One on the Ramp, One on the Computer, and one Bent Tube Propulsor

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

With over 125 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in various stages of design and even flight test, we thought we would check in on three interesting prospects. The Lift Hexa Lift Aircraft of Austin, Texas promotes its 18-rotor single seater as, “THE WORLDS FIRST PERSONAL FLYING EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYONE.”  Looking a great deal like a skinny Volocopter, the Hexa shares many of its design attributes.  It’s “… triply redundant autopilot computer with a single, 3-axis joystick is all that is needed to fly. Or tap on the seven inch touchscreen in “Look mom, no hands!” mode.”  According to the firm’s web site, one can learn to fly Hexa with a few hours on a flight simulator and a brief session of personal instruction. If things go wrong, Hexa can maintain flight with six motors out.  Airbags and a ballistic parachute will provide a rescue.  The four perimeter floats that comprise the landing gear will help soften any impact, as well as enable amphibious …

Things are Looking up in Dubai

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

Clean Technica recently examined whether the United Arab Emirates, and especially Dubai could become a world leader in clean mobility. It lists factors such as one of the heaviest concentrations of concentration of EV charging facilities in the world, and the sizable discounts the state gives on EV ownership. The state’s relationship with electric car suppliers and readiness to test sky taxis from eHang and Volocopter add to the mix.  Dubai has its homegrown flight vehicles that will add to the aerial circus in its desert skies. DGWorld, a major source of robotics in the country, has two such craft on the horizon. DG World’s Contribution The smaller of the two, the “flagship drone of DGWorld,” the UAD M20 has a 19.5 kilogram (43 pounds) maximum weight borne aloft on 2.15 meter (seven foot) wings. At least two of its six motors can tilt to allow vertical takeoffs and landings and its fixed wings enable high-speed forward flight. Able to …

Simulations May Stimulate Better Hybrids

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Phillip Ansell, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois explains the benefits and downsides of fossil fuels. “Jet fuel and aviation gasoline are easy to store on an airplane. They are compact and lightweight when compared to the amount of energy they provide. Unfortunately, the actual combustion process is very inefficient. We’re harnessing only a small fraction of that energy but we currently don’t have electrical storage systems that can compete with that.” Ansell and colleagues are striving to use simulations to increase the range of hybrid aircraft.     Batteries provide their own set of problems. He explains that adding more batteries to go farther may have a certain logic, for example, but increases weight – a big detriment. “That’s one of the big barriers we run into when designing battery-powered electrified aircraft. The current technology has very significant range disadvantages. But strong fuel-burn advantages.” eVTOL News recently noted that over …

Volocopters to Fly Doctors

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis Leave a Comment

Helena Treeck of Volocopter alerted your editor of an exciting development for the multicopter manufacturer.  ADAC Luftrettung (ADAC Air Rescue) wants to use volocopter’s capabilities to take doctors or other qualified medical personnel to points of need – and rapidly.  ADAC’s slogan, “Against time and for life,” sums their mission, and Volocopters seem apt choices to help fulfill it. Rotary-wing aircraft have a well-established reputation for rescues in treacherous locales and circumstances.  An outstanding job of flying earlier this year on Mt. Hood, Oregon highlights this. Electric vertical take off and landing craft may be even better at this than fossil-fuel powered ones.  They don’t run out of oxygen at altitude – the rescue on Mt. Hood took place near the summit at 11,000 feet, adding to the plentiful hazards. As noted in Helena’s dispatch, “ADAC Luftrettung is the first air rescue organization in the world to test the use of manned multicopters in emergency medical services – both in …

David Ullman Receives Patent on IDEAL Airplane

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

David Ullman a Professor Emeritus at Oregon State University, has used his expertise in mechanical engineering to design his IDEAL airplane.  That stands for Integrated Distributed Electric-Augmented Lift, and like all good projects with good acronyms, almost explains itself.  Recently, the U. S Patent office thought the IDEAL is worthy of being patented. It might be helpful to read the full patent, filed with working partner and neighbor Vincent Homer, because the ideal looks simple, but has years of development behind it.  The two live in Independence, Oregon, on an airport that includes hangars on every house and taxiways linking them to the main runway.  Both their hangars are filled with evidence of their skilled handiwork.  Vincent’s houses giant models and evidence of aeronautical investigations.  David’s shelters a very large wind tunnel, used to help verify his computations about blowing air over the wing and augmenting the lift while providing thrust.  On one wall hangs the twisted wing strut that …

Terrafugia’s TF-2

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Terrafugia, unabashedly calling its vehicles “flying cars” in many of its public pronouncements, has floated a concept that is a serious departure from their two previous designs.  The TF-2 will be the equivalent of a shuttle bus, but with an aerial means of making a longer haul than mere in-town hops. Started by MIT graduates, many of them members of the rocketry club, Terrafugia has managed to garner an enormous number of media hits.  It even became a possible Christmas gift in the 2010 Hammacher Schlemmer Christmas catalog. It flew its Transition before the crowds at AirVenture in 2013, and was able to obtain certification as a Light Sport Aircraft since then, but with a slightly higher than original LSA weight allowance.  That seems to be moot at this point, since the FAA is going to allow LSA pilots to fly aircraft up to 3,600 pounds. Popular Science reported in 2014, “To meet highway-safety requirements, the Transition needs to be …

Volocopters to Hover Over Singapore

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

Helena Treeck from Volocopter sent the following message this morning: “Bruchsal/Paris/Singapore, October 2018 – Volocopter, the pioneer in urban air mobility, announced today during Autonomy – the Summit of Urban Mobility in Paris, that they will perform a next set of inner urban flight tests in Singapore. The series of test that are scheduled to take place in the second half of 2019 are supported by the Ministry of Transport (MOT), Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), and Economic Development Board (EDB).” Already undergoing testing in Germany and Dubai, Volocopter’s 2X appears to be the company’s flagship for continuing development.  The following video (in French) intercuts a representative explaining the benefits of the Volocopter with images of its public flight testing in Dubai.  There are apparently less well-publicized tests in the nearby desert and ongoing development in Germany. Ms. Treeck’s press released provides more goals.  “These flight tests are designed to validate and verify the ability of Volocopter’s eVTOL vehicles …

HES Element One Could Fly Four 5,000 Kilometers

Dean Sigler Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Fuel, Sky Taxis, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Horizon Energy Systems (HES), originally based in Singapore, has pursued lightweight hydrogen propulsion systems for the last 12 years, primarily for amall drones.  Going larger, the company announced plans today for Element One, “the world’s first regional hydrogen-electric passenger aircraft.” A four-passenger, 14-motored (!) monoplane, Element One will carry the lucky foursome 500 to 5,000 kilometers (310 to 3,100 statute miles).  This distributed power system claims “virtually no change to its current drone-scale systems,” which is a little puzzling, considering the largest of such systems produces no more than 1,000 Watts.  The scale of the Element One and its power packs is ambiguous, with illustrations showing a nine-axle trailer with attached solar panels ostensibly powering the on-site production of H2. One illustration depicts a drone-launching site with fuel pods possibly approximating the size of the units that will be used on Element One.  These are larger and their scale relative to the people in the illustration gives an approximation of …

Sustainable Aviation Symposium – Free on YouTube!

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, SAS, Sky Taxis, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The 2018 Sustainable Aviation Symposium was a master class in aircraft design, electric and hybrid power, and the strategies that will make green flight a reality in our near and distant futures.  The considerable knowledge imparted in that gathering is now available for your education and enlightenment on YouTube. Better than (Most) Cat Videos Go here to see the entire 2018 Symposium program, complete with links to a video of each speaker’s talk. Or go here for the library of presentations on YouTube. Either link provides high-quality video of the 20 presentations from this year’s Sustainable Aviation Symposium.  You will see all the slides in each presentation and hear each presenter’s eloquent exposition.  These range from the simplest of garage-based projects (your editor’s attempt to build the world’s cheapest electric airplane) to far-ranging inquiries into the real-world blessings and possible consequences of having an aerial armada of commuter vehicles hovering over our cities. Like potato chips or peanuts, you probably …

VerdeGo’s Integrated Distributed Power System

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Erik Lindbergh, grandson of the famed trans-Atlantic flight pioneer, has been paying his dues in aviation for decades, working to involve young people in career-building roles, and advocating for “green” aviation.  His latest roles have found him mentoring a group of Embry Riddle students in developing an electric HK-36 (shown last year at AirVenture), and in developing one of the over 100 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) potential sky taxis coming into public view.  That sky taxi may not make it to market, but Lindbergh and partners’ Integrated Distributed Power system is headed that way. At the 2017 AirVenture, he shared the news that he was working on something exciting.  That turned out to be the VerdeGo project, an eight-rotor eVTOL which he developed with co-founder Eric Bartsch and Embry Riddle Director of the Eagle Flight Research Center and Green Flight Challenge competitor Dr. Pat Anderson.  Eric is Chief Operating Officer for VerdeGo and Pat is Chief Technology Officer. …