Smartflyer Moves, Along with Former Namesake Fly-in

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

Smartflyer is a four-passenger, proof-of-concept light aircraft that can fly on pure electric power, as a hybrid with an av-gas powered generator, or as a hydrogen-fuel-cell-driven airplane.  It’s been under development for several years, but is moving production to Stelzach – just nearby.  Likewise, the Smartflyer Challenge, an electric aircraft fly-in, is moving from Smartflyer’s Grenchen, Switzerland home to Bern, a much larger field about 20 miles south. The Smartflyer SFX1 Electric-Flight.eu reports, “The fuselage of the Smartflyer SFX1 is slowly taking shape.”  Company founder Rolf Stuber OK’d production of the first carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) fuselage at Aerolite near Lucerne.  In a rented hall of 500 square meters (5,382 square feet), the “ready-to-install” drivetrain, consisting of a well-tested Rotax 914 engine coupled to a YASA generator, workers will assemble the major components. The SFX1, due to fly next year, has the following specifications: Cruise Speed: 120 knots / 222 km/h (138 mph) Take off Power: 160 kilowatts (214.5 …

MagniX Ready for New Markets

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MagniX, the motor company powering Eviation’s Alice and Harbour Air’s Beaver, is expanding into new markets.  Already flying in a DeHavilland Beaver in Canada and being readied for flight on Eviation’s Alice in Arlington, Washington, the company’s motors have many potential airframes to grace.  Besides Harbour Air and Eviation, English firm Faradair has chosen MagniX to power its BEHA, a triplane configuration commuter, and Sydney Seaplanes wants MagniX power for its Cessna Caravan Supplemental Type Certificate.  On a grander scale, Universal Hydrogen will power its converted DeHavilland Dash 8s with MagniX.  Even NASA has awarded funding to MagniX (along with General Electric) to develop “Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) technologies through ground and flight demonstrations. “ Harbour Air’s Beaver A 1957 de Havilland of Canada Beaver, C-FJOS, had its original Pratt & Whitney P-985 Wasp Junior radial piston engine replaced with a Magnix 750hp (559kW) Magni500 electric powerplant.  It first flew on electric power on December 10, 2019.  On August 19, …

Sonex and Gabriel DeVault Partner on Electric Kitplane

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Sonex and Gabriel DeVault have partnered to create an electric kitplane, marketing components for a different type of powerplant.  Sonex has been in the kitplane business since 1998 (having built from a decade’s-old earlier company) and Gabriel DeVault has been working with the electrification of aircraft for a decade.  Combining their expertise, we have a kit built path toward an inexpensive electric kitplane. Gabriel commutes a lot by air, traversing the globe between his home in Watsonville, California and Cranfield, England for work on Zero Avia’s electrification of Dornier 228s – one in each country.  He flies between Watsonville and Hollister, California in his Zero Motorcycle powered eXenos, a kit built product from Sonex Aircraft in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  Before that, he flew a Mark Beierle eGull powered with a Zero motor.  Gabriel was instrumental in the design and manufacturing of that motor, making him a bona fide expert on the powerplant. His experience with the eXenos has led Sonex to …

Piper Archer Trainers to Go Electric

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CAE, a Canadian high-tech company, H55, Safran, and Piper Aircraft have announced a joint venture to make the popular Piper Archer® trainer electric.  With 28,000 Archers in service, a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) would replace the current Lycoming IO-360 or Continental CD-155 Diesel engines with a Safran electric motor. The Players CAE CAE, started 75 years ago by a Canadian war hero, pledges itself to making the world a safer place.  “Our vision is to be the worldwide partner of choice in civil aviation, defense and security, and healthcare by revolutionizing our customers’ training and critical operations with digitally immersive solutions to elevate safety, efficiency and readiness.” The organization runs large flight training programs and designs and operates banks of flight simulators.  It plans on converting 60 percent of its Piper fleet worldwide to electric power. This is all part of a larger environmental and social program as reported in their Annual Activity and Corporate Social Responsibility Report.  “To further …

Skylift in the UK: Zipline in the USA

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Skylift Skylift is an all-British drone system supplier being used by the National Health Service (NHS) to deliver prescription medications in the UK in partnership with Apian.  Jessica Reed, reporting in Aviation Today, explains one of Skylift’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities demonstrated its ability to fly medical supplies between Portsmouth on England’s southern coast and the Isle of Wight. According to Distansias.com, “The straight line flying distance from Ryde [on the] Isle of Wight [is] 6.62 miles or 10.66 kilometers.”  This can take an hour or so by boat, but only minutes by drone, especially a fast one like those used by Skylift, which apparently designs and builds the machines with specific missions in mind.  Skylift has partnered with Apian, “a medical drone startup,” and delivered the first drone delivery of prescription pharmaceuticals in the UK with Boots, a drug store chain. In the near future Skylift drones will deliver chemotherapy drugs from …

Klaus Ohlmann, Jonas Lay and eGenius go 2003 kilometers

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Klaus Ohlmann and Jonas Lay in the one-and-only eGenius just completed a 2,003 kilometer (1,244 mile) trip from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean on the southern tip of France and return.  The numbers are spectacular.  The flight averaged 190.36 kilometers per hour (118.28 mph) and its hybrid power system consumed a mere 81 liters of fuel.  That works out to 24.72 kilometers per liter or 58.15 mpg.  Even a Prius at that speed would guzzle gasoline. Hybridizing eGenius eGenius was to have originally been HydroGenius, flying on gaseous hydrogen.  Starting design in 2006 and as presented at the 2009 Electric Aircraft Symposium, HydroGenius was designed by Rudolf Voit-Nitschman, Len Schumann, and Steffen Geinitz of the IFB, Institute of Aircraft Design at the University of Stuttgart.  Because Mercedes-Benz did not have their fuel cell available, the designers turned to pure battery power and the airplane became eGenius. The craft won second place in the NASA Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google …

Perlan,  Egrett,  and Airbus at Oshkosh

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Most Interesting Formation Flight at Oshkosh? Perlan 2, its Grob Egrett tow plane, and sponsor Airbus gave AirVenture 2022 attendees a glimpse of future records and promising technology.  Few people outside the Perlan Project have witnessed these two-planes flying in close formation, linked by a tow rope. Initial attempts to get Perlan to an altitude where it could catch high-level mountain waves were hampered by the relatively slow climb of the conventional high-wing craft. Because Einar Enevoldson, founder of the Project, had been a test pilot for the Grob aircraft works in Germany, he had reached a record altitude of 60,867 feet in their Stratos 2C, a twin-engine research craft powered by triple-supercharged Teledyne engines.  The Stratos is the highest flying piston-engine airplane. Its single-engine cousin, the Egrett flies behind a turboprop engine, though, which enables towing the Perlan to the stratosphere for its final search for record altitude. Spectators at AirVenture got a small taste of that stratospheric adventure, …

H3X HPDM-3000 – a Three Megawatt-Motor?

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H3X is shaking things up with its announcement of  its HPDM-3000, a three megawatt motor.  Thirteen years ago, your editor gave his first presentation at an electric aircraft symposium, held that year in the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.  Dr. Brien Seeley, founder and then head of the CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency) Foundation, had asked for research on motors of 100 kilowatts or more.  It was hard to find units of over 50 kW at that time, but people like Roman Susnik were managing ultralight motors of over 100 kW for motorized sailplanes With competitors like MagniX and ZeroAvia in the game, H3X introduces the HPDM-3000, a 2.8 mW (3,753 horsepower) ultra-high power density integrated modular motor drive (IMMD).  Developed by a group of young graduates of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, H3X’s motors combine extreme lightness for the power produced with cutting edge manufacturing techniques.  In this video, Chief Technology Officer Max Liben explains the …

Flying Machines in Your Two Car Garage

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A flying machine in your two-car garage was the promise heralded by Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines during the 1950s and 1960.  It was the era of Bob Cummings piloting his Aerocar on his popular TV show, and KISN radio watching over traffic with one in Portland, Oregon.  Expectations were high and often disappointed. High costs of establishing a network of two-ton, four-passenger eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) machines dissuaded even Uber from pursuing that goal.  Consider that skyports, vertiports, or whatever they ended up as are enormously expensive, and a network with charging stations and passenger accommodations would be a large investment.  Beyond that, each sky taxi would cost well into the high six figures, something that would require corporate ownership rather than the owner/driver model on which Uber’s land-based operations depend. At least four eVTOLs are now on the market or headed there.  None cost more than a claimed $150,000 base price, a plausible outlay …

Elektra Solar Trainer Unveiled 

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Elektra Solar introduced its Trainer, a new two-seat craft, at this year’s Aero Expo.  As reported here last year, the airplane features side-by-side seating to facilitate training, doubtless enhanced by the low noise level – 50 dB, according to the company.  Based on German ultralight standard LTF-UL 2020.  Compared to a “moderate rainfall noise,” the low sound level allows operation in noise protected areas and should enable easy communication between student and instructor. Safety and Performance With safety in mind, Calin Gologan, the plane’s designer, chose Geiger Engineering’s HPD50D dual motor.  Putting out 50 kilowatts continuously or 70 kW peak power, the 16 kilogram (37.3 pound) unit can run on either or both rotors.  Both independently controlled motors drive a 1.75 meter (5.74 foot) controllable-pitch propeller at up to 2,600 rpm.  If one motor fails, the remaining unit can maintain a climb rate of 1.5 meters per second (295 feet per minute).  With both motors running, the craft can climb …