Dr. Brien Seeley, founder and President of the CAFE Foundation, will speak on “The CAFE Green Flight Challenge Program,” at the Unmanned Aircraft Systems conference at San Diego, California, October 10 through 12, 2012. His talk fits well into the conference’s sub-title, “Opportunities, Needs and Challenges,” and will probably reflect the direction he’s been pointing to with recent CAFE presentations on aerial commuting and pocket airports. The Green Flight Challenge certainly showed that the nascent technology is capable of giving fast, short-range transport at a potentially economical price. The conference will focus on military uses of UAVs and how to integrate them with existing hardware and systems. Since many military-based unmanneds will be navigating our civilian skies in the near future, civilian pilots and air traffic control systems will be obliged to integrate their resources to allow safe passage through what could be skies crowded with autonomous craft. Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a bill that allows self-driving cars on California highways. …
Alternair, X-Caps™ Teaming Up From Sky to Parking Lot
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 …
Phoenix or PhoEnix – a Nice Airplane
While at Sun n’ Fun in Lakeland, Florida, we couldn’t help but notice Jim Lee’s Phoenix Air Phoenix, an S-LSA (Special Light Sport Aircraft) motorglider from the Czech Republic, posed as it was on the line of march into the air show area proper. Your editor was interested in the PhoEnix, the electric version of the proper looking and highly attractive Rotax-powered version in the Light Sport Aircraft display display, next to its Pipistrel neighbors. There were a great many middle European LSAs being shown, but the Phoenix had ended up on the Airshow’s promotional poster, neatly avoiding the FA-18s of the Blue Angels. The electric version will be competing in the Green Flight Challenge, so revelations from Jim Lee, the airplane’s U. S. distributor and pilot in the GFC, were the usual furtive responses to detailed questions. All competitors are being careful to avoid revealing too much until after Larry Ford’s presentation at the fifth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in …
Yuneec Adds to Airplane, Motor Lineup
Shanghai-based Yuneec, already promoting a line of electric paramotors, an electric trike, the two-seat E430, unveiled at last year’s AirVenture, and a series of motor/controller/battery combinations, has added to their offerings at AirVenture 2010. New craft include two aircraft, the Apis 2 and Viva from Martin Wezel Flugzeugtechnik, a German designer and purveyor of sailplanes and light sport aircraft. The Apis 2 is a derivation of the Silent electric sailplane, and in this application will be powered by a Yuneec motor system. The Viva, a two-seat motorglider, was designed originally for an HKS-700E two-cylinder engine of about 60 horsepower, and will be converted, like the Apis, to Yuneec power. Spanning 15 meters (49.2 feet), the Apis 2 has a best lift-to-drag ratio of 39:1 at 95 kilometers per hour (59 miles per hour). Normally fitted with a Hirth F33 two-stroke engine of 27 horsepower, the sailplane is self launching and carries 14 liters of fuel, enough for about an hour-and-a-half of …
An LSA With the Electric Heart of an Airliner
Stephan Boutenko, Alternair President and founder, seeks a Light Sport Aircraft alternative, an airplane looking like an LSA, but loaded with features that will allow it to keep pace with the rapidly changing options coming to electric flight. Inspired by Yuneec’s E-430 but disappointed by its slow cruising speed, Boutenko was determined to create something more in line with LSA performance criteria. He also wanted to take advantage of the knowledge he had gained from years of experience with heavier aviation to create an integrated system that would allow flexibility and expandability in the development of his airplane. Unabashedly conventional in appearance, the low-wing, tricycle geared monoplane is conceived to make a pilot transitioning from an internal combustion powered machine feel right at home. The motor control electronics (MCE), for instance, are redundant, and the key-operated switch on the instrument panel has an OFF/ L(EFT MCE)/R(IGHT MCE)/BOTH function, matching the ignition switch for dual magnetos. Beyond that bow to tradition, …
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