Anne Lavrand, founder and head of Electravia, has over 35 different electric aircraft to her credit, having powered everything from paramotors to a world speed record-holding Cri-Cri and a speed and altitude record-claiming MC-30. The story officially began five years ago today, though, with a 48-minute flight by an ultralight Souricette, a Michael Barry design with an Electravia-prepared Lynch brushed motor, golf-cart type controller and lithium polymer batteries . In an article from The Times of London, it was given credit as the, “First flight in a conventional light aircraft powered by an electric motor,” and as such a model of frugality. Barry’s airplane, motor, and batteries might set an owner/builder back 10,000 to 15,000 euros ($13,000 to $19,500) and cost about one euro ($1.30) per hour to fly. Ms. Lavrand has continued to demonstrate that such a simple setup can provide reliable, inexpensive service with her ongoing work in her own shop and developments with various designers. Electra flew …
The Electric Archaeopteryx
Ruppert Composite has been flying the up-market Archaeopteryx for the last several years, with pilots hopping off hills in the highly efficient, advanced hang glider. Archaeopteryx is versatile, as shown in the video, and can be launched and retrieved in a variety of ways. Its 54 kilogram empty weight makes quite a load for even a fit enthusiast, though, and waiting around for a tow car or plane dampens even the most ardent longing to fly. To counter those objections Ruppert has designed a special electric drive. Working with Dr. Martin Hepperle, a well-known aerodynamicist specializing in model aircraft and low-Reynolds number flight; Leomotion, manufacturer of model airplane electric motors – some with internal planetary propeller speed reduction systems; and Flytec, maker of an electric motor found on hang gliders, electric paramotors and ultralight aircraft around the world, Ruppert will introduce the e-Archaeopteryx with “ascent aid” in early 2013. This is a cleaner installation than that chronicled a few months …
Princeton Solar Cell is “Black Hole for Light”
A great deal of the light that falls on solar cell panels does little to generate electricity, with a high percentage bouncing off pointlessly. Princeton researchers have confronted this issue with a layered assembly, otherwise known as a subwavelength plasmonic cavity. Developed by Princeton University researcher Stephen Chou and a team of scientists, the cavity dampens reflections and traps light. According to Princeton’s announcement, “The new technique allowed Chou’s team to create a solar cell that only reflects about 4 percent of light and absorbs as much as 96 percent. It demonstrates 52 percent higher efficiency in converting [direct] light to electrical energy than a conventional solar cell.” Overall, the team was able to increase solar cell efficiency a total of 175 percent with their nanostructured sandwich by capturing not only direct sunlight, but angled rays and diffuse light that occurs on cloudy days. MIT researchers recently reported attempts to gather varying wavelengths of light to effect the same type of …
eUP Makes First Canadian Electric Flight
John McClintock and Randy Rauck have been developing an electrically-powered hang-glider “trike” for the last year, and Saturday, December 8, Rauck took their Green1 battery-powered hang-glider skyward – Canada’s first electric flight. Taking off at approximately 10:00 a. m., Rauck flew a smooth circuit of the Pitt Meadows airport, southwest of Vancouver, B. C. The pair have been bench and ground testing their Electravia motor, controller and battery pack as part of their creation of eUP, a firm dedicated to making electric flight possible in ultralight aircraft. In eUP’s press release, McClintock says, “This is a very exciting day in Canadian aviation history. While eUP will offer this system on other aircraft, right now the state-of-the-art in electric flight is a perfect match for self-launch soaring gliders such as hang gliders and paragliders. eUP is proud to be the first to fly on battery-power in the country.” While technically not the first electric flight in Canada, that honor taken by …
Bye Aerospace Provides Stratospheric Persistence
George Bye, founder and head of Bye Aerospace, introduced the Silent Falcon unmanned aerial vehicle earlier this year at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) meeting. He has two other relatively low-cost but highly capable offerings which could stretch the limits of unmanned aerial system (UAS) capabilities. The first, the Starlight program, involves lifting a variable geometry, solar-powered airplane to great heights with a balloon, hovering with it for up to four months, and releasing it when needed to allow refurbishing, refitting and relaunching. This two-stage system provides the same kind of surveillance offered by a satellite, but at a much lower cost. The balloon is a static device, used only to provide the altitude necessary, and the aircraft needs to provide power sufficient to allow station keeping and run its sensor systems for the period it is at altitude. When launched, the nose and tail-mounted electric motors power the airplane on its way. It can slide its …
I’ll Take Manhattan
While much of battery research goes into crafting the ultimate anode, cathode or electrolyte, there seem to be few efforts, at least to outside observers, of integrated approaches to making a better total battery. That may change soon, with the Department of Energy announcing formation of a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (J-CESR, or J-Caesar). Dr. Steven Chu, U. S. Secretary of Energy, has established the Center at Argonne National Laboratory with a budget of $120 million over five years to create a battery five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today’s norms – all within five years. For those of us who’ve grown wary of those “breakthough” announcements that almost always include the line, “researchers say the new product could become a commercial reality in the next five to 20 years,” this may seem too hopeful. Secretary Chu’s announcement included several factors that may alleviate this wariness. The Department is putting up the money, …
There’s Light at the End of the Funnel
Solar cells are relatively inefficient at gathering the total range of sunlight’s spectrum that falls on them every day. Trying to find a way to capture more than a single wavelength or narrow band of the solar light, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at Peking University in China propose putting a strain on solar cells, creating a spatially varying bandgap that would react to more of the colors in light and thus give off more electricity. Changing the bandgap in a solar collector’s material enables excitation of electrons from not just visible light, but from energy sources such as infrared radiation. This has the potential to increase the cell’s energy output enormously since most of the sun’s radiation is in invisible form. Bandgap is a complex concept, and MIT provides a brief tutorial here. MIT’s news office reports: “’We’re trying to use elastic strains to produce unprecedented properties,’ says Ju Li, an MIT professor and corresponding …
Solar Impulse on 60 Minutes
Alexandra Gindroz, Media Relations Manager for Solar Impulse, shared this late-breaking development today. “60 MINUTES recently visited Solar Impulse, the first manned solar airplane able to fly day and night without fuel. Learn about this groundbreaking project widely recognized as a 21st century adventure with a real utility in promoting technological innovation on CBS 60 MINUTES Sunday December 2nd at 7 P.M ET.” Even more exciting to alternative energy aviation followers, Solar Impulse plans on flying its airplane across the United States early next year. “In the summer of 2010, Solar Impulse successfully conducted the first ever historical 26-hour flight bringing the notion of perpetual flight closer to reality. This revolutionary airplane is much more; it is an adventure that shapes tomorrow through the power of innovation and pioneering spirit. The goal of Solar Impulse is to fly around the world with an airplane using only solar energy but before that the Swiss team is working on a new challenge: flying across America in …
Battery Optimization: Working Smarter, Not Harder
We’re often told that we use only a small part of our brains – easily demonstrated in your editor’s case. What if we’re only using a small part of the battery power that’s available to us? Fixing that would lead to smaller batteries working more efficiently, a significant step toward lighter power packages. Hybridcars.com shares this kind of thinking in two recent postings, the first about a $4 million contract beween PARC, a Xerox company, its partner LG Chem Power and the U. S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E) as part of the Advanced Management and Protection of Energy Storage Devices (AMPED) program. According to hybridcars’ Philippe Crowe, the partners will, “Develop a fiber optic monitoring system capable of providing detailed information about the internal condition of batteries. The end goal is to allow batteries to perform better in applications such as electric vehicles (EVs). This smart system will perform on-the-job training, learning the …
A “New” Electric Canard – Thirty Years Later
Thirty years ago, Claude Chudznik developed a beautiful little canard that flew on a 25-horsepower two-stroke engine. The elegantly tiny craft performed well enough on its noisy (“almost unbearable” according to the team’s blog) engine that the team of Chudzik, Frédéric Laude, Rémy Audebert, Eric Favereau, Patrick Quiertant and Gilles Aubin decided to take it out of mothballs, repower it with an Electravia GMPE-E 205 50-hp system (batteries, controller and motor), and take to the skies again. They are close to that goal, having recently reassembled the wings and canard to the fuselage, fitted batteries, motor and an EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrument System) and Electravia E-Screen ES-TX26RSD motor and battery monitoring screen. The simple, mini-glass-cockpit fits well within the confines of the small craft. This high-performance instrumentation complement the potential of this electrified and resurrected airplane, now with a motor twice its original power. It flew at more than 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph) on its two-stroker (the …