(Mostly) Borne on the Wind Across Australia

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Wind surfing across southern Australia, a German team showed ingenuity and skill in a 3,000 mile journey that, as their web site boasts, used “no electricity mains, no gasoline,” and produced “zero CO2.” TG Daily and Gizmag announced the successful crossing of Australia (Albany to Sydney) by a wind-powered car.  Although the car carried a telescoping mast and small wind turbine to recharge its 8 killowatt hour lithium battery pack, the two designer/drivers were forced to plug in to available sources from time to time, accounting for the $15 cost of the powering the expedition.  When possible, they towed the 200 kilogram (440 pound) car with a kite. The Wind Explorer web site proclaims that “Plan[ning] your route with the Wind Explorer is… unique pioneering.  But behind it, how efficient, autonomous and environmentally friendly mobility today can be!” Especially if you are an accomplished kite flyer.  Even more outré than their portable wind turbine, the team used a large kite …

Are Wind Turbines Bad for Aviation?

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It would be a supreme irony if a part of environmentally-positive power production halted the possibility of “green” aviation by making it unsafe to be in the skies.  Luckily, this might not be the major problem some perceive, and solutions are in place or being developed.   For a brief time last April the United States Air Force held up construction of an eastern Oregon wind farm that will be the largest in America.  Concerned with the possible interference that 300 new giant wind turbines might cause for radar station transmissions in an otherwise remote part of the state, the Air Force stepped in.  That was a short-lived interruption, with Oregon’s Senators countering with concerns about the 706 jobs, $130 million in taxes to local counties over two decades and $2.7 million in royalty payments to farmers and ranchers that would be lost by shutting down the project, even though the Federal Aviation Administration issued a “notice of presumed hazard” that halted construction of towers …

Something(s) Amazingly New Under the Sun

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To share an idea of how packed with information and inspiration an Electric Aircraft Symposium can be, I’m still writing reports on the fourth annual event, even though EAS V is coming up April 29 in Santa Rosa, California.  This is the next-to-last blog entry on last year’s presentations, and as noted in yesterday’s press release for the event, 2011’s will have at least as many presenters and material. Tyler MacCready is the son of Paul MacCready, founder of AeroVironment, Inc. and inspiration for many human-powered, ultralight, and solar-powered aircraft over the last several decades.  This author was in England when Bryan Allen pedaled Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel, a breakthrough in what was considered aerodynamically and structurally possible.  At age 14, Tyler had been the test pilot for the Albatross.  Such experiences led to his early work in solar-powered aircraft, as he told attendees at the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium. Tyler was there as part of AeroVironment’s …

5th Annual CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium Launches New Age of Flight

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Dr. Brien Seeley, founder and President of the CAFE Foundation, shares this important news. SANTA ROSA, CA.—On April 29-30, 2011, an outstanding faculty from NASA, industry and academia will present the technologies necessary to inaugurate the Age of Electric Flight.  The 5th Annual CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium (EAS V) will reveal how safe, emission-free, 2-4 seat electric aircraft could soon make a doorstep-to-doorstep round trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a single battery charge at nearly twice the overall trip speed of airline travel.  The latest breakthroughs in energy storage, motors, quiet propulsion, powered lift, electronic pilot assistance, autonomous flight and aerodynamics will be presented along with proposals for how they can transform transportation. EAS V will again network its faculty with the attendees, including venture capitalists, leaders of the aircraft industry, government researchers and aviation enthusiasts in the highly successful evening Theme Dinners in the Grand Ballroom of the Flamingo Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa, California.  As …

Genomics and Sunlight Equal Fuel

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

AvWeb.com has turned a moderately skeptical eye on a new energy development that would sound too good to be true if it weren’t for the prominent names involved.  John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff, is on the Board of Directors – and even more convincing, George Church, sequencer of the human genome, is a founder of and science advisor to the firm, Joule Unlimited, Inc. Their web site has more registered trademarks than Burger King*, including Liquid Fuel from the Sun™, Helioculture™, SolarConverter™, and direct-to-end-product™.  Joule’s technology promises Diesel or ethanol liquid fuels in huge amounts, using “proprietary organisms” to directly convert CO2 struck by sunlight into replacements for existing fossil fuels.  According to Joule, “Our technology has already been proven with the direct conversion of CO2 to liquid hydrocarbons and ethanol, avoiding the economic and environmental burden of multi-step, petroleum- or biomass-dependent methods.”  Claiming “commercial-ready” status, Joule says its interconnected components are “scalable and customizable to any desired …

Thrust Testing Wingtip Puffers

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Oliver Garrow, President of Garrow Aircraft, LLC in Mountain View, California, has been developing the Verticopter® concept for the last several years, and made a dinner presentation on his design at last year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium. Garrow’s Verticopter uses pivoting motors to provide vertical and horizontal thrust, with tip and tail thrusters fine tuning low-speed maneuvering capabilities. Verticopters will come in all sizes, with a single-seater ultralight as an entry-level machine and an inexpensive way to test the concept, especially when one uses a low-cost model aircraft motor unit from Turnigy (distributed by HobbyKing in Hong-Kong, P/N CA120-70), and a SPIN 300 Optically-isolated electronic speed controller (ESC) from Jeti for power – at least for the wing-tip thrusters.  The motor shown costs a mere $299 for its promised 20 horsepower, while similar German and American units run over $1,000, with similarly high prices for controllers. Testing shown in the video was carried out with lithium-polymer battery packs arranged in a 16S2P configuration …

Rising Oil Prices a “Wake-up Call”

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With revolt and possible revolution threatening the shutdown of the Suez Canal and driving crude oil prices up, a recent article in Flight Global merits reflection. Flight Global’s lead sums up a threat and a hope in one tidy paragraph.  “The International Energy Agency raised an alarming note as our power-hungry lives got back into gear after the holidays.  ‘Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy. The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil-consuming countries and to the oil producers,’ it said.” With fuel prices at the end of 2010 up one-fifth over those at the end of 2009, ticket prices necessarily follow, with the danger of lower passenger loads, fewer flights, and generally diminished convenience and economy for air travellers.    Some carriers such as RyanAir, already notorious for suggesting pay toilets on their airliners, tactically hedge by buying an oil company’s future reserves …

$1.50 a Gallon, Carbon-Free, and Maybe?

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Gizmag readers responded pretty much equally with hope and skepticism to today’s story on Cella Energy’s announcement of their hydrogen-based, emissions-free fuel that would power your car for $1.50 a gallon.  One asked if it were April 1 yet.  Others held out more charitable views of the announcement, and perhaps deservedly so. Cella’s diagram compares bulky high-pressure storage with room-temperature, ambient-pressure storage solution Cella is partially a spinoff of Oxford University’s ISIS programs, named for the Egyptian goddess of magic and life and overflowing with demonstrated successes.  We’ve reported on their Yokeless And Segmented Armature (YASA™) topology motor, a 34-centimeter (13.4 inches) diameter, 7-centimeter (2.76 inches) thick, 11 kilogram (23.2 pound) marvel that can produce a peak 100 kilowatts and 700 Nm (516 foot-pounds) of peak torque.  Cella’s web site claims several important factors that would lead to success, including: “Hydrogen fuels for vehicle you can pump like regular gasoline at room temperature and pressure, safer to use than gasoline or …

Boeing’s PhantomEye Powers Up

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

While AeroVironment’s Global Observer High Altitude Long Endurance aircraft has flown at the NASA Dryden Flight Test Center, Boeing’s PhantomEye HALE is in pieces but undergoing testing prior to being shipped to Dryden.  PhantomEye’s hydrogen-fueled engines are being tested at Santa Clarita, California and airframe parts are being prepared for flight at Boeing’s St. Louis, Missouri plant.   AeroVironment’s craft has now flown with fuel cells providing electricity to run the four wing-mounted motors.  PhantomEye uses hydrogen stored in eight-foot diameter tanks in its fuselage to directly fuel the twin Ford 2.3-liter modified engines.  At altitude, a three-stage turbocharger will be required to provide air for an efficient fuel burn. Both unmanned aerial vehicles have similar missions, to fly at 65,000 feet for up to a week at a time while providing surveillance, monitoring, and communication for military and civilian applications.

Garbage to Gasoline, Waste to Wattage?

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Dr. Seeley provided several links that reminded this writer of an earlier effort to convert the debris of our affluence into something other than effluent. A Daily Press report from December 21, 2010 by Cory Nealon, showed that at least one lawmaker is aware that there is a “green” aviation industry.  “U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is spearheading a potential multibillion-dollar endeavor to make Hampton Roads a leader in the emerging field of green aviation. “The effort, which would draw on the region’s rich history of aeronautics research, is in its initial stages of development, Warner said Tuesday. “Preliminary plans include tapping NASA Langley Research Center and partner organizations, such as the National Institute of Aerospace and Science and Technology Corp., all of which are based in Hampton.” The local nature of Senator Warner’s efforts is informative, considering the global nature of climate change and shrinking fossil fuel energy supply issues that must be addressed. Kerry Reals, writing in Flight Global, forecasts …