The annual Experimental Soaring Association Western Workshop spills over the Labor Day weekend, starting with a welcome barbecue/potluck Friday evening and an official kickoff on Saturday. Sunday features more technical presentations and this year – an organization business meeting and a closing talk about moon shots. Pelicans, Albatross and Perpetual Flight Phillip Barnes, an accomplished aerodynamicist, photographer and expert on soaring birds, links all his interests and skills in his web site, How Flies the Albatross. This year, he brought his knowledge to bear on a design for a flying machine that would pull energy from the air it flies through to power its electric motors – Coulomb Keeper. He described the design process behind it in a talk titled, “Aircraft Energy Gain from an Atmosphere in Motion.” Keeper is an outgrowth of Phil’s earlier aircraft concept, Faraday. Both are derived from his desire to fly like the Albatross, which manages to circumnavigate the Antarctic Circle in seemingly perpetual flight. …
