Where Are They Now?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants Leave a Comment

Two automotive teams on epic journeys we’ve reported on previously are making great progress toward their goals. The Vislab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge is in Samara, Russia, a few hundred miles north of the Kazakhstan border.  An ostensibly driverless tour from Parma, Italy to Shanghai, China is planned to arrive at its destination on October 10, 2010, 21 days before the end of the World Expo being held there.  On the way, two pairs of vehicles are testing Vislab’s goal “to move goods between two continents with non-polluting vehicles powered by green energy and with virtually no human intervention.” As noted in this blog, the Italian team is running two pairs of Piaggio vans on a route emulating but not duplicating Marco Polo’s 13th century trek to China and back.  Polo spent much of the first part of the voyage on a ship and docked near Iraq’s western borders before setting off inland.  After 24 years on the road, he returned to …

Buckeyes Bullet to Record

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Engineering and design students with Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research heated the Bonneville Salt Flats August 23, 2010 with a speed record for electric vehicles on the famed white wasteland – 307.66 miles per hour for the average of two one-mile runs.  The Buckeye Bullet BBV2.5 flew through the flying mile at 320 mph under the experienced hand of Roger Schroer, a professional race driver who has worked with the University team for the last six years.  The Buckeyes await certification of their record by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, the worldwide motor sports governing body. The team comprises graduate and undergraduate students in multiple engineering disciplines.  Center Director Giorgio Rizzoni acts as team advisor, undergraduate David Cooke is team leader, graduate mechanical engineer Gary Bork heads up the grads, Rob Ewing is mechanical leader, and graduate electrical engineer R. J. Kromer is the electrical leader. Graphic design major Kelly Hartnett keeps the world updated on team activities through …

Green Flight Challenge: Elektra One Progress

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Dipl. Ing. Calin Gologan, President of PC-Aero, showed the completed version of Elektra One, a Green Flight Challenge contender, at Friedrichshafen’s Expo for Sustainable Mobility in June. Over the last two years, PC-Aero has designed a series of light, electric-powered aircraft.  As Gologan explains, “Using the existent technology it is possible to fly with a one- and a two-seat aircraft without CO2-emission for more than 3 hours, without noise and for lower operation costs in comparison with classic aircrafts. This is the future of leisure aviation as a bridge to the next step: electric transportation.” Just two months after its debut at Aero 2010, Elektra One graced the halls again as part of “The Electric Avenue”.  Surrounded by electric vehicles of every description, the single seater showed off its nicely faired landing gear, and hinted at the powerplant under its smooth cowling – an HPD 13.5 kilowatt (18.4 horsepower) motor normally associated with hang gliders and powered parachutes.  PC-Aero notes 21 …

Ultralight and Electric – The Red Tail Hawk

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 3 Comments

Many of us dream of retiring and pursuing the dreams that sustained us during our careers.  One man has done that with the kind of work ethic that makes retirement highly productive.  He maintains two web sites; a Yahoo group dedicated to his latest homebuilt electric sailplane, and a more inclusive overview of his many aeronautical projects. Jerry Booker took early retirement from the architectural technology profession, and having grown up on a farm, “enjoyed ‘green’ living, with a lot of physical activity, and now [lives] in the farm country in central Illinois.” Designing and building even a simple airplane is a task that requires the willingness to learn and explore new ideas, and if that craft includes an electric powerplant, a willingness to experiment at a fairly high level.  Jerry reports, “I always had an interest in research, design, and development, and am mostly self-educated from reading and trying things. “In addition to Alex Strojnik, I got a lot from the …

HALE Another: AeroVironment’s Global Observer

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We reported last month on Boeing’s High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle, the Phantom Eye.  Now AeroVironment’s similar HALE, the Global Observer, is undergoing initial flight testing at NASA Dryden Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. Meant to provide “persistent” communications and remote sensing capabiliies for military or civilian applications, the less-than-10,000-pound Global Observer can carry 400-pound payloads to 65,000 feet and stay there for a week on its four electric motors, which resemble larger versions of  the Astro-Flight motors used on Helios, Pathfinder, and other AeroVironment craft. Missions, according to the firm, include “low cost, rapidly deployable telecommunications infrastructure and GPS augmentation; hurricane and storm tracking, weather monitoring, wildfire detection, and sustained support for relief operations; and aerial imaging and mapping for commercial and environmental monitoring, agriculture crop management and harvesting optimization.” The airplane’s cruising altitude and “field of view” place it between smaller, tactical reconnaissance craft and satellites. It’s 175-foot wingspan, large cargo pod …

Dr. Jaephil Cho’s Powerful Silicon Nanotubes

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Shortly before appearing at the fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium at Rohnert Park, California, Dr. Jaephil Cho was interviewed by Esther Levy of Material Views, an online resource dealing with, as the title implies, high-technology materials.  Dr. Cho, Dean of the new Interdisciplinary School of Green Energy at Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST), works with lithium-ion cells, and along with Dr. Yi Cui of Stanford University, is considered among the most forward thinking researchers in the field. Where Dr. Cui’s efforts are related to development of better cathodes, Dr. Cho’s work focuses on improving anode performance. Their efforts have led to an 80-percent improvement in cathode performance, as reported in Dr. Cui’s presentation at EAS III, and a 62-percent improvement in anode performance, according to Dr. Cho’s report at EAS IV. Considering that “normal” battery advancement has been on the order of 10 percent per year for the last few decades, either of these announcements should be …

CAFE News: NASA’s Colloquia Feature Dr. Seeley

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col·lo·qui·um (n.) 1. An informal meeting for the exchange of views. 2. An academic seminar on a broad field of study, usually led by a different lecturer at each meeting. The Free Dictionary CAFE Foundation President Dr. Brien Seeley spoke by invitation at the Sigma Series Colloquium at NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia on May 4th. His talk had an illustrious heritage as part of the longest-running science colloquia in America, beginning 50 years ago with a presentation by Werner von Braun, and since then including talks by Carl Sagan, Alex Haley, Neil Armstrong and other notables. Dr. Seeley was interviewed by NASA public relations TV and a local news station. Although not used to being treated like a celebrity, he found that, “People seem to think CAFE is latched on to an exciting future.” His talk focused on themes he has been developing for years – time wasted in traffic, the burden of maintaining the freeway/highway/urban sprawl infrastructure, the oil consumed …

Making Good Use of “Underutilized Space”

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Airports and air bases occupy lots of space, especially if they have crossing runways.  The acreage consumed to protect the public from the long narrow strips of asphalt or concrete can be considerable.  Making good use of the “waste” space might make airports more economically viable.  Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base is planning to use its space to generate electricity through solar power, just as Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base has since 2007.  According to the Associated Press, the “Arizona Public Service Co. has announced plans for the largest solar installation on U.S. government property.”  The 15-megawatt solar power plant will be 1 mW larger than the system at Nellis, and will be online by next summer.   52,000 tracking solar panels located on 101 acres on the Base will supply about 50 percent of the facility’s electrical needs, or the equivalent required for 3,750 Arizona homes. The project will create 550 jobs and remove 19,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, according to …

Power From the People

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GENeco, a United Kingdom waste treatment company, announced its new green alternative to fossil fuels – the methane from waste treatment plants.  Proposed over 40 years ago in the U. S., the energy source was ignored as an automotive (and potential aircraft fuel) for four decades because it was too “dirty” a fuel (insert obligatory joke here), although GENeco has been able to remove CO2  that would otherwise be problematical in an economical enough way to allow its use in vehicles. The company’s web site explains their expertise in such matters.  “Part of the Wessex Water group of companies, GENeco has the resources, experience, skills and financial strength to offer secure, long-term commitment to businesses, organisations and the agricultural sector looking to become more environmentally friendly. “Generating around 35GWh of electricity a year, with the exception of landfill gas, we are producing more electricity than all the other forms of renewable energy combined in the region we operate, which includes Dorset and the former …

Smart Skies Down Under

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants 1 Comment

Mr Richard R. Glassock holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with honors, and supervises undegraduate unmanned aerial vehicle projects at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) with the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA). He currently leads the “Smart Skies” unmanned aerial systems flight-testing program and is working on his Master’s Thesis. At the Twenty-Fourth Bristol International Unmanned Air Vehicle Systems Conference, in 2009, Bristol United Kingdom he presented a detailed paper on a parallel hybrid system using off the shelf model aircraft components he and his associates designed and tested. “Multimodal Hybrid Powerplant for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Robotics” shows the use of an OS 10 cc model airplane engine, combined with a Plettenberg 220 motor. His group found that climb rates of the combined powerplants were improved 56 percent over that for an internal-combustion engine only, and that endurance increased by 13 percent, based on the combined efficiencies of the hybrid components. Richard is a regular reader of …