“StratoAirNet” Prototype Completes 1st Flight

Dean Sigler Announcements, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

George E. Bye. CEO and founder of Bye Aerospace, is on a roll these days, selling a large number of SunFlyer 2 training aircraft, delivering Silent Falcon solar electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), partnering in the TriFan 600 project with XTI Aircraft, and overseeing the first flight of the StratoAirNet prototype. A letter from Diane Simard, Senior Vice President of Bye Aerospace, Inc., reports “the successful completion of the first flight of the solar electric technology demonstrator prototype for its “StratoAirNet” and “Solesa” families of medium-altitude aircraft systems.”  Flying from the Northern Colorado Regional Airport, north of Loveland, the sailplane-based optionally-piloted vehicle has made additional flights since its maiden outing. Bye expressed happiness at the event and gave thanks to those who made it possible.  “It was a great day for solar-electric aviation.  My thanks to our entire team for their persistence and extra efforts to achieve this milestone. I would also like to thank the professionals at Northern Colorado …

Sustainable Skies in San Francisco

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

I’m writing this in the first person, rather than the usual third-person voice that allows me to remain objective about things on which I report.  In this case, I have been the recipient of much joy over the last ten years from being an observer of the ongoing progress in electric aviation. Dr. Brien Seeley, founder of the Sustainable Aviation Foundation, asked me to begin writing a blog about electric aviation in 2009.  One of my original postings concerned a Kitplanes Magazine contributor, David Ullman – who was this year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium’s keynote speaker.  In 2009, he predicted a great future for electric aviation – most of which has come to pass, and some of which he is creating in his hangar with his fully-instrumented wind tunnel and ambitious blown-wing design.  He proposes something called USTOL, Ultimate Short Takeoff and Landing, aircraft that will use a dynamic relationship between their power and lift systems.  His vehicle for demonstrating this …

Goshawk Goes Electric

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The GosHawk was conceived as an electric aircraft and technology has FINALLY caught up with it, according to designer Greg Cole. Its sailplane-like proportions allow it to fly with the smallest of power inputs, and real soaring is possible with the electric propulsion system completely shut down, Greg says.  This author finds it suits its namesake with a sporty nature and a natural beauty. The GosHawk is also planned in two additional versions with internal combustion engines. The HKS 700E engine is a fuel-efficient two-cylinder unit seemingly ideal for motorgliders or touring gliders. His airplane with this engine’s 56 horsepower available can attain a 100 mile per hour cruise at a fuel consumption of 100 miles per gallon, or 200 passenger miles per gallon (pmpg). Greg also plans on using the ubiquitous Rotax in 85 BHP form. Its empty weight of 510 pounds with the HKS powerplant shows the skills Greg’s company, Windward Performance achieves with pre-impregnated carbon fiber layups. …

EAS VIII: Joby Motors – on Simple and Complex Airframes

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, Joby Motors, and related enterprises, has thought long and hard about the financial costs and lost productivity brought about by the daily automotive commute, a 1.6 hour per day ordeal for many in our urban centers.  JoeBen and the Atlantic magazine agree that commuters squander 5.5 billion hours and 2.9 billion gallons of fuel annually, stuck in the fitful despair of slow or unmoving traffic, sharing only frustration and polluted air with their fellow motorists. JoeBen told attendees at the April Electric Aircraft Symposium that several years before, he had the seeming pipe dream of moving people by air in a single-seat, eight-motorm, vertical takeoff and landing, electric commuter aircraft that would take one 100 miles at 100 miles per hour for one dollar.  The combination of Greg Cole’s Sparrowhawk and electric power focused too much on efficiency, according to JoeBen, and battery technology had not evolved to allow the practical outcome …

etlantic to Tackle the Atlantic – Both Ways!

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Having pushed his electric Colomban MC-30 Luciole (Firefly) to its limits and having won the Federation Aeronautique Internationale’s approval of his speed and altitude records, Jean-Luc Soullier and his team partner Roman Marcinowski are now after significant distance, speed and altitude goals. Needing a faster, lower-drag airplane to accomplish the next set of tasks, the etlantic Project turned to Greg Cole at Windward Performance in Bend, Oregon.  Cole’s Duckhawk 15-meter sailplane outflew even 18-meter competitors in its first contest year. At a gross weight of 960 pounds (using the Windward specification), the special Duckhawk’s three-bladed propeller (special in itself) will have to overcome under 19 pounds of drag to maintain level flight at the best lift-to-drag speed.  But the plan is to fly high and fast to set new world altitude and speed records. A lighter version of the base airplane, weight saved with thinner wing and fuselage skins, will allow carrying batteries and thin-film solar cells to power the …

Going After New Records and New Adventures

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

Already holder of all the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) world records for light electric aircraft, Jean-Luc Soullier of AeroSkyLux has announced his latest endeavor, the Etlantic Project.  Since he achieved these records in a microlight MC-30 with a Lynch-type Electravia motor, he has searched for a higher-performance airplane and power system. 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 Working with Windward Performance in Bend, Oregon the Luxembourg-based organization has developed a version of the Duckhawk sailplane that will be “exclusively powered by clean energy.” According to the …

Déjeuner sur le Duckhawk

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

This grab shot taken at the flight demonstration of the Windward Performance Duckhawk on April 22 in Bend, Oregon, resembles, in a totally accidental way, Manet’s great painting, Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (picnic on the grass). Although your editor tried convincing them, no one would doff his or her clothes to make the homage to Manet complete. Duckhawk is a beautiful, light-weight (420 pounds empty) standard-class 15 meter wingspan sailplane, stressed for over 12 G’s to enable dynamic soaring, taking advantage of horizontal wind gusts like soaring birds do – the first to be designed specifically to explore this realm of flight. It is designed by Greg Cole and built by the people who are almost done with Perlan II, designed to go to 90,000 feet.  Both sailplanes will push the state of the art to new extremes. Although Duckhawk shares the look of its smaller sibling, the Sparrowhawk, it has beefier spars and a standard-class 15-meter (49.2 feet) wing with a …

Albatross, Dragonflies, and Hummingbirds

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

Your editor took a trip to Tehachapi, once home of the infamous California Women’s’ Correctional Institution, mentioned in no less than three 1940’s films noirs.  (It’s now a gray-bar hotel for bad boys, not bad girls.)   Lesser offenses were in mind, though, since Labor Day weekend has been the time for 31 meetings of the Experimental Soaring Association’s Western Workshop.  The group, devoted to improving sailplanes and testing the limits of soaring technology, has been in the forefront of many significant developments, and its members include many record holders and aerodynamics experts. This year’s convocation included talks on birds, dragonflies (the Libelle sailplane), and even a demonstration of Aerovironment’s spy hummingbird, a camera-toting drone no larger than a 90-percentile member of the Trochilidae family. Phil Barnes kicked off the Saturday talks, showing his incredible computer simulations of the dynamic soaring flight of the Albatross, which included an impassioned plea to help preserve this magnificent bird.  He noted that “gyres” of plastic slurry distributed …

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 …

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 …