If you’ve managed to survive Gray Thursday, Black Friday, and a weekend of NFL games stuffed with blandishments to entice you to the nearest mall (Thanksgiving happened in there somewhere), you’re forgiven if you flinch at yet one more presumptuous tug at your purse strings. But we’re talking about helping pioneers on the edge of green technology, crafting the stuff dreams are made of – and making those dreams a reality. On this Giving Thursday, think about contributing to the dream makers who are taking us into a better future of flight. We share a few suggestions here. Solar Flight Eric and Irena Raymond are the first family of solar-powered flight, now cruising Italian skies in the world’s first two-seat sun-powered airplane, the Duo. To assist with further development of their splendid aircraft, including Sunstar, a high-altitude surveillance and communications craft, the couple is selling a beautiful calendar featuring their aircraft. For $37 US or 29 euros plus shipping, you …
Kickstarter Kicks Off Synergy Fund-Raising Drive
John McGinnis, designer and promoter of the Synergy aircraft, had a brief twinge of regret when Kickstarter, the crowd source funding site, turned down his project for inclusion in their site. Luckily, the gloom was dispelled when friends and supporters prompted Kickstarter to change their mind. A great deal of this was brought about by the eloquent efforts of Patrick Panzera of Contact Magazine, Howard Handelman, a friend and supporter of John’s, and Brian D. Wendt, Aeropunk.com blogger. John’s press release, issued today, spells out the importance of Kickstarter’s decision. “Kalispell, MT, May 16, 2012: “Since its unveiling last year, John McGinnis’ award-winning1 Synergy aircraft project has garnered a lot of critical attention for its advanced aerodynamics, but its sexy looks and prototype flyby videos certainly don’t hurt the pitch: major fuel savings and a modern passenger experience. “Looking something like a futuristic cross between a sailplane and a fighter jet, the boldly different five-seat aircraft promises a quieter, more comfortable …
Volta Volare’ at EAS VI
Action at the sixth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium did not stop at the end of each day’s presentations, but carried into the evening hours on Friday, April 27. Three theme dinners allowed additional speakers to present materials on motors, aerodynamics, or energy. Paul Peterson, the founder and CEO of Volta Volare’, introduced the dinner crowd to his Volta Volare’ GT4 high-performance, hybrid aircraft, which joins Pipistrel’s Pantera and John McGinnis’ Synergy in the realm of fast, roomy airplanes that will have operating costs far below those of similar traditional airplanes. When your editor saw news about Peterson’s creation in Popular Science, he asked Dr. Seeley if CAFE could invite him to the EAS, which received an immediate, positive response, and Peterson unveiled his airplane to an appreciative and knowledgeable audience. The GT4 is a four/five seat canard, currently flying and originally designed with a Continental TSIO550 engine in mind, but re-engineered from the firewall aft to house the hybrid EViation …
Want a Ride in Synergy?
Howard Handelman, a regular reader and observant critic of the CAFE Blog, and Patrick Panzera of Contact magazine fame, are soliciting support for an effort to help John McGinnis finish his Synergy aircraft, unfortunately unable to make its Green Flight Challenge date, but nearing the finish line, none the less. Kickstarter.com recently rejected John’s attempt to raise funds for the nearly complete aircraft, a radically new and somewhat controversial approach to obtaining high performance on relatively low power. John has shared his insights into the aerodynamics of the project and invited a lively discussion (now closed) on the Experimental Aircraft Association’s forums pages. Synergy under construction – an imposing sight The Internet has made possible fund-raising “crowd sourcing” in which interested people all over the world can contribute to enterprises they feel worthy of support. As Handelman explains, “Keep in mind that Gates, Jobs and Rutan started in the equivalent of their garages. Then remember the pre-internet crowd funding of …
David Birkenstock and Ultimate Efficiency
According to his biography on Airliners.net, “David Birkenstock is a pilot for an east-coast charter and management firm, flying the Turbo Commander 690B and the BeechJet 400A. When he’s not flying, he’s working on modifying a light sport airplane for pressure thrust, hoping to enter it into the NASA Personal Air Vehicle Challenge. He has posted more information about pressure thrust at PressureThrust.com.” Birkenstock’s presentation at the fifth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in Santa Rosa, California on April 29, 2011 extended his thoughts on pressure thrust, an outgrowth of Fabio Goldschmied’s theories that are well represented in the CAFE Foundation’s library. Most surprising (or maybe not surprising at all) in his talk were comments by major players in the aerospace industry. Around 2000, a senior airflow fellow for a “major airframe manufacturer was quoted as saying, “Our position is that aviation is a mature business and that the discoveries waiting to be identified are probably not worth looking for, much …
A Useful Spreadsheet and GFC Handicapping Tool
For analyzing the greatest economy from an aircraft’s design, Howard Handelman, a highly-engaged reader of this blog, provides a link to his web site, which includes a downloadable spreadsheet he has devised that will give the inquiring reader hours of enjoyment. Handelman, self-described as, “just a retired IT guy,” with “weak math skills,” but a “compulsively curious” nature, has devised a tool for analyzing any airplane’s performance based on a few known variables, and which he has applied to many of the Green Flight Challenge’s aircraft. The basis for his analyses is his “triangle tool,” a wedge that can be used to help design propellers, “test [the] truth” of claimed aircraft performance, and estimate brake horsepower in real life circumstances (at least within the parameters of the triangle tool). Handelman notes that some aircraft, including those with laminar flow, will “not fit the model very well because they don’t fit the V-squared curve. Synergy won’t look anything like the model.” His findings …
Synergy: A Practical Lightplane for the New Century
At EAS V, Synergy Chief Operating Officer John Paul Noyes framed his presentation of the Synergy aircraft by showing a picture of a 1973 portable telephone, then comparing it to a current model. The clunky size, heft and limited utility of the former compared with its slim, feature-laden modern counterpart tells a story of intense design improvements, quantum increases in capabilities and far lower costs for a significantly better product – something usually anticipated in the history of modern products. Along with that historically comparative pairing, though, he showed pictures of a 1973 Cessna 182 and its Lycoming engine along with shots of modern examples of the two. Not much other than the paint scheme distinguishes today’s Skylane from its antecedent. Following Noyes’ outlook, it’s a bit disheartening to review Wikipedia’s specifications for 182s for the past 54 years. Little, other than the introduction of improved instruments and Omni-Vision, has changed. Although a great deal of this is due to …
Green Flight Challenge: Six Steps to Synergy
Conventional wisdom says that an airplane is a collection of compromises – a premise seemingly borne out in practice. Bigger wings mean slower speeds, but more lift. Smaller engines mean less performance, but better economy. Roomier cockpits mean lower fuel mileage and reduced cross-country range. Everybody knows these things. But what if, applying the Firesign Theater’s comedic dictum, “Everything you know is wrong,” someone shook those bits of conventional wisdom and sorted out a new way of looking at an airplane? It’s been done before. Burt Rutan’s wildly creative approach to seeing past convention gave us the Varieze, Catbird, Boomerang, Proteus, Voyager, and Spaceship One, among others. Because such creations don’t follow the usual scientific method of changing one variable at a time, but seem to take multiple detours around “normal” all at once, the results take us by surprise. John McGinnis, of Kalispell, Montana, seems to delight in taking uncomfortable turns around convention. His presentation at the fourth annual …
Synergy and Passion at EAS
John Palmerlee, Editor of The Flying Wire, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 124’s newsletter, wote this in the May 5, 2010 edition. The CAFE Team hosted what was in my opinion a very successful event at the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park, April 23 and 24, 2010. Nearly thirty contributors from around the world spoke at the Electric Aircraft Symposium, and their message was clear: Change is coming… let’s get on board together. Electric airplanes and motorcycles, model airplanes, algae biofuel synthesis, wetlands initiatives, hybrid air carriers, battery breakthroughs, VTOL PAVs, tethered wind generators, flight systems analysis, nanostructures… and a mystery Green Flight Challenge aircraft promising to tap into new design paradigms. This was just a taste of the concepts spinning around at the EAS 2010. This meeting of minds was diverse yet connected, calculated yet passionate. Every presentation filled a preset time-slot, so each presenter’s WPM (words per minute) metered their content. It was a dizzying earful! As the …