Academy Award Winner, Legion of Honor Recipient Conquer the Channel

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Anne Lavrand, head of Electravia, shared this news in her blog this morning. Following its initial flight at the Coupe Icare in 2011, the electric airship Iris Challenger was slated to make a cross-English Channel attempt later that year. Unfortunately, prevailing winds prevailed against that November attempt between Dover and Calais. Patience and careful planning finally paid off for pilots Pierre Chabert and Gerard Feldzer, though, and today, they made the crossing from France to Dymchurch, England in two hours and 23 minutes. Built by Airstar (Chabert is founder and president/CEO of the company), the envelope contains 568 cubic meters (20,059 cubic feet) of helium, and can carry a payload of 200 kilograms (440 pounds). Equipped with two electric motors of seven kilowatts (9.38 horsepower) each, and two counter-rotating 1.3 meter (51.1875 inch) propellers made by E-Props, the 14 meter (46 feet), six meter high envelope navigates at a cruising speed of 15 kilometer per hour (9.3 mph). Its lithium …

What’s Small and Green and Has Four Motors?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

At the extremely opposite end of the scale of its big brothers and sisters in the Airbus family, the Green Cri-Cri graced EADS’ (European Aeronautic Defense and Space) display at the second Green Aviation Show  (L’Aviation Verte) held at Le Bourget’s Aviation and Space Museum (Musee’ de l’Aire et de L’Espace) between June 18 and 22, 2010. LIke its bigger siblings, the Cri-Cri has four motors, two on each nose pod protruding on stalks like insect antennae from the nose of the miniscule craft and driving counter-rotating propellers.  The two small outrunner motors on each pod appear to spin with the propellers, and are probably concealed inside the spinners. EADS Innovation Works partnered with Aero Composites Saintonge and the Greencri-cri Association. Lightweight composite construction has replaced the metal and foam structure of Michel Colomban’s original design, which tipped the scales at 138 pounds empty. Originally powered by two chain saw engines, the little plane will probably find the reduced vibration …