Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google to bring historic firsts to aviation Aviation’s largest ever prize to be awarded at Moffett Field October 3 during exposition hosted by NASA SANTA ROSA, CA (July 29, 2011) – The CAFE Foundation announced today that Google will sponsor the NASA Centennial Challenge flight competition known as the Green Flight Challenge (GFC). CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency) will conduct the event from September 25 through October 2, 2011 at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. The NASA-funded prize purse of $1.65M makes this the largest ever prize for aviation. Competing aircraft must demonstrate at least 100 mph and 200 passenger MPG on a 200 mile flight. The aircraft in the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google represent a diverse mix of singular prototypes created expressly for the competition by some of the world’s top designers. Most will be propelled by batteries and electric motors, some by bio-fuel or hybrid. All competing aircraft will be …
Elektra One Flies Into Oshkosh with Solar Cells
As described before in this blog, PC-Aero’s Elektra One is a single-seat electric airplane with an Eck/Geiger 13.5 kilowatt motor in the nose, and now at least partially solar powered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r03nim-6qBw&feature=related Designer Calin Gologan gives a walkthrough of the design features which make Elektra One such an efficient airplane, and one likely to give other competitors in the Green Flight Challenge a good run. While he describes the thin carbon-fiber shells which comprise the airplane’s primary structure, notice the light shining through. That thinness helps explain Elektra One’s 100 kilogram (220 pounds) empty weight, only about 100 pounds of which is structure. The motor is 4.7 kilogram (10.34 pounds) and the controller is a 270 gram (9-1/2 ounce) model airplane marvel. Batteries can add up to 100 kilograms and the pilot another 100 kilograms, making the strength-to-weight ratio of the craft rather impressive, and its payload carrying abilities among the greatest for flying machines. Gologan claims a maximum range of 500 …
A Very Long Towline
John Carpinelli has a lofty vision, borne on gossamer threads that would pull giant cargo planes into the heights. We’re familiar with the rapid ascent of a sailplane on a winch tow, pitching up into a fighter-like climb and dropping off the towline at some predetermined altitude. What if the tow ropes were attached to a large, electrically-propelled airplane, pulling a heavy jet transport to a point several kilometers above its launch? It’s not as wild-eyed as it sounds – at least according to the CleanTech Open organizers. The Cleantech Open is an organization looking to find, fund and foster startup companies in green industries, and chose Electric Takeoff, Carpinelli’s firm, as a semifinalist in the Transportation category in their recent competition. Basing his work at least partially on the “bucket drop” technique created by missionary pilot and martyr Nate Saint, Carpinelli has the advantage of a degree in electrical engineering and the historical work of others who took the …
Carplane – German for BiPod?
Carplane is an innovative enterprise in Braunschweig, Germany, intent on producing a hybrid vehicle that, while it resembles the Rutan Model 367 BiPod, differs in significant ways. The company’s “pitch” is similar to those from other roadable car developers since the Waterman Aerobile or Taylor AeroCar. “Imagine the daily commute without transfers, exits, congestion, or missed connections,” the German Center for Research and Innovation envisions. “As an aircraft that can also drive on roads, the Carplane® will head for its destination in a beeline without detours or stop-and-go traffic. Located in Lower Saxony, Germany, and under the general management of Angela Fleck, herself a pilot, the Carplane GmbH is in the process of building such a dual-mode vehicle. Designed as a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), requiring only 20 hours of instruction to fly, commercial applications will include recreation, business travel, and emergency service.” Like the BiPod, Carplane has a twin cockpit catamaran-like fuselage arrangement, a “hybrid” power system, and the …
How Many iPods in a BiPod?
David Bettencourt, a defense attorney in Hawaii and a regular reader of the blog, sent this note about Burt Rutan and his early interest in hybrid power for aircraft. According to David, “A July 2000 Road & Track interview of Burt Rutan regarding the hybrid Honda Insight might be of interest. It stated: “Does he see any application of hybrid propulsion for airplanes? An innocent question, although it leaves Rutan unusually silent. ‘Gee, maybe I shouldn’t disclose this in Road & Track. But at the risk of someone else doing this first, let me tell you about an airplane that would be really interesting to do. This is fascinating….’ “Rutan leans back and stares into middle distance. ‘Visualize an electric airplane with enough batteries to climb to about 500 feet. Actually, it would have several small electric motors with small propellers scattered all around the airplane—some on the tail, some on the wings—so if one motor seized, it’s just a …
World’s First Electric Amphibian
Just days after flying his electric Lazair for the first time, Dale Kramer attached a float, outriggers, and retractable landing gear to his ultralight craft, took off from the grass field near his home, and flew to a nearby lake to make his first water landings and takeoffs. He even managed to ridge soar the aircraft and stalk floating ducks. Having designed the Lazair 30 years ago, Kramer was heavily involved in the burgeoning ultralight movement, and over 1,200 of the twin-engined craft were built. Today, he’s taking a lead in creating a low-cost ultralight electric flyer, topping the considerable accomplishment with a true world first – a twin-motored ultralight electric amphibian. He uses a pair of Joby JM1 motors, monitored by Eagle Tree instuments mounted to a piece of wood that was part of Kramer’s house in Hammondsport, New York. The house, Kramer found after living there nine years, was once home to Glenn Curtiss, chief rival to the Wright Brothers …
A Useful Spreadsheet and GFC Handicapping Tool
For analyzing the greatest economy from an aircraft’s design, Howard Handelman, a highly-engaged reader of this blog, provides a link to his web site, which includes a downloadable spreadsheet he has devised that will give the inquiring reader hours of enjoyment. Handelman, self-described as, “just a retired IT guy,” with “weak math skills,” but a “compulsively curious” nature, has devised a tool for analyzing any airplane’s performance based on a few known variables, and which he has applied to many of the Green Flight Challenge’s aircraft. The basis for his analyses is his “triangle tool,” a wedge that can be used to help design propellers, “test [the] truth” of claimed aircraft performance, and estimate brake horsepower in real life circumstances (at least within the parameters of the triangle tool). Handelman notes that some aircraft, including those with laminar flow, will “not fit the model very well because they don’t fit the V-squared curve. Synergy won’t look anything like the model.” His findings …
Electric Gull Flies at Arlington
The annual fly in at Arlington, Washington was an electric landing zone for Mark Beierle’s Gull 2000, powered by his own design 20-kilowatt motor. The 36-coil, 42 magnet disk, weighing 16 pounds, is mounted on a truss arrangement behind the airplane’s high wing, and drives a ground-adjustable pusher propeller. Flying five half-hour demonstration flights during the half-week event accounted for almost half the six hours total time on the airplane so far. The airplane has a 74-Volt Rhino Lithium-polymer battery pack made up to 11 packs in a parallel/series arrangement. Beierle says this array, and taking voltage from the ends of each 3.7-Volt series pack, allows balancing of all 210 cells. Power is run through a 500-Amp Kelly controller, which weighs about 12 pounds: Beierle hopes to try a new Kelly unit which will be half that weight and less expensive. Battery protection is provided by circuits in the charger, which will be the same Kelly unit Beierle uses in recharging his …
Serge Pennec, the Gaz’aile, and the 56 Euro Grand Buffet
Americans often speak of the $100 hamburger, the food of choice at some airport café a Cessna hour away from one’s home base. The trip to eat and return often accounts for that sum, with avgas stretching toward $6.00 per gallon. Imagine, then, making a coast-to-coast trip across one’s native land, surveying a dazzling array of scenic delights and partaking of French cuisine along the way – all for not quite that amount. Europe abounds in small, turbocharged Diesel automobiles, sometimes zippy little things that exhibit excellent fuel economy. Many of these cars strive for the “3-liter” designation – the ability to drive 100 kilometers (62 miles) on three liters of fuel (78.4 miles per gallon) and the European Union is pushing toward 95 grams of CO2 emissions per kilometer by 2020. Serge Pennec has built several airplanes using these torquey engines, creating a means of traversing distances cheaply and as greenly as possible. Diesels consume their heavier fuel more frugally than …
Big Frog Diesel Racer – A Different Kind of Green
There are only 10 Nemesis NXT racers in the world, and one happens to be in France, getting tuned up to compete in this year’s Reno Air Races in about 10 weeks. On display last month at the Paris Air Show, the lightweight, carbon-fiber racer lacked the usual Lycoming IO-540 engine, a six-cylinder powerplant that cruises the 1,500 pound two-seater at 325 miles per hour. Aviation International News Online’s Olivia Saucier reported, “The Big Frog racer is getting attention for more than just its tongue-in-cheek patriotic name. The French aircraft is the first carbon-fiber race plane to run on a Diesel engine powered purely by jet-A fuel. And it is turning heads here at the Le Bourget show. “Big Frog is the brainchild of three pilots–Frank Doyen, Mario Soave and Willy Gruhier – who dreamed up the project in 2005. They wanted to prove that a high-performance aircraft with a Diesel engine could win the prestigious Reno National Championship Air …