Green Flight Challenge: Elektra One Progress

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Dipl. Ing. Calin Gologan, President of PC-Aero, showed the completed version of Elektra One, a Green Flight Challenge contender, at Friedrichshafen’s Expo for Sustainable Mobility in June. Over the last two years, PC-Aero has designed a series of light, electric-powered aircraft.  As Gologan explains, “Using the existent technology it is possible to fly with a one- and a two-seat aircraft without CO2-emission for more than 3 hours, without noise and for lower operation costs in comparison with classic aircrafts. This is the future of leisure aviation as a bridge to the next step: electric transportation.” Just two months after its debut at Aero 2010, Elektra One graced the halls again as part of “The Electric Avenue”.  Surrounded by electric vehicles of every description, the single seater showed off its nicely faired landing gear, and hinted at the powerplant under its smooth cowling – an HPD 13.5 kilowatt (18.4 horsepower) motor normally associated with hang gliders and powered parachutes.  PC-Aero notes 21 …

CAFE News: NASA’s Colloquia Feature Dr. Seeley

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

col·lo·qui·um (n.) 1. An informal meeting for the exchange of views. 2. An academic seminar on a broad field of study, usually led by a different lecturer at each meeting. The Free Dictionary CAFE Foundation President Dr. Brien Seeley spoke by invitation at the Sigma Series Colloquium at NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia on May 4th. His talk had an illustrious heritage as part of the longest-running science colloquia in America, beginning 50 years ago with a presentation by Werner von Braun, and since then including talks by Carl Sagan, Alex Haley, Neil Armstrong and other notables. Dr. Seeley was interviewed by NASA public relations TV and a local news station. Although not used to being treated like a celebrity, he found that, “People seem to think CAFE is latched on to an exciting future.” His talk focused on themes he has been developing for years – time wasted in traffic, the burden of maintaining the freeway/highway/urban sprawl infrastructure, the oil consumed …

CAFE News: Doctors Seeley and Ford Stand and Deliver

Dean Sigler GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

At the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, April 23 and 24 at Rohnert Park, California, two CAFE leaders provided the audience with superb presentations on CAFE Foundation’s history and future goals. Dr. Larry Ford, Vice President of the organization, led with highlights from CAFE’s past, including the scientific efforts to measure aircraft drag and provide actual numbers for comparing aircraft performance, a goal inherent in the CAFE name. He highlighted the work of many past and present CAFE volunteers (after all, CAFE is all volunteer, and a 501c.3 charitable organization promoting aeronautical research at both the grass roots and the highest levels), including the CAFE Barograph, a significant instrument that allowed objective flight performance characterization of individual aircraft and honest comparisons between aircraft. Larry let audience members know about the contributions of Jack Norris, and his creation of “zero thrust glide testing.” This innovation involved finding the point at which the propeller was not creating drag or producing thrust. At …

Green Flight Challenge Competitors Come Together on Perlan Project

Dean Sigler GFC 1 Comment

The Cafe Foundation’s Green Flight Challenge, scheduled for 2011, has drawn some impressive competitors with its $1.5 million prize.  Two of these, Greg Cole of Windward Performance, who will field a two-seat motorglider, and Einar Enevoldson, leader of the PC-Aero team, which will launch its Elektra One (see “PC-Aero’s Elektra One,” April 11, 2010), are working together quite collegially on a challenge of their own. Before his death in 2007, adventurer Steve Fossett, with co-pilot Enevoldson, had set the sailplane world altitude record in Perlan I, a modified Glaser-Dirks DG-500.  In a continuation of that ambitious adventure, Einar, Greg, and Project Manager Morgan Sandercock are creating Perlan II, a pressurized sailplane that will explore the realm of the nacreous, or ‘mother of pearl” cloud (“perlan” is Icelandic for “pearl”), a shimmery mix of water vapor and other exotic chemicals in the polar vortex at 50,000 to 90,000 feet.  Their flight will not only set a world’s sailplane altitude record, but …

Synergy and Passion at EAS

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

John Palmerlee, Editor of The Flying Wire, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 124’s newsletter, wote this in the May 5, 2010 edition.   The CAFE Team hosted what was in my opinion a very successful event at the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park, April 23 and 24, 2010. Nearly thirty contributors from around the world spoke at the Electric Aircraft Symposium, and their message was clear: Change is coming… let’s get on board together. Electric airplanes and motorcycles, model airplanes, algae biofuel synthesis, wetlands initiatives, hybrid air carriers, battery breakthroughs, VTOL PAVs, tethered wind generators, flight systems analysis, nanostructures… and a mystery Green Flight Challenge aircraft promising to tap into new design paradigms. This was just a taste of the concepts spinning around at the EAS 2010. This meeting of minds was diverse yet connected, calculated yet passionate. Every presentation filled a preset time-slot, so each presenter’s WPM (words per minute) metered their content. It was a dizzying earful! As the …

The Future is Electric, and Attracting Attention

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

FlightGlobal.com, the online version of Flight International Magazine, has an overview of the electric aircraft scene in its April 6, 2010 release.   Among the many producers and proponents of electric flight noted in the article, Dr. Brien Seeley of the CAFE Foundation is quoted extensively, as is Calin Gologan of PC-Aero in Germany, both to present at the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, at Rohnert Park, California on April 23 and 24.  The article ponders the hopes of two hybrid electric aircraft powerplant developers, George Bye, featured in a February 21 entry in this blog, and Flight Design’s Oliver Reinhardt, the firm’s technical director.  Both face the issue of retrofitting existing light planes with their new engines, and the challenge of obtaining supplemental type certification for such modifications. Highlighted is the 2011 Green Flight Challenge, in which an airplane achieving 200 seat miles per gallon at 100 mph (or an alternative energy equivalent mileage) can earn the CAFE Foundation’s $1.5 …

EAS IV is Your Ticket to an Electric Aircraft Future

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants Leave a Comment

This press release from the CAFE Foundation speaks for itself. The fourth symposium of its kind is an international, multidiscipline gathering which will  influence the very future of aviation. Santa Rosa, CA., Mar. 1, 2010 – The Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation’s 4th Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium (EAS IV) will convene a renowned faculty of experts on electric aircraft technologies on April 23-24, 2010, at the Doubletree Inn in Rohnert Park, California. The networking program will consist of presentations and exhibits on bio-fuel hybrids, advanced electric motors, solar panels, sailplane technology, fuel cells, future technology for batteries, battery safety during charging, propeller noise reduction, autonomous flight controls, drag reduction, vertical takeoff designs and NASA’s Green Flight Challenge competition. Each presentation will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience, which will be comprised of government officials, enthusiasts, designers, entrepreneurs, students and media. The debut of some exciting new designs is expected at this year’s meeting. Among the outstanding …

A Smart Electrical System for GA

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Dr. Seeley made this available to Green Flight Challenge competitors. As a follow-on to your ideas for simplifying pilot licenses that I presented at Electric Aircraft Symposium III: Here is a link to a very encouraging development debuted at Sun & Fun: A comprehensive, integrated, smart electrical system for GA from Marc Ausman at Vertical Power Corporation ($1500 – $12,000). This looks like a very helpful reducer of pilot workload to help make flying simpler. The more up-scale versions offer redundancy and this technology should save weight and free up panel space as well. Also, the array of COTS eCFI/flight control options from MGL Avionics is very impressive too. Sure wish I had time to build a homebuilt aircraft with today’s technology!