A Cheerfully Acknowledged Chastisement

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

If one writes things, occasional slip-ups creep in.  In this case, an unchallenged assertion of who is “first” drew this kind email from Klaus Savier, builder, tuner and pilot of a very slippery Long-Eze.  He’s flown from California to Florida and back on good old fossil fuels (with one fuel stop each way) in his highly modified Long-Eze and achieved 30 miles per gallon at 250 miles per hour true airspeed.  It would be interesting to see how little fuel the airplane would consume at Green Flight Challenge airspeeds.  His demonstrated 0.36 pounds of fuel per horsepower-hour is claimed by Klaus to be 40-percent lower than the commonly seen 0.60 pounds per horsepower-hour that engines without his Light Speed Engineering ignition system and more standard propellers manage.  It shows what a determined experimenter can accomplish. His letter follows: Hello Dean, Thank you for the nice article you wrote in Kitplanes a while ago. So far that was the only publication …

Fastest Electric Airplane Emergency Landing Yet

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Chip Yates is used to going fast, having obtained a private pilots certificate in a mere two months, and test flying an electric Long-Eze conversion (Long-ESA) within two weeks of that, but he didn’t count on making the world’s fastest electric aircraft emergency landing during a record-breaking speed run at Inyokern, California’s desert airport on July 19. With only 58 hours in his log book, Chip managed to make the runway for a bumpy but great touchdown – a great landing being one following which you can reuse the airplane.  We’ve reported that event already, but Chip just released a great video of the white-knuckle event. To help document his record 202.6 mph flight, Chip’s airplane was well instrumented, carried several cameras, and had a chase plane to provide eye-witness oversight. In the two months he and fabrication partner Chris Parker of CPR Fabrication converted a Long-Eze into the world’s most powerful electric airplane (258 horsepower – 58 more than Green …