Whether the marketing department at Chip Yates’ Flight of the Century enterprise chose an eponymous 235-horsepower Piper “Charger” to carry the inflight recharging batteries for upcoming tests, the name reflects Yates’ own driven personality. He’s set a world’s record for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, soaring uphill on a UQM-powered motorcycle, used the same bike to set Bonneville Salt Flats records, then pulled the bike’s motor, popped it into a Long-Eze, and proceeded to set speed and time-to-climb records. He’s announced plans to cross the Atlantic Ocean, duplicating Lindbergh’s flight with an electric airplane and the added and unprecedented technology of mid-air recharging. This will require extensive testing of the battery pack, tethering, docking and shuttling technology and the attendant software development. The Long-ESA (Electric Speed Altitude) Yates has flown to his records serves double duty as the Silent Arrow, an unmanned hybrid aerial vehicle (UAV) development for the Navy, which has made its China Lake test facilities available …
Silent Falcon in Production
Bye Aerospace has announced initial production its small unmanned aircraft system, the Silent Falcon™. Produced by Silent Falcon UAS Technologies (SFUAS), a former subsidiary of Bye Aerospace, Inc., the Silent Falcon is a mere 25 pounds, but is able to perform six- to 12-hour missions on a mix of battery and solar power. The airplane, of all composite construction, will serve both military and civilian markets, with its small size and quiet operation able to serve well in either capacity. Its size and weight are virtues in a competitive market, giving “unprecedented performance and value… ready for the market place,” and already in “low rate initial production,” according to John Brown, President of SFUAS. He adds that “sales teams are targeting domestic, Latin and South Asia region trade shows in the next few weeks.” Small enough with carrying case to fit in a Pelican case (the same type in which professional camera operators carry their gear), the airplane can be …
Electric Tugs at Sea-Tac Lower Costs, Emissions
Green Air Online reports that Seattle-Tacoma Airport (Sea-Tac) has launched a “$31 million project to provide nearly 600 electric charging stations for ground support equipment (GSE) such as baggage tugs, bag ramps and pushback vehicles.” Besides saving “around $2.8 million in airline fuel costs,” the conversion will reduce greenhouse gas emissions around 10,000 tons per year. Alaska Airlines will swap 204 fossil-fuel burning GSEs to electric and its partner Horizon Airlines will trade in 58. More airlines are going to join the program later this year. Federal grants and funding from the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sweeten the transition for participants. “This project provides the infrastructure for airlines to convert their vehicles from diesel to electric in Sea-Tac’s effort to become the first major airport in the US to provide charging stations at all gates,” said Courtney Gregoire, Co-President of the Port of Seattle Commission. “As many as 650 vehicles could eventually …
U of Transylvania Announces 3 kW-Hr per Kilogram Potato Battery
Obviously inspired by seminal research on potato batteries in Portland, Oregon, University of Transylvania researchers led by Dr. James Whale, Director of the Tuber Genetics Energetics Laboratory, announced a major breakthrough in GMO plant life with the hope for impressive gains in electric vehicle dynamics. Officials in America’s Southeast warn that the U of T is NOT to be confused with Transylvania University, an actual liberal arts college in Lexington, Kentucky. Such confusion has led to a glut of applications from potential students with “decidedly loopy” academic credentials and “dangerously bizarre” ideas for research, according to a TU spokesperson. The earlier effort, a low-budget research project, showed that potato batteries in large quantities and wired up like a really big science fair exhibit could generate useful energy. “I built a potato battery out of 500 pounds of potatoes. It powered a small sound system. With the help of the Red 76 crew (a local arts collaborative) I installed the battery and sound …
UPS Tests Lithium Battery Cargo Safety Aids
Aviation Week reports that United Parcel Service (UPS) “is ready to start FAA certification testing of an active fire-suppression system fitted to the cargo carrier’s new fire-resistant containers, preventive measures aimed in large part at protecting crews from lithium-type battery fires.” The fire-resistant containers are the center of attention right now, though. After the fatal crash of a UPS Boeing 747-400F in Dubai in September 2010, United Arab Emirates investigators “determined that a large fire developed in the palletized cargo on the ‘Class E’ main deck in an area that included ‘a significant number of lithium-based batteries and other combustible materials,’” according to the Aviation Week report. That fire had filled the flight deck with smoke within three minutes of its detection and the intense heat had damaged aircraft control systems. MACRO Industries of Huntsville, Alabama makes composite armor for military vehicles. Their MacroLite panels are half the weight of aluminum and provide superior fire protection. UPS looked at this material …
FAA Says “No” To Electric Aircraft Passengers
Many voluminous government documents hold single paragraphs of great importance to the affected parties. In the case of the FAA’s 322-page Draft Policy 8130(H), a few lines will probably spark intense interest in the small but growing electric aircraft community. According to AVWeb.com and verified in Flying magazine, “The FAA is proposing banning passengers from flights in electric-powered aircraft and ready-to-fly Light Sport aircraft (SLSA) that have been converted to experimental Light Sport (ELSA) aircraft and stopping the aircraft from flying over built up areas or at night.” The Light Aircraft Manufacturer’s Association (LAMA) cites the following and endorses an activist approach to resisting the restrictions: “On page 293 under Clause ‘5. Procedure’ it provides a table by aircraft type for issuing potential restrictions. The proposed restrictions that are of concern are firstly: “c. Prohibit the carriage of passengers, flight over densely populated areas, and night or instrument flight rules (IFR) operations in the following: “(1) Experimental LSA aircraft that formerly …
Dr. Shin to Keynote Electric Aircraft Symposium
Dr. Jaiwon Shin, NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, will close the Friday, April 25 session of the eighth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium with his keynote address, “The NASA Aeronautics Vision and Strategy – How It Relates to Electric Aircraft.” As Associate Administrator, Dr. Shin “manages the agency’s aeronautics research portfolio and guides its strategic direction,” according to his official NASA biography. He co-chairs the National Science & Technology Council’s Aeronautics Science & Technology Subcommittee, a group of federal departments and agencies that fund aeronautics-related research. Its first presidential policy for aeronautics research and development (R&D) was ratified by Executive Order 13419 in December 2006, and now guides such research until 2020. Dr. Shin oversees and sets policies for an array of explorations into aerodynamics, propulsion, air traffic control – including NextGen, aviation safety, and the integration of such technologies into broader economic and strategic concerns at the national and international levels. With myriad Aeronautics Research Mission Directorates (ARMD) and at …
Three Candidates for the Coming “Magic Rush” of Batteries
Robert Cringely, writing in EVWorld.com foresees a paradigm-shifting event that will happen sooner rather than later. “A black swan is what we call an unexpected technical innovation that disrupts existing markets. Intrinsic to the whole black swan concept is that you can’t predict them: they come when they come. Only today I think I’ll predict a black swan, thank you, and explain exactly how the automobile business is about to be disrupted. I think we’re about two years away from a total disruption of the automobile business by electric cars.” He quotes the respected auto journalist Robert Cumberford. “’I see the acceptance of electric cars happening in a sudden rush. Maybe not this year, maybe not for a couple of years yet. But it will happen in a magic rush, just as the generalized adoption of computers happened in only a few years’”. Here, the blog looks at three potential “black swan” battery technologies. Although the story of the black …
Reaching for the Sun
SolarStratos, a two-seat, solar-powered airplane, is being readied for record flights in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, just a 25-minute drive from the Solar Impulse hangars in Payerne. Its makers claim that it is the first commercial solar two-seater aircraft in history, and will be the first solar-powered airplane with a pilot to enter the stratosphere. These heady claims are described on the project’s web site as a “crazy bet,” but it’s too early to make such judgments. Calin Gologan of PC-Aero GmbH designed the base craft, an expansion of his earlier ultralight electric aircraft, Elektra Two. The “Record” version of this craft, despite SolarStratos’ extended 20-meter (65 feet, 7 inch) wingspan, weighs a feathery 140 kilograms (308 pounds) empty, and only 350 kilograms (770 pounds) loaded, including 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of batteries and 20 square meters (215.28 square feet) of thin-film solar cells set into the wing and horizontal tail surfaces. With a span loading of only 11.7 pounds per foot, …
Caging Hydrogen in Self-assembling Origami Structures
Let’s say that you’re really good at folding pieces of paper into miniature birds such as cranes, or life-size elephants, something origami artist Sipho Mabona did recently, starting with a 50-foot by 50-foot piece of paper (he had help from up to 40 others). The paper elephant, including a metal subframe to support it, weighs over 500 pounds. How about using origami to trap hydrogen in a novel approach to storing energy for fuel cells? Only, instead of paper, you might use sheets of graphene cleverly folded into cages no more than a few nanometers across – the opposite of the elephant in the art gallery. Researchers at the University of Maryland’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Maryland NanoCenter, have done just that, but so far just as a simulation of the molecular dynamics involved. They have demonstrated that such cages can be opened and closed “in response to an electrical charge using a technique they call hydrogenation-assisted graphene origami …