Airflow Moves toward Full Scale eCSTOL, AI

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Airflow, a recent entry into the electric conventional short takeoff and landing (eCSTOL) market, is pushing forward into fielding a full-scale demonstrator.  They are also testing the limits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in nailing their landings. Airflow’s mission is spelled out in big ideas and bold fonts. “Freight without the wait.  The first electric Short Take Off and Landing (eSTOL) aircraft for middle-mile logistics.  1 pilot, 500 lbs of cargo, 0 lbs of CO2.” Airflow’s concept illustrations show a twin-boom pusher with 10 distributed electric motors along the wing’s leading edge.  Trying out their ideas for extremely short takeoffs and landings will fall to a modified Cessna 210.  In the meantime, the team is advancing its concept at this time with a model Cessna 150 and showing some success at nailing their landings.  Airflow calls its pilot assistance program, “Virtual Tailhook,” and it seems to serve that purpose in making landings possible in a tight space. Videos show the progress …

Archer Aviation Gets Fiat Chrysler Backing

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Another eVTOL?  Among the many battery- and solar-powered entries at this year’s (virtual) Consumer Electronics Show, Archer Aviation has entered the electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (EVTOL) market with Fiat Chrysler backing.  It’s being discreet about it, however, and reveals little detail. The company willingly shares its mission statement, though.  “To fix traffic and create a fully renewable transportation solution, we’re designing, manufacturing, and operating advanced electric aircraft that can travel 60 miles at 150 mph, all with today’s technology.” They present only one picture of their design, a head-on shot on a black backdrop.  We can see the six large rotors blanketing the leading edge of the wing, but wonder how and where the six vertical lift rotors are hiding. eVTOL Insights provides more information on the planned craft’s specifications: Aircraft type: eVTOL Piloting: Will be piloted in the beginning and will have autonomous capability in the future Capacity: 4 Cruise speed: 150 mph (241 km/h) Range: 60 miles …

John Langford’s New Direction

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

John Langford has been a leading exponent of new directions in aeronautical technology.  From his work as project manager with MIT’s human-powered Daedalus project to his executive leadership with Aurora Technologies, he has crafted electric, autonomous, and downright astonishing vehicles.   The following video is long, but insightful and exciting.   We see Langford in several early scenes. Having seen Daedalus conquer the Sea of Crete like the mythical first airman, Langford spread his reach into ever more technologically complex problems.  His resume is deceptively short, since he’s held only two jobs since leaving college.  His LinkedIn bio is brief, but telling. “John Langford is the founder and CEO of Electra.aero, a startup developing hybrid electric aircraft for regional mobility. He founded Aurora Flight Sciences in 1989 and served as Chairman and CEO through 2019. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and serves as President of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).” The video gives a …

Airflow: Coming to a Rooftop Near You?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

“1 pilot, 500 pounds of cargo,” reads Airflow’s headline for its electric STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft.  Reaching  for the “middle-mile” cargo delivery market, Airflow’s new design promises to be four times faster than trucks, operate at one-third the cost of helicopters or eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) vehicles, and require only 150 feet for takeoffs and landings. eVTOL Reconsidered Airflow’s management and engineering team come from previous experience in the eVTOL world, most recently with Airbus’ Vahana program.  Headed by Marc Ausman, The team has “over 60 years of aerospace experience,” with companies including Eclipse Aviation, Northrop Grumman, Uber Elevate, Airware, and Scaled Composites. The team determined their design can carry a pilot and a 500-pound payload using less power than comparable eVTOLs because multirotors carry the full weight of the aircraft at all times, or for some designs, until they are able to transition to full forward flight.  This helped form the decision to …

JabirWatt: PAI and DEP with David Ullman

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Electric aircraft, especially in their early state of development, will require aerodynamically capable forms or extremely light structures, or both. That may account for the early adoption of sailplanes as test beds. These are graceful and high performance units, but not all that practical for hauling loads or for daily commuting. Other first attempts adapted ultralight, but not necessarily aerodynamically efficient structures to make electric flight possible. David Ullman makes use of two dynamic technologies, PAI  and DEP, to achieve performance with the potential for great practicality. PAI and DEP David, a professor emeritus in mechanical engineering, is also an enthusiastic pilot and inventor. His texts on the design process and decision making are best sellers. Recently, he’s been exploring the potential of Propulsion Airframe Interaction (PAI) and Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) by augmenting the power and lift of a conventional aircraft with Electric Ducted Fans (EDF). A Creative Airport Community If you are fortunate enough to visit the Independence, …

HopFlyt Hops into the Next Decade

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

With 2020 lurching into life in some turbulence, HopFlyt promises a smooth, above-the-fray experience.  A look back at an innovative aircraft designer, the new variant applies electric power and new structural techniques unknown when Willard Custer had his inspiration.  HopFlyt is a modern interpretation of that vision, with distributed electric propulsion, 3D-printed components, and simplified control systems. Willard was a far-sighted soul in the 1940’s, when aircraft were either all wood, all sheet metal, or mixed structures of wood, chromoly tubing and fabric.  The composites that freed designers for swoopier things were a few decades away. Willard Custer’s Big Idea Reputedly a descendant of George Armstrong Custer, Willard Custer envisioned a propeller in a semi-circular channel that might produce lift as well as thrust.  This blog channeled that history in an earlier article on HopFlyt in 2017. While you can see real-life footage of the original channel wing concept in that entry, we turn to Tom Stanton, who built a …

NASA Freely Shares X57 Lessons

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NASA and several partner firms have been working on the X-57 Maxwell electric propulsion demonstrator for the past several years.  It hasn’t been as easy as it looked at first.  Encouragingly, NASA is sharing some of the hard lessons it has learned in the process, much like Elon Musk sharing many of his patents with the world. One of the hardest lessons involved the multiple battery packs, originally planned to be off-the-shelf units.  A December 2016 test resulted in a thermal runaway, a situation in which one cell that overheats can self-destruct and cause adjacent cells to follow suit.  This, as we’ve seen in Dreamliner incidents, can be dangerous and potentially deadly.  Such fires are exceedingly well reported, with any Tesla incident overwhelming the press, which ignores the 174,000 car fires reported by the National Fire Protection Association in 2015, which resulted in 415 deaths and $1.2 billion in property damage.  Electrified aviation will be even more critically examined if electric …