Happy Velis Electro News from Pipistrel

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Taja Boscarol, Public Relations Manager for Pipistel Vertical Solutions, and Michael Coates, Master Distributor for USA, Australia & New Zealand, shared a lot of happy news this week about their Velis Electro. Electric Outsells Gasoline Powered Michael puts his news in enthusiastic, all-caps context.  “The US has a new president, Europe is under siege from new Covid varieties, and Pipistrel is adding a SECOND SHIFT TO KEEP UP WITH PRODUCTION! “Did you know that in 2020 Pipistrel DELIVERED 111 (one-hundred and eleven) of the certified Pipistrel Velis electric aircraft, as well as many more Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft?  In fact, this year for the first time ever, Pipistrel produced more electric aircraft than gasoline powered!” More than 70 Pipistrel Velis aircraft are already on 2021’s order books, with many more anticipated through the remaining 11 months of the year. The second shift essentially means doubling production, and this of course leads to increased demand from suppliers.  Michael adds, “Pipistrel is …

Stemme Goes Electric with its New Elfin

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation 2 Comments

Reiner Stemme designed his namesake sailplane 30 years ago and the overall design and his new Elfin retains the original pop-out nose cone, folding propeller configuration.  The 50:1 glide ratio means this 20-meter (75-foot) span motorglider offers less than 40 pounds of drag at its maximum takeoff weight 0f 1984 pounds.  That is a significant benefit for the new electrically-powered version – which can fly further and save its batteries for retrieval and go-arounds. In its latest iteration, the Stemme configuration is a totally new airframe being built by a totally new company, Reiner Stemme Aero GmbH.  As explained on the new firm’s web site, “The Elfin design is a complete new development and [is] not base[d] upon the existing S10.  REINERSTEMME.aero GmbH, the present company of Dr. Reiner Stemme, is not connected to STEMME AG.” A High-Flying Heritage Earlier Stemme designs have accomplished much in the way of efficient, high-performance flight.  In 2014, Klauss Ohlman accomplished one trans-continental trip …

MAHEPA and HY4 Go High

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

MAHEPA (Modular Aproach to Hybrid-Electric Propulsion Architecture) is a European Union project to build emission-free aircraft.  A public flight of Pipistrel’s HY4 hydrogen-powered, four-seat aircraft was the latest demonstration of the group’s progress. Challenging Objectives Overall, MAHEPA hopes to accomplish five objectives: Advancing the fuel-driven serial hybrid-electric Powertrain which uses a lightweight internal combustion engine (ICE), capable of running multiple fuels as the power generation module. Advancing the reliability of zero-emission serial hybrid-electric powertrain which uses a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Hydrogen Fuel Cell (FC) as the power generation module. Advancing new airborne qualified, lightweight, high-power density components such as a 200 kW+ electric motor, a 100 kW+ generator and improved power electronics using Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology to increase efficiency of power transmission due to decreased switching losses. Developing “common building blocks” solutions also for different aircraft configurations, enabling the proliferation of powertrain modules between various aircraft. Gathering, analyzing and comparing in-flight performance and emission data in order to …

Joby “Unicorn” Gains Private, Military Backing

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Joby Aviation is one of few “unicorns” in the electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) market, a billion-dollar enterprise.  With funding coming from Toyota, several venture capital investors, Uber and the U. S. Army, Joby seems poised to demonstrate Urban Air Mobility (UAM) in a serious way. In 2011 JoeBen Bevirt, founder of Joby Energy, Joby Aviation, and creator of those knobby-looking tripods you see everywhere, invited Patrick McLaughlin to visit his design studio.  Your editor got to tag along.  On Woodpecker Ridge, north of Santa Cruz, JoeBen’s barn-like studio housed about a dozen engineers and designers all working on electricity-generating kites.  He wore a T-shirt reading, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”  That edginess has helped him, in the last decade to be a major player, with now over 500 employees in the aviation sector.  JoeBen and Patrick discussed motor design and integration with a controller Patrick had built from off-the-shelf …

A 5-10X Battery from Silver Oxide and Zinc

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University of California at San Diego researchers headlined a report with fairly astonishing news:“A flexible screen-printed rechargeable battery with up to 10 times more power than state of the art.”  Combining their science with the manufacturing expertise of a hearing-aid battery maker, they have come up with a silver oxide and zinc battery that can be screen printed in normal lab conditions.  Normally, such production requires a sterile environment under vacuum. So far, the battery technology seems to be limited to hearing air-sized coin cells, or in the case of UC San Diego’s work, printable displays on wearables.  On smaller scales, such batteries could be used to power Internet of Things (IOT) sensors and transmitters, alerting folks when an oven kicks on or the ketchup in the refrigerator is getting low.  One big question your editor has is whether this tech can successfully make electric vehicle batteries with significantly improved power and energy density to make a difference. The jointly-produced …

Black-silicon Cell Efficiency above 130 Percent

Dean Sigler Announcements, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Aalto University in Espoo, Finland has announced a seemingly impossible breakthrough – black-silicon solar cells that exceed 100-percent efficiency.  This breaks the Shockley-Queisser limit, previously thought to be an unbreakable barrier to any solar cell generating more than 33.7-percent efficiency for a single p-n junction photovoltaic cell.  The 1,000 Watts of sunlight falling on a square meter of single-junction solar cells could never produce more than 337 Watts to a battery or other receiving mechanism.  William Shockley, a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-creation of the transistor and Hans-Joachim Queisser defined this limit at Shockley Semiconductor in 1961. In a traditional solid-state semiconductor such as silicon, a solar cell is made from two doped crystals.  One is an n-type semiconductor, which has extra free electrons, and the other a p-type semiconductor, which is lacking free electrons, referred to as “holes.” When initially placed in contact with each other, some of the electrons in the n-type portion will flow into the p-type to “fill in” the missing …

MissionGO Drones Make Medical Deliveries

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The Nevada desert near Las Vegas formed a dramatic backdrop for the delivery of a kidney and corneas to a simulated emergency surgery site this last week.  MissionGO’s rotary-wing drone delivered the kidney on one flight and the corneas on another – just to clarify. This cooperative effort among Mission GO’s technology and the Nevada Donor Network’s (an organ procurement organization, or OPO) fearless supporters proved a huge success.  The Network’s numbers provide the impetus for this project.  According to their web site 650 Nevadans and 110,099 Americans await transplants, ranging from hearts to pancreases.  1,447,906 potential donors are signed up in Nevada alone – a heartening circumstance and disheartening pun. MissionGO President  Anthony Pucciarella, explained, “These flights are an exciting step forward – the research conducted during last week’s test flights are another data point to illustrate that unmanned aircraft are a reliable mode of transportation for life-saving cargo, and that MissionGO’s UAS are safe for both the payload …

ZEROe on the Rise at Airbus

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ZEROe Airbus, taking a new direction, announced that they are, “Exploring game-changing concept aircraft – known as ZEROe – powered by hydrogen, a disruptive zero-emission technology with the potential to reduce aircraft emissions by up to 50%.” Two seem to be evolutionary, employing a different fuel and powertrain within fairly conventional airframes.  The third, a blended-wing body (BWB) structure, emulates Boeing’s and NASA’s BWB.  All three, though, employ hydrogen to meet the planet’s need to reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide and other emissions.  All three use hydrogen hybrid power systems. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in a 2019 report looked at the different electric and hybrid systems available.  The organization included a factor examined before in this blog.  “The climate benefits of electric aviation may come not only from its reduced CO2 emissions, but also from the elimination of contrails – the long, thin clouds that form in the wake of jet engines2. Although no scientific consensus exists on …

ZeroAvia First Out of the Gate with Hydrogen Flight

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An Historic Hydrogen Outing While Airbus and MagniX promote the near- and not-so-near virtues of hydrogen-powered flight, ZeroAvia has demonstrated such flight with the largest H2-powered aircraft so far.  Their Cranfield, England-based Piper Malibu flew on H2 power for the first time September 24 on an eight-minute circuit.  The blue Malibu reached 1,000 feet and a top speed of 100 knots true air speed. Quick to capitalize on the successful mission, , ZeroAvia founder and CEO Val Miftakhov held a press conference the next day.  In it, he explained his team,“has had discussions with seven aircraft manufacturers about possible retrofit and new-build applications for the propulsion system. He said the company has signed letters of intent with 10 airlines that have expressed an interest in the program based on presentations made to around 30 different prospective operators.” Earlier flights in Hollister, California and Cranfield were battery powered “to evaluate different elements of the powertrain.”   Unspecified modifications helped prepare the craft …

End the Year on a Volocopter Note

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Volocopter has an exciting way to end 2020, leaving the old year with a ticket for your future flight in a VoloCity VC 2-1 aircraft (the “Aircraft”).  Fine print, spelled out in the eight-page General Terms & Conditions for the Volocopter World Premiere Ticket Program, might cause the hesitant to pause. The more adventurous among us will start planning an overseas trip two or three years from now. Here’s the Deal “Berlin, 16 September 2020 — At Greentech Festival in Berlin today, Volocopter, the pioneer of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), announced that the world’s first public sale for electrical air taxi flight reservations has started. Effective immediately, Volocopter fans world-wide can reserve their tickets online and be amongst the very first to take this new form of mobility. The VoloFirst costs €300 ($351.25) and can be reserved with a 10% ($35.12) deposit.”  There are only 1000 presale reservations available for a limited time, and as of this morning, only 313 …