A Seraph is a six-winged angel in the first sphere of the celestial hierarchy, and while the earthly form in Richard Ike and Ira Munn’s vision may have fewer wings, it is no less inspired. In part, it’s inspired by biomimicry, imitating nature in its forms and even its structure. The airfoil-shaped profile of the fuselage “reduce[s] drag and optimize[s] aerodynamic efficiency, the blended-wing-body and lifting body (flying fuselage) maximize lift and produce minimum drag, according to Seraph’s web site. Seraph explains, “Flight with the Seraph will be made possible by two factors, lift generated by airfoil and lift generated by vortex. The later factor is a return to a principle originally explored by Leonardo Da Vinci.” Their site further explains that, “This new field of study is called ORGANIC AERONAUTICS, or ‘Green Aviation’ (Aerospace inspired by nature). It is also a discipline of the science called Biomimicry: using nature as Model, Mentor, and Measure.” Its exo-skeletal structure emulates insect …
Klaus Ohlmann Sets New Solar Records
Klaus Ohlmann, 59-year-old soaring record holder, has set two new records in September, 2011, aboard Icare 2, Stuttgart University’s solar-powered sailplane. The 25 meter (82 foot) span aircraft weighs a mere 457.7 pounds empty, batteries, motor, propeller and solar cells adding another 152 pounds. At 805 pounds with pilot, its 25 square meters (269.1 square feet) of wing area make it a “floater” in soaring terms, and probably not the “penetrator” that a good cross-country machine needs to be. This makes Ohlmann’s two records, the latest of 38 total, all the more remarkable. Declaring his waypoints before each flight, he flew an out-and return flight of 384.4 (238.3 miles) kilometers on August 17, then topped that with a distance flight to three waypoints of 439.3 kilometers (272.4 miles) on September 10, both flights in the Haute Alps of southern France. Its designers acknowledge the limitations of Icare2’s performance. “She’s hardly the fastest bird in the skies, but its 25m wingspan and elegant …
Matters of Note for the Green Flight Expo
One humanitarian business organization that will display at the Green Flight Expo following the completion of that seven-day event uses the type of technology the CAFE Foundation espouses for carrying medicines and supplies to remote parts of the third world that otherwise do not easily permit transport of any kind. Matternet’s slogan, “Lifting the Rising Billion” refers to those living primarily in Africa and is explained in their statement of belief. “By increasing the access to reliable transportation for people living in poverty, we will enable them to find a sustainable path out of poverty. “We will connect people from geographically isolated communities to local and global markets through the Matternet.” This credo applies to poor communities throughout the world, and Matternet is committed to creating airborne supply networks worldwide. Mechanisms are simple enough, with quadrotor helicopters, much like those used by Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun and his alumni, Nicholas Roy (now assistant professor at MIT) in their investigations of …
Power Spraying Takes on a Whole New Meaning
Several news sources, apparently using the same press release from Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., have announced a spray-on solar cell, which can be applied in the same fashion as paint – to “buildings, vehicles and even clothing.” This “means that the places where energy from the sun can be harvested are almost limitless.” Less than one millimeter thick and capable of 10.1-percent efficiency, the new material is said to have a weight one-tenth of traditional silicon cells. Mitsubishi says these are prototype materials, and that they hope to achieve 15-percent efficiency by 2015, with 20 percent as a more distant possibility. Mitsubishi is a bit soft on details, but says, “The new solar cells utilize carbon compounds which, when dried and solidified, act as semiconductors and generate electricity in reaction to being exposed to light. Most existing solar cell technology requires crystalline silicon to be sandwiched between glass sheets and positioned on the roofs of homes and office buildings, or in space-consuming …
Albatross, Dragonflies, and Hummingbirds
Your editor took a trip to Tehachapi, once home of the infamous California Women’s’ Correctional Institution, mentioned in no less than three 1940’s films noirs. (It’s now a gray-bar hotel for bad boys, not bad girls.) Lesser offenses were in mind, though, since Labor Day weekend has been the time for 31 meetings of the Experimental Soaring Association’s Western Workshop. The group, devoted to improving sailplanes and testing the limits of soaring technology, has been in the forefront of many significant developments, and its members include many record holders and aerodynamics experts. This year’s convocation included talks on birds, dragonflies (the Libelle sailplane), and even a demonstration of Aerovironment’s spy hummingbird, a camera-toting drone no larger than a 90-percentile member of the Trochilidae family. Phil Barnes kicked off the Saturday talks, showing his incredible computer simulations of the dynamic soaring flight of the Albatross, which included an impassioned plea to help preserve this magnificent bird. He noted that “gyres” of plastic slurry distributed …
An Electric Helicopter Lifts Off – Briefly
Gizmag apparently beat everybody to this story, with even Popular Science quoting from the online gadget hunter’s web site. They report that in mid-August 2011, Pascal Chretien piloted his creation, a coaxial rotor, twin Lynch-motored helicopter that he built for Solution F, a Swiss racing engine development firm. He performed the flight “in the presence of a court appointed witness,” according to a press release from Lithium Balance, the firm that supplied the battery management system (BMS) for and acted as consultants to the project. The “first” Chretien claims is a carefully parsed one, an “untethered, fully electric manned helicopter flight in a prototype machine.” The fact that he designed and built a unique machine and flew it in a 12 month span makes the two minute, 10 second flight all the more remarkable. Solution F asked for a 10 to 12 minute flight, so more news will be coming, undoubtedly. As Lithium Balance notes, “With degrees in Electronics and …
Combining the Best of Batteries and Supercapacitors
The CAFE Blog has been tracking developments in batteries and supercapacitors for nearly the last two years, and the annual Electric Aircraft Symposia have attracted speakers on a wide range of innovations in these areas. Gizmag reminded us this week how much all of this may soon affect the ability of energy storage and power devices to change our world. Their report highlighted work on an energy storage system that combines the energy capacity of batteries with the power density and quick recharging capabilities of capacitors being done at Rice University, and linked that to research at the University of Illinois by Dr. Paul Braun on creating faster charging batteries with higher energy densities than currently possible. Gizmag then did a callback to something covered earlier by CAFE, the use of structural panels in electric vehicles as energy storage devices. Both researchers pointed to the big disappointment in electrical devices – batteries. They are either short-lived in their application or take …
Lifting Yourself by a Disappearing Thread
The University of Maryland announced the successful 11.4 second flight of an American human-powered helicopter with a female pilot – now the National record holder and successor to the first female flight on such a machine – 17 years ago. In 1994, your editor attended a human-powered aircraft symposium in Seattle at the Boeing Museum of Flight. Paul MacCready signed my copy of Gossamer Odyssey and I was official observer (for Chris Roper of the Royal Aeronautical Society) of the first female-powered helicopter flight. Ward Griffiths, a svelte young thing from a local bike shop, cranked the very similar (to Gamera) thing into the air for 8.6 seconds – a first and a female record at that time. A Japanese gentleman had done 15 seconds the day before and knocked the O. J. Simpson investigation off the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Flights took place in the Boeing 777 preparation hangar, while the big jet spooled up and taxied around outside. …
Embry Riddle Begins GFC Test Flights
On August 23, 2011, the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s Green Flight Challenge hybrid-powered modified Stemme S10, the Eco-Eagle, began its ground tests on the Daytona Beach International taxiways, “Getting ATC used to us!” The next day saw several ground-skimming “flights,” starting at 2-feet, and rising to 10 and 50-feet high runs, all with the gear down. The day’s flights ended with a trip around the pattern for the airport’s longest runway. August 25 saw a morning excursion of 45 minutes, with the airplane flying in the face of the approaching Hurricane Irene. Test pilot Mikhael Ponso reported beautiful clouds and no high winds during the seven laps around the field. As he tested the gear retraction and various flap settings, he was able to sort things out for the upcoming GFC flights in Santa Rosa, California during the last week in September. The school’s Eco-Eagle has a Rotax hybrid-power system originally developed for Flight Design, a German firm that builds …
Aero-PC and SolarWorld, Ford and SunPower Light Up Transportation
With electric aircraft showing the possibilities of a greener future, it’s rewarding to see similar efforts to produce cleaner, off-the-grid ground transportation. Calin Gologan had a gala week at AirVenture, speaking at the Electric Aircraft World Symposium to detail his Elektra One Green Flight Challenge entrant and to introduce his Elektra Two and Four two-seat and four-seat, respectively, electric aircraft. He was awarded the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize (LEAP) for the quietest electric aircraft by Erik Lindbergh, Charles’ grandson. Saturday, July 30 saw Norbert Lorenzen, test pilot for PC-Aero and owner of a flight school near Landshut, Germany, take Elektra One for a spin around the Oshkosh airspace. Note Molt Taylor’s Aerocar zipping by between the 15 and 18 second marks on the video. On the ground, the airplane was dollied out for takeoff,“overseen” by the capable Howard Handelman, who also noted something that Gologan had confirmed to Brien Seeley, President of the CAFE Foundation. The SolarWorld solar cells on …