ZeroAvia, maker of hydrogen-Electric powerplants for zero-emission aviation, has been selected to partner with Natilus, “a leading innovator in designing and developing new autonomous blended-wing-body (BWB) cargo aircraft.” Kona, smallest of the pack, will carry a 3.8-ton (7,600-pound), while Natilus’ web site shows three additional BWBs, jumping to 60, 100, and 130 tons cargo-carrying capacity and maximum takeoff weights of up to nearly a million pounds. For a fact sheet on all the designs, click here. As an option to conventional turboprops, two ZeroAvia’s ZA600s producing 600 kilowatts (804 horsepower) each will power Kona, with its 26-meter (85-foot) wingspan capable of carrying its load 900 nautical miles (1,667 kilometers) at a cruising speed of 220 knots (407 kilometers) per hour. Natilus claims its range of BWB’s will 60-percent more cargo volume than traditional aircraft for the same weight giving 60-percent lower total cost of operations and 50-percent lower CO2 emissions. In terms of operating costs, Natilus’ largest craft come in …
Zeva Aero’s Zero Test Flight in Full Size
While waiting for Eviation Alice’s first test flight, we got a glimpse of another type of electric aviation in Pacific Northwest skies. Zeva Aero’s Zero single “seat” flying saucer lifted off in someone’s sunny back yard for a series of hops. The overlay of soft music keeps us from knowing how noisy this thing is, and it would be of interest to know if it passed the good neighbor test while levitating, and whether the eight motors and propellers hummed or screamed. (NOTE: since the video of the flight test has been removed from YouTube, we’re substituting the company campaign video. Founded in 2017 “to compete in the Boeing GoFly competition and then build a business on the back of that effort,” Zeva is the brain-child of Stephen Tibbits and Ben Gould. Tibbits, a serial entrepreneur, has started at least four other companies and he and Gould now lead a team of 25. Their mission statement seems a bit familiar …
Eather One – When Friction is a Good Thing
Tribolectrics Your editor has long promoted the idea of the Grand Unified Airplane, a vehicle which would essentially power itself from sunlight, piezoelectrics, structural batteries, and even the friction of the air over its surfaces. He wrote about the concept in the May, 2013 Kitplanes, and has noted an increasing number of articles in scientific journals describing a variety of nanogenerators, including tribolectric types. Tribolectrics are not new, having been discovered in the 18th century and initially quantified by Johan Carl Wilcke, a Swedish Physicist in 1757. “Tribo” comes from the Greek for “rub,” and as shown in the following video, even the rubbing of air over a surface can generate electricity. Note that about the 1:25 point Dr. Wang blows across the nanogenerator and lights up the LEDs. Taking that idea and running with it, Warsaw-based designer Michal Bonikowski designed the Eather One to run on electricity generated during the airplane’s movement through the air. As exotic as it …