Pipistrel had a good week at Oshkosh. Shortly after its G4 placed ninth in the Dead Grass Awards, an indication of the number of spectators who tramped around the perimeter of the displayed aircraft, the company could announce the first test flight of the four-seat electric motorglider. “We are pleased to announce that after long and demanding work nearly of a nearly 30-member team of developers and constructors from Pipistrel’s R & D Institute the first 4-seat electric aircraft in the world took off this morning [August 12, 2011] at 7 AM local time.” Pipistrel overcame several difficulties in achieving this milestone. Developing the electric power system, the most powerful currently in an aircraft, and importing the 450 pounds of lithium-polymer batteries needed to energize it presented many issues. Perhaps the utterly new and unique design and the possibility of that many batteries self-igniting caused insurance companies to be more than normally cautious, although one did finally step forward. Because …
If You Can Draw It, We Can Print It – In 3D
Students and faculty at the University of Southampton on the southern English coast have created an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in just a week, from the initial design to the finished, flying object. “Printed” from nylon on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine, the plane emerges from the device in successive layers and comes with hinges already in place, emulating the bearings, crank and headset-in-place bicycle recently produced by EADS (Airbus) using similar technology and materials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFFFiB_if18 Part of a “ground-breaking” course of study “which enables students to take a Master’s Degree in unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) design,” the Southampton University Layer Sintered Aircraft (SULSA) can be snap-fitted together in minutes without tools. SULSA has a 2-meter (6.4 feet) wingspan and an electric motor reputed to be “almost silent” in cruise mode (but not so much in launch mode as the video reveals). It is steadied by a “miniature autopilot developed by Dr. Matt Bennett, one of the …
PC-Aero Wins Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Vision Award
A Green Flight Challenge entrant, PC-Aero’s Elektra One, has won the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Vision Award at AirVenture 2011 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, becoming the latest winner of this important award for innovation in the pursuit of “green” aviation. Past winners of the Lindbergh Prize for Electric Aircraft include: Pipistrel: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Best Electric Aircraft LZ Design: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Best Electric Propulsion System Solar Impulse: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Outstanding Achievement Award Yuneec International: 2010 AirVenture Best Electric Aircraft Sonex: 2010 AirVenture Best Electric Aircraft Subsystem Lange Aviation: 2010 AirVenture Individual Achievement Award According to Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh and founder of LEAP, the organization’s, “Programs recognize, inspire and incentivize the innovation that drives our culture, economy and future. The LEAP Electric Flight Program is accelerating the development of the electric aircraft industry through a range of activities, from prizes to advocacy.” This year’s award, “Focuses on innovation with a “vision” for integrated electric power for an aircraft and its supporting …
Google to Sponsor Green Flight Challenge
Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google to bring historic firsts to aviation Aviation’s largest ever prize to be awarded at Moffett Field October 3 during exposition hosted by NASA SANTA ROSA, CA (July 29, 2011) – The CAFE Foundation announced today that Google will sponsor the NASA Centennial Challenge flight competition known as the Green Flight Challenge (GFC). CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency) will conduct the event from September 25 through October 2, 2011 at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. The NASA-funded prize purse of $1.65M makes this the largest ever prize for aviation. Competing aircraft must demonstrate at least 100 mph and 200 passenger MPG on a 200 mile flight. The aircraft in the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google represent a diverse mix of singular prototypes created expressly for the competition by some of the world’s top designers. Most will be propelled by batteries and electric motors, some by bio-fuel or hybrid. All competing aircraft will be …
Elektra One Flies Into Oshkosh with Solar Cells
As described before in this blog, PC-Aero’s Elektra One is a single-seat electric airplane with an Eck/Geiger 13.5 kilowatt motor in the nose, and now at least partially solar powered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r03nim-6qBw&feature=related Designer Calin Gologan gives a walkthrough of the design features which make Elektra One such an efficient airplane, and one likely to give other competitors in the Green Flight Challenge a good run. While he describes the thin carbon-fiber shells which comprise the airplane’s primary structure, notice the light shining through. That thinness helps explain Elektra One’s 100 kilogram (220 pounds) empty weight, only about 100 pounds of which is structure. The motor is 4.7 kilogram (10.34 pounds) and the controller is a 270 gram (9-1/2 ounce) model airplane marvel. Batteries can add up to 100 kilograms and the pilot another 100 kilograms, making the strength-to-weight ratio of the craft rather impressive, and its payload carrying abilities among the greatest for flying machines. Gologan claims a maximum range of 500 …
A Useful Spreadsheet and GFC Handicapping Tool
For analyzing the greatest economy from an aircraft’s design, Howard Handelman, a highly-engaged reader of this blog, provides a link to his web site, which includes a downloadable spreadsheet he has devised that will give the inquiring reader hours of enjoyment. Handelman, self-described as, “just a retired IT guy,” with “weak math skills,” but a “compulsively curious” nature, has devised a tool for analyzing any airplane’s performance based on a few known variables, and which he has applied to many of the Green Flight Challenge’s aircraft. The basis for his analyses is his “triangle tool,” a wedge that can be used to help design propellers, “test [the] truth” of claimed aircraft performance, and estimate brake horsepower in real life circumstances (at least within the parameters of the triangle tool). Handelman notes that some aircraft, including those with laminar flow, will “not fit the model very well because they don’t fit the V-squared curve. Synergy won’t look anything like the model.” His findings …
Green Flight Challenge: New Schedule and Rules
CAFE announced June 30 that the CAFE Green Flight Challenge has been officially rescheduled for Sunday, September 25 through Monday October 3, 2011. It will still take place in Santa Rosa, California. A revised prize structure for the event has been approved and is detailed on the organization’s web site. Originally scheduled to run between July 10 and 17, 2011, various factors led to the decision to reschedule. The restructured prize schedule changes the orginal “winner takes all” approach to a distribution of awards, with the winner still taking a substantial $1.3 million. A series of formulas have been added to determine distribution of awards if more than one teams exceeds the 100 miles per hour, 200 passenger miles per gallon criteria. Another formula redistributes the $150,000 prize for best bio-fuel powered craft if no bio-fuel entry achieves the GFC criteria of 80 mph and 160 passenger miles per gallon.
Green Flight Challenge, AirVenture Electric Contest Postponed
Both the CAFE Foundation’s Green Flight Challenge and the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture Electric Flight Prize are being postponed: CAFE’s for at least a few months and EAA’s until next year’s AirVenture. The CAFE Foundation’s announcement reads simply, “Circumstances have required that the Green Flight Challenge be postponed for at least 2 months. Its new dates will be posted here very soon.” The GFC was to have been held between July 10 and July 17 at Santa Rosa, California’s Charles M. Schulz field. The EAA is holding off because of delays in ensuring that all entrants will be certified and properly registered for the competiton. Their news item reads, in part, “‘As with any new, emerging technology, time is an essential element to ensure advancements are made effectively,’ said Tom Poberezny, EAA and AirVenture chairman. ‘After discussions with the prize candidates, it was evident most would not be able to meet the FAA requirement by AirVenture 2011. Let’s be clear that the era of …
Another Electric Lazair
Besides the incentives offered by the Green Flight Challenge and the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize, a venerable institution is encouraging electric flight with a series of prizes. The Experimental Aircraft Associations plans on awarding $60,000 to electric flight competitors during this year’s AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to EAA’s Newsline, “One entry in the EAA’s $60,000 Electric Flight Prize during AirVenture comes from a well-established design, the Electric Lazair, based on an ultralight designed more than 30 years ago by Dale Kramer, EAA 145132. Between 1979 and 1985, his company, Ultraflight, produced about 1,200 kits. Calling the twin-engine Lazair ‘an ideal vehicle for electric conversion,’ Kramer wrote that he has dabbled in trying to ‘electrify’ one several times.” Kramer recounted making several “thwarted” attempts, but shared the news of a Lazair flying in England on two Plettenberg Predator motors, as reported in this blog. Kramer said the radio-control world “has been invaluable to me in obtaining knowledge that I need to …
Ingenious e-Genius
At the third annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in San Carlos, California in 2009, designers from Germany and Slovenia showed their plan for a hydrogen-powered aircraft called Hydrogenius. Today, a newly constructed, battery-powered “e-Genius” (developed along parallel lines with Hydrogenius) will be Eric Raymond’s mount for the July 10-17 Green Flight Challenge in Santa Rosa, California. Eric writes that “e-Genius is now flying, and has reached the required 100 mph.” Hydrogenius’s original layout, replaced for the Green Flight Challenge with a simpler lithium-polymer battery-only system. 1 – Hydrogen tank 2 – Radiator 3 – Stack Module (Hydrogen Fuel Cell) 4 – System Module (Hydrogen Fuel Cell) 5 – Power Distribution Unit 6 – LiPoly Battery to start the fuel cell system 7 – Total Rescue System e-Genius’s 60 kilowatt (80.4 horsepower) motor is claimed to be able to fly 100 kilometers (62 miles) on the electrical equivalent of a mere 0.6 liters (0.16 gallons) of gasoline, or about 392 miles per gallon. As …