Need Electricity? Go Fly a Kite

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants Leave a Comment

What do JoeBen Bevirt and Benjamin Franklin have in common?  They both grew up without electricity and built kites to find it.  While being without electricity was the default condition in Franklin’s day, JoeBen was raised in a hippy commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Neither man found the deprivations of his youth to be an impediment to creativity.  The phrase that keeps popping up in articles about JoeBen Bevirt, founder of Joby, inc. and Joby Energy, is “inveterate inventor.”  Inveterate has the sense of growing old in one’s habits, something unlikely to happen to a truly inventive soul such as JoeBen.  Deviser of a knobby-looking grip that can be fastened to almost anything, and which can hold cameras, lights, and other photographic gear, Bevirt has seen his Gorillapod become a huge success, and expand into Gorillamobile and Gorillatorch versions, hands-free flexible tripods to hold cell phones, flashlights, and other personal electronic devices.    Earlier, he designed robotic systems to aid in biopharmaceutical …

Putting The Human in Human Factors

Dean Sigler GFC Leave a Comment

Part of the Green Flight Challenge is the provision of adequate human factors design in the cockpit of the projected airplane. One can only design in so much ergonomic and safety-minded concern for the pilot and passengers. The ultimate human factor is indeed human, a topic Dr. Key Dismukes handled quite ably at the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium. As noted in his NASA resume, “Dr. Dismukes is Chief Scientist for Human Factors in the Human Factors Research & Technology Division at NASA Ames Research Center (CV ). His current research addresses cognitive issues involved in the skilled performance of pilots, their ability to manage challenging situations, and their vulnerability to error. Among the topics investigated by his research group are prospective memory (remembering to perform deferred intentions), management of attention in concurrent task performance, and training crews to analyze their own performance.” His book, The Limits of Expertise: Rethinking Pilot Error and the Causes of Airline Accidents (Ashgate Studies …

Take a Powder, Get Empowered

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants Leave a Comment

Höganäs AB, a major Swedish specialist in powdered and sintered metals, has created a bicycle motor as a low cost, light weight, high performance unit for the Asian market. According to Höganäs Group CEO Alrik Danielson, “We chose the bicycle motor as a first application when introducing our new motor concept. The bicycle motor is very challenging, in terms of performance as well as cost, but we are confident that we have a unique product. It is lighter than other electric motors and in the e-bike it has a good range, up to 75 kilometres, thanks to high efficiency.” He sees the modular design as being adaptable to other applications, such as “scooters, other light weight electric vehicles, pumps, fans and generators.” The motor is made from recycled materials, with a stator from powder made from metal scrap, and “less rare earth magnets and copper wire than comparable conventional electric motors.”  Although no performance specifications were released, the benefits of …

Kitplanes Covers EAS IV

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Kitplanes, and its on-line sister, AVweb, covered the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium and generated a vido of the event, which includes a thoughtful interview with Dr. Brien Seeley, CAFE Foundation president. Expect to see more media coverage of CAFE Events as the Green Flight Challenge becomes a major aviation event in 2011.

Green Flight Challenge Competitors Come Together on Perlan Project

Dean Sigler GFC 1 Comment

The Cafe Foundation’s Green Flight Challenge, scheduled for 2011, has drawn some impressive competitors with its $1.5 million prize.  Two of these, Greg Cole of Windward Performance, who will field a two-seat motorglider, and Einar Enevoldson, leader of the PC-Aero team, which will launch its Elektra One (see “PC-Aero’s Elektra One,” April 11, 2010), are working together quite collegially on a challenge of their own. Before his death in 2007, adventurer Steve Fossett, with co-pilot Enevoldson, had set the sailplane world altitude record in Perlan I, a modified Glaser-Dirks DG-500.  In a continuation of that ambitious adventure, Einar, Greg, and Project Manager Morgan Sandercock are creating Perlan II, a pressurized sailplane that will explore the realm of the nacreous, or ‘mother of pearl” cloud (“perlan” is Icelandic for “pearl”), a shimmery mix of water vapor and other exotic chemicals in the polar vortex at 50,000 to 90,000 feet.  Their flight will not only set a world’s sailplane altitude record, but …

Synergy and Passion at EAS

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Feedback, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

John Palmerlee, Editor of The Flying Wire, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 124’s newsletter, wote this in the May 5, 2010 edition.   The CAFE Team hosted what was in my opinion a very successful event at the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park, April 23 and 24, 2010. Nearly thirty contributors from around the world spoke at the Electric Aircraft Symposium, and their message was clear: Change is coming… let’s get on board together. Electric airplanes and motorcycles, model airplanes, algae biofuel synthesis, wetlands initiatives, hybrid air carriers, battery breakthroughs, VTOL PAVs, tethered wind generators, flight systems analysis, nanostructures… and a mystery Green Flight Challenge aircraft promising to tap into new design paradigms. This was just a taste of the concepts spinning around at the EAS 2010. This meeting of minds was diverse yet connected, calculated yet passionate. Every presentation filled a preset time-slot, so each presenter’s WPM (words per minute) metered their content. It was a dizzying earful! As the …

The Battery Pack Builder with the Ceramic Wedding Ring

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants 1 Comment

The Killacycle Racing Team is led by two people, Bill Dube’, designer, builder, and driver of the world’s fastest electric motorcycle, and his wife, Eva Hakansson, crew chief and battery builder for the high-velocity two-wheeler.  Eva’s talk at the fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in Rohnert Park, California caused several stirs in the audience, and hinted at where battery technology might go in the future. Wanting to free electric vehicles from their “boring and slow” image, Eva seeks to make them “sexy and fast.” Pictures of her and Bill’s wedding, in which the bride wore traditional Swedish wedding garb and entered on a motorcycle, the ceremony took place in a motorcycle trailer, and for which both bride and groom wore ceramic wedding rings (necessary to prevent dead shorts while building battery packs and riding the 500 horsepower machine) show the domestic and the purpose-driven lives of both. Campaigning a high-performance vehicle of any kind, let alone a one-of-a-kind creation such …

Bagging Algae – Pollutants into Energy

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

For the Fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium on April 23 and 24 in Rohnert Park, California, Dr. Jonathan Trent was an ideal kickoff speaker. His work with NASA Ames Research Center on converting pollutants into algae-based biofuels could have long-term effects on cleaning up our planet’s air and water, and provide byproducts that will help to feed the 900,000,000 who go hungry every day.  As he notes, “Unless we go electric, we must move to low-carbon fuels.” The problem is not a new one.  As musical satirist Tom Lehrer wrote in his 1960’s plea for emissions control, “Pollution, Pollution,” “The breakfast garbage that you throw in to the bay/They drink as lunch in San José.” Dr. Trent, a PhD. in Marine Biology, has a solution called OMEGA, “Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae.” Explaining that the wastewater treatment plant on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay dumps 300,000 gallons of effluent each day, Trent notes that capturing that waste and performing a …

Summer Flights for Electraflyer X

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

According to AVweb.com, Randall Fisher of Electraflyer had his two-seat Electraflyer X on view all week at Sun ‘n Fun in the Greenspace display area, devoted to environmental consciousness and green products.  Fishman flew the single-seat Electraflyer C – a modified Moni ultralight – daily, and a team member flew the company’s electric trike regularly.  Most exciting, Fishman is projecting motor testing and test flights of the X this summer, with series production of a kit version to follow, and release of a light sport aircraft, factory-built version as soon as permission can be granted by the FAA.  From earlier discussions with Fishman, this airplane should be competitive in performance and cost with the Yuneec E-430. As icing on the cake, Fishman displayed a small, half-coffee-can size motor, reputed to put out 20 horsepower. This motor can be paired or tripled in an in-line configuration to generate 40 or 60 horsepower, a select-a-size boon to potential electric aircraft designers. Fishman holds …

FES at Friedrichshafen

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

The Front Electric Sustainer motor system, developed by Slovenian father and son entrepreneur team Matija and Luka Znidarsic, was on display at the E-Flight Expo, part of the larger Friedrichshafen Aero 2010 show.  Both are graduates in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ljubljana.   This system, described in an earlier entry (“Power Up Front,” November 1, 2009), is meant to provide power for a sailplane that is launched by other means, such as an aerotow or winch.  Its light weight does not detract from the normal performance of the sailplane, but does enhance safety, with the pilot able to start the motor and power away into a modest climb if necessary to save a flight. In response to this editor’s naive questions, Luka responded, “No, there is no problem with scraping the fuselage!  Stopping is very soft, and at run blades open immediately.“ He notes that the propeller is visibly improved, “As attachment bolts are now inside of spinner, and so not visible, and aerodynamically more …