Chip Yates is used to going fast, having obtained a private pilots certificate in a mere two months, and test flying an electric Long-Eze conversion (Long-ESA) within two weeks of that, but he didn’t count on making the world’s fastest electric aircraft emergency landing during a record-breaking speed run at Inyokern, California’s desert airport on July 19. With only 58 hours in his log book, Chip managed to make the runway for a bumpy but great touchdown – a great landing being one following which you can reuse the airplane. We’ve reported that event already, but Chip just released a great video of the white-knuckle event.
To help document his record 202.6 mph flight, Chip’s airplane was well instrumented, carried several cameras, and had a chase plane to provide eye-witness oversight.
In the two months he and fabrication partner Chris Parker of CPR Fabrication converted a Long-Eze into the world’s most powerful electric airplane (258 horsepower – 58 more than Green Flight Challenge winner, Pipistrel’s G4).
Chip will speak Friday, July 27th at 10:30am at AirVenture 2012 in the Innovation Hangar South, and then deliver a full-length technical presentation in the afternoon at 1:00pm in the Innovation Hangar South to review on-board telemetry and data from the record-setting flight. He’ll be able to enlighten anticipated crowds on the dead cell that shortened his base leg and forced an early turn to final.
After that, he’ll be back to Inyokern and more than likely go after speed and altitude records for electric aircraft while preparing for his planned tran-Atlantic flight in 2014.
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Congrats to Chip for another safe landing…
At this year’s fourth EAA Conference on Electric powered flight, I really enjoyed his animated presentation as to how his flight of the century is going to happen by doing in flight recharging of his yet to be built aircraft (with a 2014 launch no less)… I leave it to others here to discuss the practicality of that effort… but find humor that we Electric Aircraft Innovators now have our own Evel Knievel to show us the way…
Folks.. let us stay focused not on who is to be first, but who is to finally get it right (Boeing vs Lindbergh)… What we learned at this EAA event, the future of aviation is “electric” and the future of electric flight is VTOL aircraft, and the future of Electric VTOLs must be hydrogen as the energy source. And the future of that must be the generation of the hydrogen within the aircraft itself during those many hours that most planes sit in the hangar… There are a dozen ways of doing that, and I hope Dr. Mark Moore at NASA Langley will be permitted to show us his approach to a hydrogen fueled VTOLs… He is my Sensei…”Do.. not try”.