Another Kind of Skyport for Volocopter

Dean Sigler Announcements, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Following last year’s Uber Elevate Summit, one came away with the idea that future landing areas for Urban Air Mobility vehicles would be multi-story and expansive, with connections readily available to other forms of commuting.  Volocopter, working with Skyports , has Volo-Ports coming, with the first one due to open by the end of this year.  The “stunning designs” for these landing pads will come from the agency Brandlab.   Drawings released so far show that Voloports will be simple and modular, enablihg their distribution in many locations or clustered in one centralized facility. Introduced at the Berlin Green Festival, Volo-Ports appear to be open, friendly places where one can be introduced effortlessly to the joys of taking Volocopters to distant places.  Volocopters, smaller than the planned five-passenger vehicles assumed for Uber Elevate rides, will eventually carry two, once certification requirements allow autonomous operation. The first Volo-Port, to be constructed in Singapore will open for scheduled flight trials in the second half …

Clean Jet Fuel from the Air?

Dean Sigler Announcements, Biofuels, Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

What if we could suck carbon from the air, make clean jet fuel out of it, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using this fuel in our airliners?  That’s a dream pursued by many researchers, and recently Rotterdam the Hague Airport announced a study to sort out the plausibility of such a plan.  First, though, we need to look at the numbers for how much fossil fuel would have to be replaced. These are Big Numbers How much fuel goes into a large jetliner?  How efficiently is it used?  These are matters of concern to airline executives on a profit-and-loss basis, and to all of us on an environmental basis.  Let’s look at the Boeing 787 Dreamliner variants for an idea of how efficient a modern airliner can be.      The 787-8 burns 4,900 kilograms (10,780 pounds) per hour or Jet A, while the larger 7879 consumes 5,600 kilograms (12,320 pounds) per hour. Converting pounds (the way the military and airlines …

BlackBird Air, Bye Aerospace Add to eFlyer Sales

Dean Sigler Announcements, Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

BlackBird Air, Inc., an on-demand flight service operating out of San Carlos, California, has announced it intends to buy 100 eFlyer 4s and 10 eFlyer 2s from Bye Aerospace.  These will augment the firm’s existing fleet of Cirrus SR22s and Pilatus PC12s in providing service to its customers. As the San Francisco Chronicle explains, BlackBird has been called “the Uber of air travel,” an app-driven service that enables flights to cities like Burbank, Palm Springs and Las Vegas.  Sarah Feldberg, writing for the Chronicle, runs through the niceties of this different plane rental approach.  “The interface operates like any trip-booking app until you’ve selected your date and destination. Then, BlackBird prompts you to either join an existing flight or create your own by choosing an aircraft and departure time. For $408, you can fly a three-seater [plus pilot], single-engine Cirrus SR22 from Oakland to Tahoe City on May 24, leaving roughly whenever you’d like and arriving an hour later.”  Split …

Straight out of Compton/Woodley

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

We don’t normally republish complete press releases, but this example from Taja Boscarol at Pipistrel, the Slovenian electric aircraft company, seems worthy of a full reading. Los Angeles County Promoting Green Aviation Compton/Woodley Airport Acquires Pipistrel Alpha Electro Aircraft & Charging Station Los Angeles County Public Works, in partnership with Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum welcomed the nation’s first commercial electric aircraft charging station at Compton/Woodley Airport.  The Pipistrel  SkyCharge  docking  station will  support the museum’s two ALPHA Electro  Light  Sport all-electric  aircraft and  ultimately other electric  aircraft  in  the  future  as  electric  aircraft gain interest.   The SkyCharge docking station allows two aircraft to simultaneously charge an empty battery in 45 minutes. ​Expansion of Electric Aircraft at the County-owned Airports Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum is planning to install additional Pipistrel SkyCharge docking stations throughout the County of Los Angeles system of airports.  San Gabriel Valley Airport, located in the City of El Monte, will be next to receive the docking stations. As …

Sustainable Aviation Symposium 2019

Dean Sigler Announcements, SAS, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium is moving to a new date and location – and a new inclusiveness. The University of California, Berkeley Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) will host the 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium (SAS) on October 7-8 of 2019.  SAS 2019 is focused on safe, quiet, electric aviation solutions to the most pressing problems of our age: climate change, urban surface gridlock, and the need for integrated community and urban planning to enable high proximity aviation at meaningful scale. Dr. Jasenka Rakas, founder and head of the Airport Design Studio at the University of California at Berkeley, and Sustainable Aviation Foundation founder and President Dr. Brien Seeley will co-chair the meeting that will present a challenging review of aviation’s green future. This year’s symposium will convene thought leaders to answer these core questions: Which systems will win a dominant share of the market and why? How will “urban air vehicles” be made “airline-safe” and autonomous? What new technologies are …

Bye eFlyer Sales Near 300

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

Diane Simard, Director and Senior Vice President at Bye Aerospace, keeps your editor updated on happenings at the maker of what were SunFlyers, and which are now eFlyers.  The rebranding makes sense.   In their press release for the eFlight Expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany on April 11, the company included this explanation.  “George E. Bye, Founder and CEO of Bye Aerospace, said eFlyer more accurately represents the aircraft’s high-tech all-electric propulsion system. ‘We originally thought solar cells would be standard on the airplane’s wings,’ Bye said. ‘However, with eFlyer’s primary markets being flight training and air taxi services, it makes more sense to make the price of the airplane as reasonable as possible.’” Bye Aerospace’s primary market is growing, with orders for 60 eFlyers from OSM Aviation , a training resource for many of the world’s airlines.  This brings the total of eFlyers to almost 300, achieved despite some roadblocks.  In an email to your editor, Bye explained, “In an April 11 email, …

Go Fly’s Phase II Winners

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One complaint frequently heard is that aviation doesn’t necessarily encourage participation by women, despite historical examples from Harriet Quimby to Jeanna Yeager.   GoFly is a competition thought up by Gwen Lighter, a lawyer with degrees from Brown (summa cum laude) and Harvard (cum laude) Universities. It has a $2 million prize package backed by Boeing and others.  Ms. Lighter describes her brainchild as follows: “The $2 million GoFly competition encourages mad scientists and daredevils to come as close as possible to Star Wars’s light cycles, James Bond’s jetpack, Marty McFly’s hoverboard, or any other flying dream.” Five Phase 2 winners exemplify the open rule-book approach around which the contest is organized.  Lighter explained it two years ago in an NPR interview.  “What the device looks like and how it works is up to the innovators.  We do not mandate that it’s something you get into like a car, or something that you strap on your back, or something that you …

AutoflightX Returns Tian Yu to Forefront

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A Long Developmental Background Tian Yu headed Yuneec, a pioneering firm in electric flight.  In 2009 his company had several motors and one- and two-seat aircraft flying.  They even received certification from the FAA for the two-seat E430 and shipped it to Oshkosh, where it made its public flying debut at that year’s AirVenture.   At the 2013 AirVenture, Greenwing, an affiliate of Yuneec, fielded two e-Spyders, which pulled a first with several two-electric-airplane formation flights.  Despite being a major supplier of hobby drones and an early developer of powered parachutes, Yuneec seems to have gone into a dormant state, with a new company, AutoFlightX, coming to the forefront. First shown as the BAT600 concept vehicle in  2017 (There seems to be an interim organization shift at the time), the craft was intended to be either hybrid or pure electric, and would have two forward and two rear coaxial positions for eight lifting propellers, one pusher propeller for flight , and …

First Commercial Drone Medical Delivery

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Medicine, STAT! Matternet is a U. S.-based company promoting its mission to, “Make access to goods as frictionless and universal as access to information.  Our products enable organizations around the world to build and operate drone logistics networks for transporting goods on demand, through the air, at a fraction of the time, cost and energy of any other transportation method used today. “ On March 27, it announced a collaboration with United Parcel Service (UPS) that delivered the first commercial medical payload at the WakeMed medical facility in North Carolina. Other non-commercial operations by Zipline, operating in Rwanda and Gambia; and  Swoop Aero, Ltd. and Wingcopter delivering vaccines in the South Pacific, are bringing “last mile” delivery of medical goods and services to remote locations. The Hustle, an on-line news source (we go to no ends to find the latest intelligence), reports, “By working closely with regulators, UPS became the first fully operational, revenue-generating drone delivery service, beating competitors including …

Kryptonite – As in MARVEL Comics?

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Ed Warnock, CEO of the Perlan Project, passed this on from Michael Coates, head of Pipistrel USA.  Despite its celebrated author and totally credible source, the following press release is open to scrutiny and will no doubt receive some rabid criticism. “Pipistrel ALPHA Electro completes 24 hour flight on a single charge! “The Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft has successfully smashed the world endurance record for electric aircraft by completing its first 24-hour flight on a single charge! “Pipistrel engineers have recently tested different fuel cells and generator units to supplement the ALPHA Electro’s current 1-hour range. “Hugh improvements in electrical generation have unfolded with the recent (2016) re-discovery of Kryptonite in Northern Siberia and under the stepped Pyramid in Egypt. “Kryptonite in its purest form is just amazing, a true MARVEL producing almost unlimited amounts of perfect DC energy, ideal for powering an electric aircraft noted a leading Pipistrel engineer, Prof D.C. Currant. “Prof Currant explains, that less than 1 …