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
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
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
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 …
PC-Aero’s Elektra One
Dipl. Ing. Calin Gologan, an exhibitor and presenter at this year’s E-Flight Expo at Friedrichshafen, will be at the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, discussing the design and technology he hopes will imbue the winning entry in next year’s Green Flight Challenge. He notes that the GFC, “the world’s largest prize…awarded in general aviation,” was a major incentive in his pressing forward with an environmentally conscientious design. His Elektra One is part his PC-Aero’s ambitious campaign to fly three different electric aircraft in the next few years, the single-seat “One,” two-seat “Two,”, and most ambitiously, a four-seat “Four.” With at least the shell of Elektra One at the Expo, Gologan is making good progress toward completion of his GFC machine, the prototype for the first of a line of production aircraft. Gologan’s goals are enunciated in his PC-Aero web site. “The Elektra One is environmentally friendly, because it flies without CO2 emissions. It is light and has a high end aerodynamics. Integrated are …
Gérard Thevenot Wins E-Flight Award at AERO 2010
With over 30 electrical flight exhibitors at Friedrichshafen, Germany’s Aero 2010 International Exposition for General Aviation, selection of this year’s E-Flight Award winner must have been particularly difficult. The”E”of the E-Flight portion of the huge show represents, “Electrical, Ecological and Evolutionary.” Thevenot’s machine is all those. Gérard Thevenot flew his hydrogen-powered ultralight “trike” across the English Channel in July, 2009 (“Man of La Manche”, October 29, 2009), with a Geiger/Eck HP-10 electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, “without the onboard presence of an accumulator or battery.” Showing his 55 kilogram (121 pounds), seven kilowatt (11 horsepower), 12 meter (37 feet) span ultralight at last year’s Expo, he went on to demonstrate its capabilities in the following months. Its light weight allows a consumption of only 550 grams per flight hour, and the craft’s 5-liter tank allows about one hour flying time. In an environmentally friendly hint of its passing, the craft leaves behind only a mist of water …
Solar Impulse – the Movie
Solar Impulse’s first flight was recorded and edited in fine style, which we share here, courtesy of the Solar Impulse project and YouTube. Note the apparent crosswind on landing, and Marcus Scherdel’s masterful handling of it. Note also that both outboard motors are shut down during the landing. A mere zephyr has a large effect on this beautiful, large, extremely slow craft. As the project’s backers note, the airplane has the size of an Airbus, the weight of a compact car, and the power of a scooter.
An Hour and 27 Minutes in the Sun
The press release and pictures tell a beautiful story. The CAFE Foundation offers its congratulations to the Solar Impulse team. This morning (April 7, 2010) at 10:27, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA took off from Payerne (VD) airfield on its maiden flight. Under the eyes of thousands of spectators from all over Switzerland, Solar Impulse HB-SIA slowly climbed up to 1200 meters. The next 87 minutes Solar Impulse test pilot Markus Scherdel spent familiarizing himself with the prototype’s flight behaviour and performing the initial flight exercises before making the first landing on the Vaudois tarmac. The execution of these various manoeuvres (turns, simulating the approach phase) was designed to get a feel for the aircraft and verify its controllability. “This first flight was for me a very intense moment!” exclaimed Solar Impulse test pilot Markus Scherdel, still under the emotion of the event, on stepping down from the aircraft. “The HB-SIA behaved just as the flight simulator told us! Despite its immense size …
Biofuels, But at What Cost?
Jasmine Green, writing in Care2 Causes.com (“The future of Biodiesel Fuels“) , explains that all is not as it seems in the quest for clean fuel alternatives. Many of the biofuel plants noted in this blog (see “EQ2 Has a High Fuel IQ”, February 11, 2010) are indeed being grown and are producing oil for fuel, but, as reported in Care2 Causes, at a cost to the overall environment. Citing Treehugger.com, she notes that Brazil is seeing ranchers being displaced to make way for the planting of oil-bearing plants, and that ranchers move further into the rain forest and deforest the area to raise cattle. This indirect deforestation contributes, according to Ms. Green, to 41 to 59 percent of all deforestation in the area. In Malaysia, deforestation for biofuel growth is leading to the loss of habitat for the country’s native fauna. In all cases, there is danger of destruction of bio-diversity, and substitution of fuel crops for food crops, …
The Future is Electric, and Attracting Attention
FlightGlobal.com, the online version of Flight International Magazine, has an overview of the electric aircraft scene in its April 6, 2010 release. Among the many producers and proponents of electric flight noted in the article, Dr. Brien Seeley of the CAFE Foundation is quoted extensively, as is Calin Gologan of PC-Aero in Germany, both to present at the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, at Rohnert Park, California on April 23 and 24. The article ponders the hopes of two hybrid electric aircraft powerplant developers, George Bye, featured in a February 21 entry in this blog, and Flight Design’s Oliver Reinhardt, the firm’s technical director. Both face the issue of retrofitting existing light planes with their new engines, and the challenge of obtaining supplemental type certification for such modifications. Highlighted is the 2011 Green Flight Challenge, in which an airplane achieving 200 seat miles per gallon at 100 mph (or an alternative energy equivalent mileage) can earn the CAFE Foundation’s $1.5 …