SolarStratos, a two-seat, solar-powered airplane, is being readied for record flights in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, just a 25-minute drive from the Solar Impulse hangars in Payerne. Its makers claim that it is the first commercial solar two-seater aircraft in history, and will be the first solar-powered airplane with a pilot to enter the stratosphere. These heady claims are described on the project’s web site as a “crazy bet,” but it’s too early to make such judgments. Calin Gologan of PC-Aero GmbH designed the base craft, an expansion of his earlier ultralight electric aircraft, Elektra Two. The “Record” version of this craft, despite SolarStratos’ extended 20-meter (65 feet, 7 inch) wingspan, weighs a feathery 140 kilograms (308 pounds) empty, and only 350 kilograms (770 pounds) loaded, including 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of batteries and 20 square meters (215.28 square feet) of thin-film solar cells set into the wing and horizontal tail surfaces. With a span loading of only 11.7 pounds per foot, …
Your Black Friday (and All-Year) Giving List
With merchants beating the drums of commerce to lure you to their stores and web sites for holiday cheer (at least for the merchants), your editor has some alternative giving suggestions that could help bankroll the future of aviation (if not aviation futures). Each of these projects would welcome funding, and each has much to give back to all of us. Put Your Face in Space The Perlan Project has initiated a fund-raising program on Indie-Go-Go, with the immediate goal to complete construction of the major parts of Perlan II, a high-performance, high-altitude research sailplane recently featured in the New York Times. Its planned mission to 90,000 feet in the Polar Vortex could give us new and profound understanding of global climate change, the ozone hole and greenhouse gases. For a mere $15, you will, “Receive a professionally edited digital video of the entire Perlan Mission II aeronautical exploration, atmospheric science research and record breaking flights.” For another $14, you …
Perlan Project Gets Good Press in the New York Times
Science reporter Matthew Wald visited the Perlan Project in Bend, Oregon recently to see for himself an aircraft that just might conquer the heights – 90,000 feet – in a world-record attempt that will investigate the polar vortex and the ozone hole. His report in the October 21 New York Times highlights the intellectual investment in the project, with extremes of aircraft design reaching toward extreme goals. Perlan II will fly higher than any powered or unpowered aircraft in a sustained fashion. Zoom climbs in which American and Russian fighters emulated rocket ships to reach altitude records were more ballistic than controlled. Those who recall The Right Stuff will remember Chuck Yeager’s frantic and finally unrecoverable tail slide back from the edges of space. The on-line version of the story has the advantage of including a video that very nicely explains the goals and aspirations – as well as the hazards, associated with the flight. The article has brought a …
Albatross, Dragonflies, and Hummingbirds
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 …
PC-Aero Wins Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Vision Award
A Green Flight Challenge entrant, PC-Aero’s Elektra One, has won the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Vision Award at AirVenture 2011 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, becoming the latest winner of this important award for innovation in the pursuit of “green” aviation. Past winners of the Lindbergh Prize for Electric Aircraft include: Pipistrel: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Best Electric Aircraft LZ Design: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Best Electric Propulsion System Solar Impulse: 2011 Aero-Friedrichshafen Outstanding Achievement Award Yuneec International: 2010 AirVenture Best Electric Aircraft Sonex: 2010 AirVenture Best Electric Aircraft Subsystem Lange Aviation: 2010 AirVenture Individual Achievement Award According to Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh and founder of LEAP, the organization’s, “Programs recognize, inspire and incentivize the innovation that drives our culture, economy and future. The LEAP Electric Flight Program is accelerating the development of the electric aircraft industry through a range of activities, from prizes to advocacy.” This year’s award, “Focuses on innovation with a “vision” for integrated electric power for an aircraft and its supporting …
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