Dr. Paul Robertson lectures at Cambridge University’s Engineering Department, and Paul Dewhurst serves as Director and Chief Flying Instructor at Flylight Airsports, Ltd. The two Pauls made simultaneous takeoffs March 1, 2009 in Britain’s first two electric aircraft. A third Paul, Welsh by name, acted as certification engineer for the effort. Dr. Robertson took to the skies in a Dragonfly hang glider powered by a Geiger/Eck 10kW motor/controller/propeller combination, while Dewhurst became skyborne in a Lazair ultralight propelled by a pair of Plettenberg Predator 12 kW (peak output) model airplane motors. This testbed in particular reflects Dr. Roberton’s studies toward the constuction of a sub-115 kg electric twin called Hummingbird. His PowerPoint presentation shows the mathematics of powering such a craft on model aircraft motors, the batteries required, and the anticipated and tested thrust for successful performance. The fact that practical outcomes matched mathematical projections attests to the care involved in his analysis. The presentation provides a good model for others who …
Man of La Manche
The French call the English Channel “la Manche” (the sleeve), nicely describing the shape of the waterway while neatly avoiding calling it “English.” Gerard Thevenot, a long-time championship-level hang-glider pilot, celebrated the centennial of Louis Bleriot’s flight across la Manche by flying his hydrogen-powered La Mouette hang glider over roughly the same route Bleriot took between Calais and Dover on August 6, 2009. Missing the centenary by a few days (Bleriot made the hop on July 25, 1909), Thevenot took an hour and seven minutes to duplicate the trip Bleriot managed in 37 minutes. Having displayed his craft at Aero Expo 2009 at Friedrichshafen, Germany in April, Thevenot also participated in the Coupe-Icare, an aeronautical-artistic fantasia near Grenoble, France before making his historic flight. Like Bleriot, he essentially created his own machine, crafting a simple trike frame to attach to his wing, and adding two hydrogen cylinders, three 2 kW fuel cells, and the controller, motor and propeller developed by Drs. Eck and Geiger. …