might be cause for disappointment. Consider, though, the Berblinger competition held in April at the Aero Expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany. 36 teams signed up, 24 made it to the Expo, 13 started the course and eight finished. The GFC has a comparable start-finish ratio, with many of the same issues stalling non-starters here as in Germany: lack of funds  and schedule, regulation and fabrication difficulties. Despite the dropouts, Pipistrel, Stuttgart University, Phoenix Aircraft, and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) managed to field teams. In a …

Embry Riddle Begins GFC Test Flights

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

On August 23, 2011, the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s Green Flight Challenge hybrid-powered modified Stemme S10, the Eco-Eagle, began its ground tests on the Daytona Beach International taxiways, “Getting ATC used to us!”   The next day saw several ground-skimming “flights,” starting at 2-feet, and rising to 10 and 50-feet high runs, all with the gear down.  The day’s flights ended with a trip around the pattern for the airport’s longest runway. August 25 saw a morning excursion of 45 minutes, with the airplane flying in the face of the approaching Hurricane Irene.  Test pilot Mikhael Ponso reported beautiful clouds and no high winds during the seven laps around the field.  As he tested the gear retraction and various flap settings, he was able to sort things out for the upcoming GFC flights in Santa Rosa, California during the last week in September. The school’s Eco-Eagle has a Rotax hybrid-power system originally developed for Flight Design, a German firm that builds …

Alternair, X-Caps™ Teaming Up From Sky to Parking Lot

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Stephen Boutenko, founder of Alternair, LLC and Karl Young, founder of Extreme Capacitors have found common cause in analyzing how best to make an electric Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) a possibility.   Alternair’s Amp LSA was featured in a blog entry last year, and Karl Young’s work with ultracapacitors was the subject of his presentation at this year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium. Alternair has recently established a temporary design department in Prescott, Arizona (in association with Embry Riddle Aeronautical University) and is moving his manufacturing facility to Ashland, Oregon, where he hopes to begin production of the highly-sophisticated Amp. Although Amp will be developed around existing lithium-polymer battery technology, Young reports that his creation of high power/high energy ultracapacitors has demonstrated, “Around 0.9 mega Joules (250 Watt-hours per kilogram) in the lab,” with a goal of, “5 mega Joules (1,400 Wh/kg) for sport aviation.”  Funding will spur further progress.  Young explains, “We’ve already found ways to improve our existing design,” and …

ElectraFlyer’s Near Future Plans

Dean Sigler Uncategorized 3 Comments

ElectraFlyer’s Randall Fishman and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University were the lone inhabitants with aircraft on hand at the “green aviation” display at Sun n’ Fun, exhibiting the modified Stemme and the ElectraFlyer “C” respectively.  Having been within a few displays’ distance from the Thursday tornado that destroyed 69 aircraft, damaged many others, and dismantled marquees all around, they were probably fortunate to be there at all. Having decided to leave his two-seat ElectaFlyer X back at the shop, Randall had his four-year-old ElectraFlyer on hand, an airplane which hides what he describes as the only currently available electric motor, controller, instrumentation, custom propeller hub, and battery package in its neatly cowled nose, and which has been available for years before Yuneec and Pipistrel announced their systems.  He avoids the term, “Plug and Play” because he’s wary of using connector plugs to carry high amperage and high-frequency between the motor and controller, preferring battery cable lugs and bolts for secure connections. …

Lindy Hop to Lindbergh LEAP

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Sun n’ Fun, following a disastrous sweep by an F1 tornado through the flight line on Thursday, March 31, came back strong the following day, with F-22 demonstration flights, the Blue Angels, and a full contingent of top-drawer aerobatic pilots. The Green Aviation exhibits your editor had hoped to visit were partly gone, tents and exhibits having been dismantled and carted away in the remarkable overnight cleanup effort that took place, but the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU)/Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize (LEAP) Stemme S-10 gleams undamaged in the sun.  Lisa Costello, a graduate student in aeronautical engineering, explains some highlights of what the students are crafting.  Entered in the upcoming Green Flight Challenge, the S-10 was to use a combination of hydrogen fuel cells and lithium batteries for motivating an electric motor.  That hybrid has been replaced by a Flight Design/Rotax hybrid that combines a 100 horsepower engine with an electric motor for power.  Lisa suggests we go to a nearby …

Lucky 13 to Fly in Green Flight Challenge

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 4 Comments

Following rigorous evaluations of all aircraft to ensure they meet all standards for the contest, Dr. Brien Seeley, President of the CAFE Foundation, announced the 13 entrants who will compete in the Green Flight Challenge at Santa Rosa, California between July 11 and 17, 2011.  This exciting event will offer the public a first view of some incredible designs and resourceful competitors.  Since the minimum performance required for consideration includes things such as the ability to fly a 200 mile course at 100 mph or better average speed, the ability to clear a 50-foot barrier on a 2,000 foot runway during both takeoff and landing, and the efficiency to attain at least 200 passenger miles per gallon during the overall flight, all aircraft are obviously the most efficient aerial creations yet seen.  Rules were established to encourage designers to make “real world”, practical craft rather than specialized designs that could win the contest but find no real purpose or willing owners.  Even things such as cockpit design and …