Green Flight Challenge +15, Noise

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Day 2 of the 2011 Green Flight Challenge had actual flying; very quiet flying.  One criterion of the Challenge was a sound check, measuring the low noise levels of the four entrants. Plane and Pilot reported, “Rules enforced a strict noise ceiling to promote the development of quiet, community-friendly general aviation aircraft:  “Maximum Noise Limit: Participating aircraft were required to stay below a maximum noise level of 78 dBA during full-power takeoff. (This was a notable goal since Putdue University acknowledged much higher levels for small airplanes, “Flyover levels: A typical single-engine general aviation plane (like a Cessna) flying overhead at 1,000 feet measures roughly 88 dBA, though general averages can drop closer to 65 dB depending on distance, engine power, and altitude.  “Comparison: Ground noise from a small plane flyover is comparable to a loud power lawnmower (96 dB) or heavy street traffic (85–90 dB), but it is intermittent and perceived differently depending on proximity to local airfields.  “Regulation …

Green Flight Challenge + 15

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

15 years ago, the Green Flight Challenge (GFC) Sponsored by Google took to the shies over Santa Rosa, California.  It featured the richest prize in aviation history at that time, $1.65 million to be awarded for different achievements.  Our of 13 teams that qualified for the actual airborne event, only for made it to the Charles M. Schulz Airport.  Two were battery-powered, one a hybrid, and was powered by the ubiquitous Rotax internal combustion engine. Although only three of the entrants qualified as fully electric or hybrid vehicles, the Challenge became a series of chances to see aviation’s future. Day One was devoted to technical inspections and weighing the aircraft.  (Original Report) Your editor was privileged to meet and interview the project leaders, designers, and pilots of these aircraft.  That was a short course in beyond belief thinking.  We will be sharing more videos from the event over the next few days. NASA contributed a top-notch media team to document …

Swiss Smartflyer – An Advanced Design

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

The Swiss Smartflyer SF-1 is an advanced design showing links to the second-place finisher in the 2011 Green Flight Challenge. Launching an Airplane and an Event The creators of the Smartflyer were intent on developing a different kind of aircraft when they started in 2015.  Their hybrid aircraft had three different modes of power from the beginning: pure electric power from batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and a Rotax engine driving a generator that powers the motor’s batteries. They’ve retained those three configurations to this day, obviously modifying or upgrading them as technology changed.  That’s part of the beauty of electric aircraft.  Motors, components and batteries keep improving, and are easy to add or change. In pure electric version, batteries fill nose, promise 2.5 hours of flight. The overall design is close to that of the original, with three replaceable power sources available for the long nose and a high-mounted propeller on the vertical tail.  That “look” came from Dipl-Ing. Rudolf …

GoAero Prize Highlights Rescue Missions

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The GoAero Prize has a simple-sounding, but incredibly complex goal: Design and build a safe, portable, robust, autonomy-enabled Emergency Response Flyer. The Vision The Prize’s vision defines the heroes who look past danger, who step in to be, “The difference between triumph… and tragedy, and especially, those who “Use Their Minds to Create technology that Saves Lives.”  There’s $2 million waiting for those who come up with the best solutions.  And the competition promises even greater glory, “This is your chance to make history… and save lives.” GoAero says, “The world needs this,” explaining that, “In the U.S. alone, nearly 4.5 million people live in “ambulance deserts,” in a medical crisis, people in these areas have to wait as long as 25 minutes or more for an emergency medical crew to arrive.” We’ve seen recent examples of how serious such waits can be.  Paradise, California was a thriving community of over 26,000 before the disastrous Camp Creek fire in 2018. …

H2Fly Achieves HEAVEN’s Goal

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, GFC, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

H2Fly has an historic aircraft in its fleet, the HY4, as part of the HEAVEN program to, “Demonstrate the use of liquid, cryogenic hydrogen in aircraft.”  Originally the G4, the craft won the NASA Green Flight Challenge in 2011, posting a passenger mile per gallon efficiency of 403.5 – equivalent to driving your loaded Prius from San Francisco to Los Angeles on under four gallons of fuel.  Resurrected as the HY4 and flown on gaseous hydrogen, the craft has been reconfigured to fly on liquid hydrogen, expanding its range significantly. According to the HEAVEN program, “The hydrogen-electric ‘HY4’ demonstrator aircraft took off from Maribor, Slovenia, and saw safe and efficient operation throughout multiple flight tests.”  Announced September 7, these were the first piloted flights of a liquid hydrogen fueled aircraft.  Four flights, including one that lasted over three hours, “Lay the foundation for long-range, emissions-free flight, with liquid hydrogen doubling the range of the HY4 aircraft to 1,500[kilometers], compared to …

Electrifly-In Bern 2022 – The Year of the Hybrid

Dean Sigler Batteries, Biofuels, Diesel Powerplants, Electric Aircraft Materials, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Electrifly-In Bern 2022 is a new location after five years at Grenchen, Switzerland.  The Electrifly-In moved about 25 miles down the road to Bern’s bigger airport.  Started by the designers of the SmartFlyer, an innovative hybrid touring craft, the event was originally called the SmartFlyer Challenge. Organizers have the serious intent of saving aviation from the “shame” that has come to accompany flight itself.  “Aviation is pilloried by the public. Flying is seen as the main problem of the climate catastrophe and everyone who books a flight should have a guilty conscience and is labeled as a climate sinner. The social and political pressure to phase out combustion technology is steadily increasing worldwide. So the question is no longer if, but when electrically powered aircraft will become the norm.”  This year, the fly-in offered the public several defenses against sin and shame. Beginning with the original namesake, the Smartflyer SFX1 was on display in the hangar, its carbon-fiber blackness showing …

A Pulitzer Written in the Sky

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

Itching to test your electric airplane’s cross-country capabilities?  A new Pulitzer Electric Air Race of over 1,000 nautical miles (1,150.78 statute miles to be exact) between Nebraska and North Carolina will show who has the fastest electric flying machine. Jim Moore, reporting for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), shows the connection between the original Pulitzer Trophy and today’s electric competition.  “Five of the first six pilots to have their names engraved on the Pulitzer Trophy were military airmen clocked around a closed course at speeds starting at 157 mph in 1920, up to a blistering 248 mph by 1925. The trophy was created to inspire innovation, and particularly faster airplanes. That vintage trophy housed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will be engraved with its first new name in 97 years in 2022, following completion of a 1,000-nautical-mile cross-country race by up to 25 electric aircraft.” Ralph Pulitzer was son of Joseph Pulitzer, whose prizes for …

Going Big and Bigger with Hydrogen

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, GFC, Hydrogen Fuel, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Two companies promoting hydrogen power for aircraft are upsizing their aspirations, with aircraft  hauling four to up to 40 passengers.  Both have ambitious timelines. ZeroAvia, operating in Hollister, California and Cirencester, England has been flying a Piper Malibu demonstrator, but anticipates flying a 10 to 20 passenger Dornier by 2024.  It would expand that to a 50-passenger craft by 2026.  H2Fly in Germany has been flying their Pipistrel-designed HY4 for several years and through six generations. The firm looks forward to taking incremental steps toward a 40-passenger regional airliner by 2030. ZeroAvia ZeroAvia reports on troubling trends in aviation’s contribution to greenhouse gases, but follows with a possible solution.  According to their web site, aviation accounts for over 12 percent of total transportation emissions, and may double that by 2050.  High altitude contrails mean aviation emissions have two to four times the effect of ground source emissions.  Regulators want drastic changes.  The European Union mandates a one quarter the CO2 …

That’s the eSpirit!

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We reported in the blog four years ago that Embry Riddle Aeronautical University not only displayed their eSpirit of St. Louis at AirVenture that year, but ran the motor for the crowd.  The crowd included Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta, who sat in the cockpit during the runup. The eSpirit of St. Louis A product of Embry-Riddle, eSpirit is finally making its presence on the taxiway known.  Kelly Pratt, writing in the Embry Riddle Aeronautical News, reports, “After nearly four years of perseverance, the Eagle Flight Research Center (EFRC) team at Embry-Riddle is celebrating a milestone in its electric propulsion research: its Diamond HK-36 completed a successful taxi test exclusively on electrical power at the Daytona Beach International Airport.” Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles, has been a guiding factor in eSpirit’s development, and the airplane reflects his grandfather’s “notion of balance between aviation and the environment.” The quarter-mile on the taxiway may seem like a short trip, but student Sanay …

Electrifly-in: Grenchen 2021

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

Electrifly-in, formerly the Smartflyer Challenge, is on for September 11 and 12, 2021, in Grenchen, Switzerland.  The event, even held in 2020 despite the pandemic, is a compact showing of the latest in electrical aircraft and technology.  Watch as this 2019 video as a Φnix (the Greek letter phi + nix –a clever bilingual pun) takes off, circuits the area and makes a landing – all the time flying with other electric aircraft. In this flight, you can see the compact airport (including a grass landing strip) and a lovely setting for a great event.  Started as the Smartflyer Challenge* in 2016, the gathering has changed its name to be more inclusive. Last year, even with travel limitations imposed worldwide, saw a healthy turnout of all-electric flyers, ranging from ultralight electric “trikes” to cross-country tourers. From 12 to 50 Kilowatts and Beyond Powering a large number of machines on last year’s flight line, Eck-Geiger Engineering makes a range of motors …