1Comet Debuts at Electrifly-in 2025

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

1Comet, a high-performance, laminar-flow ultralight sailplane, debuted at Electrifly-in 2025 in Bern, Switzerland.  Though looking somewhat like the Ruppert Archeopteryz, there are significant differences. Both 1Comet and Archaeopteryx come in foot-launch and electric-powered versions.  Both fall into the microlight category and are capable of flying in microlift conditions. 1Comet, though, has a broader weight range, from a foot-launched glider with fixed landing gear weighing a total of 165 kilograms (364 pounds) to an electric-powered, retractable gear machine toppin out at 350 kilograms (771 pounds). Archaeopteryx has a removable electric motor behind the pilot, cleverly strapped in with Velcro fasteners.  1Comet has a fixed-position Front Electric Sustainer motor in the nose. The 1Comet web site makes the following claims for the electric-powered version.  “The low weight also makes it the ideal platform for electric flight. With only 30 kg of batteries, you can stay in the air for over 2 hours or climb more than 4000 meters. “The electric glider version …

CATL Gets Salty with Batteries

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CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited) in China is promoting a different battery technology that promises lower costs and a greater life span than lithium cells.  This is another way to soften the demand for lithium, which often seems in short supply.  We reported on another approach, recycling used EV battery packs, last month.  This time, we’ll look at using sodium as an active ingredient in battery cells, starting with this three-minute primer on the difference between iithium and sodium batteries. Note that lithium batteries can use NMC (nickel, manganese, and cobalt) in their cathodes.  Like lithium, nickel and cobalt are hard to find, and cobalt often comes with the curse of being mined by children in slave conditions.  LFP, or lithium iron phosphate batteries have the advantage of having more readily available materials and being somewhat safer than lithium/NMC cells. CATL’s NAXTRA Battery CATL recently presented us with several offerings in new battery technology, but NAXTRA is probably of …

E9X: 90 Passengers, 480 Battery Miles

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, hydrogen, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

What can carry 90 passenger 480 miles on battery power alone?  Such a query flies in the face of others’ efforts to hybridize medium-range flight, but may be answered by Delft-based Elysian Aircraft.  Their eight-motored, battery-powered E9X uses a backup turbogenerator only for reserves, putting a level of trust in the 365 Watt-hour per kilogram cells buried within the long, slender wing for safe transit. Graham Warwick’s Article Graham Warwick, writing for Aviationweek.com, explains that, “Breaking with traditional design principles, Delft-based Elysian says it has found design space where a large electric aircraft looks viable with near-term battery technology.”  That kind of range for that large an aircraft seems extreme, but the E9X’s developers are using currently-available batteries to achieve their goals.  Reynard de Vries, director of design and engineering at Elysian, explains, “If you want to make a significant impact on the sector as a whole, then you need to electrify flights up to 1,000 km [620 mi.]. Then …

Electric Air Racing News

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Electric Air Racing is a modern take on an age-old idea.  Ever since people tamed horses, the idea of comparing their speeds became important.  Boats, cars, and aircraft followed the same path.  As with horses, the idea that “racing improves the breed” held sway.  Now, one Australian company and a major aeronautical organization hope to make air racing a path to the future. Alauda Aeronautics Matt Pearson founded the Airspeeder  racing program with the credo, “Competition accelerates progress.”  Toward that end, he partnered with Alauda, an Australian firm, to develop a group of high-performance aerial racers.  Looking somewhat like the vehicles flown by Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, the “flying cars” certainly evoke a performance image. The team recently flew three Airspeeders via remote control with First Person View (FPV) technology helping ground-based pilots control their craft around a Alauda unabashedly uses the term “flying cars,” as in, “Racing to deliver a revolution in personal air mobility so …

Klaus Ohlmann, Jonas Lay and eGenius go 2003 kilometers

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Klaus Ohlmann and Jonas Lay in the one-and-only eGenius just completed a 2,003 kilometer (1,244 mile) trip from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean on the southern tip of France and return.  The numbers are spectacular.  The flight averaged 190.36 kilometers per hour (118.28 mph) and its hybrid power system consumed a mere 81 liters of fuel.  That works out to 24.72 kilometers per liter or 58.15 mpg.  Even a Prius at that speed would guzzle gasoline. Hybridizing eGenius eGenius was to have originally been HydroGenius, flying on gaseous hydrogen.  Starting design in 2006 and as presented at the 2009 Electric Aircraft Symposium, HydroGenius was designed by Rudolf Voit-Nitschman, Len Schumann, and Steffen Geinitz of the IFB, Institute of Aircraft Design at the University of Stuttgart.  Because Mercedes-Benz did not have their fuel cell available, the designers turned to pure battery power and the airplane became eGenius. The craft won second place in the NASA Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google …

Copper for Solar Cells

Dean Sigler Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Solar cells are older than we perhaps knew, and their efficiency was low in their early development.  They were also remarkably expensive.  Today, though, materials like perovskite are making new, less-expensive and reasonably efficient cells possible.  Swapping copper for the more expensive silver conductors may help make these cells even more rewarding.  In a further development, a simple plastic film wrap may make perovskite cells safer. A Long History of Low Efficiency Two dates stand out in Wikipedia’s recounting of solar cell development: 1839 –Edmond Becquerel observes the photovoltaic effect via an electrode in a conductive solution exposed to light. 1883 – Charles Fritts develops a solar cell using selenium on a thin layer of gold to form a device giving less than 1-percent efficiency. Only one Watt would be generated for every kilowatt falling on a one-meter square solar panel.  Notice the use of gold helping keep the price of these early cells high. Considering that modern solar cells …

Joseph Oldham Beams an American Record

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A new “record” for an electric aircraft flight probably won’t make the books, but was a great sales opportunity for the off-grid charging system that accompanied it. 21 electric airplane records exist in the list of Federation Aeronautique Internationale-recognized achievements.  At least one was set in 2012 by Jean-Luc Soullier in his Colomban MC-30 Luciole (Firefly) – 189.87 kilometers per hour (117.98 mph) over a 15 kilometer closed course using a Lynch-type brushed motor.  It topped his record in February of the same year of 136.4 kph (84.76 mph). For a while, Soullier held records for altitude and distance, but these were eclipsed by others.  At the time, your editor encouraged beating these records, since they were early efforts in a field that should have shown greater progress that it has.  Batteries are not that much improved in some respects. Recent flights in Australia, Europe, and America required a mobile infrastructure to charge those batteries.  Cars, trucks and airplanes carried …

Sunseeker Duo has a New Radio and Big Plans

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Touring on Sunbeams Eric and Irena Raymond have an enviable life, traveling on sunbeams across Europe in their Sunseeker Duo, and if plans go well later this year, into northern Africa and beyond.  “Last summer, we flew down the west coast of Italy, landing on the islands of Elba and Corsica.”  Crossing the Mediterranean would be no major impediment to further travel, as Solar Impulse showed, because, “Being solar powered our airplanes are assured a constant supply of energy by flying over the clouds, and we can cover much greater distances.” This summer will expand their itinerary to, “Starting in Italy and flying down the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, starting by exploring the Istria peninsula, then touring the myriad countless islands of this Adriatic archipelago.  No goal is set, other than returning to our home base in Osoppo (Italy). At least as far as Split should be easy.”  Split, on the west coast of Croatia, includes the palace of Roman …

Electrifly-in: Grenchen 2021

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, Hydrogen Fuel, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Electrifly-in, formerly the Smartflyer Challenge, is on for September 11 and 12, 2021, in Grenchen, Switzerland.  The event, even held in 2020 despite the pandemic, is a compact showing of the latest in electrical aircraft and technology.  Watch as this 2019 video as a Φnix (the Greek letter phi + nix –a clever bilingual pun) takes off, circuits the area and makes a landing – all the time flying with other electric aircraft. In this flight, you can see the compact airport (including a grass landing strip) and a lovely setting for a great event.  Started as the Smartflyer Challenge* in 2016, the gathering has changed its name to be more inclusive. Last year, even with travel limitations imposed worldwide, saw a healthy turnout of all-electric flyers, ranging from ultralight electric “trikes” to cross-country tourers. From 12 to 50 Kilowatts and Beyond Powering a large number of machines on last year’s flight line, Eck-Geiger Engineering makes a range of motors …

Sunseeker Duo Plays Among the Alps

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Eric and Irena Raymond took a lovely Sunseeker Duo flight over the Italian alps near their home in Voghera and edited it all into a video.  They designed and built their own solar-powered airplane – Eric’s third.  He flew Sunseeker 1 across the US in 1990 in 21 hops.  A big press conference scheduled for his last landing at Kitty Hawk, NC was a big disappointment since the US invaded Kuwait that day. Six Minutes of Great Beauty Their airplane has solar cells arrayed across the wing and horizontal tail, a small battery pack that gets recharged while flying in the sun, and a 22 kilowatt (30 hp) motor on the tail.  Turning off the motor they can soar on winds wafting up the sides of the mountains.  Beeping and electronic noises come from an audio variometer, a sensitive indicator of whether the airplane is climbing or descending.  All the sounds are ambient.  Note how quiet the airplane is, even …