Happy Velis Electro News from Pipistrel

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Taja Boscarol, Public Relations Manager for Pipistel Vertical Solutions, and Michael Coates, Master Distributor for USA, Australia & New Zealand, shared a lot of happy news this week about their Velis Electro. Electric Outsells Gasoline Powered Michael puts his news in enthusiastic, all-caps context.  “The US has a new president, Europe is under siege from new Covid varieties, and Pipistrel is adding a SECOND SHIFT TO KEEP UP WITH PRODUCTION! “Did you know that in 2020 Pipistrel DELIVERED 111 (one-hundred and eleven) of the certified Pipistrel Velis electric aircraft, as well as many more Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft?  In fact, this year for the first time ever, Pipistrel produced more electric aircraft than gasoline powered!” More than 70 Pipistrel Velis aircraft are already on 2021’s order books, with many more anticipated through the remaining 11 months of the year. The second shift essentially means doubling production, and this of course leads to increased demand from suppliers.  Michael adds, “Pipistrel is …

Pipistrel Velis: Part of an Electric Heritage

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The Pipistrel Velis is the culmination of 13 years of electric aircraft development and the first to gain certification by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on June 10. Pipistrel has been in the electric airplane business since 2007 when it announced the Taurus Electro motorglider, which entered service in 2011.  That aircraft went through several iterations, and is still part of the Pipistrel lineup of electric planes, which includes the Alpha Electro Trainer, the Panthera Hybrid, and the new Velis. Alpha Electro Trainer in SoCal An electric version of the Alpha Trainer, the Electro has been in production since 2015.  With an empty weight of 615 pounds (279 kg) and a maximum take-off weight of 1,212 pounds (550 kg), it is a bit heavier than the Rotax-powered gas version, and carries about 100 pounds less payload.  Both have similar performance, though, with rates of climb around 1,200 feet per minute. Joseph Oldham started a well-organized, well-intentioned operation to …

Atea Looks Like a Cessna Overhead

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French company Ascendance Flight Technologies offers a four-seat design that combines hybrid propulsion with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, and then scoots around on conventional wings.  Etea’s technology seems a lot like that of Pipistrel’s 801 or several other eVTOLs. Some Historical Perspective The design team at Ascendance comes from Airbus, and claims to have made the first electric aircraft flight across the English Channel with the E-Fan 2.0.  Your editor offers a few minor inclusions. First, as we reported on October 10, 2009, “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.”  It was an Eck/Geiger propelled machine, …

Kryptonite – As in MARVEL Comics?

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Ed Warnock, CEO of the Perlan Project, passed this on from Michael Coates, head of Pipistrel USA.  Despite its celebrated author and totally credible source, the following press release is open to scrutiny and will no doubt receive some rabid criticism. “Pipistrel ALPHA Electro completes 24 hour flight on a single charge! “The Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft has successfully smashed the world endurance record for electric aircraft by completing its first 24-hour flight on a single charge! “Pipistrel engineers have recently tested different fuel cells and generator units to supplement the ALPHA Electro’s current 1-hour range. “Hugh improvements in electrical generation have unfolded with the recent (2016) re-discovery of Kryptonite in Northern Siberia and under the stepped Pyramid in Egypt. “Kryptonite in its purest form is just amazing, a true MARVEL producing almost unlimited amounts of perfect DC energy, ideal for powering an electric aircraft noted a leading Pipistrel engineer, Prof D.C. Currant. “Prof Currant explains, that less than 1 …

Pipistrel Alpha Electros Come to California

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News from Joseph Oldham, founder of the Sustainable Aviation Project, and Michael Coates, United States master distributor for Pipistrel Aircraft, heralds the largest delivery of electric training aircraft to date.  Four Pipistrel Alpha Electro Trainers showed up at Fresno, California’s Chandler Airport, all part of the Sustainable Aviation Project.  Described as “a public-private collaboration to reduce the cost of flight training through the use of all-electric general aviation airplanes,” the Project might become a role model for future electric flight training. On March 19, two 18-wheel trucks delivered two 40-foot shipping containers.  Each container carried two Alpha Electros, two chargers, and a pair of replacement battery packs for each airplane.  It took a mere two hours for a volunteer crew of up to six to remove the aircraft and chargers from the containers, leaving an X-Alpha simulator to be sent on its lonely way to Cypress College in Los Angeles. Michael Coates reported, “After removing all the plastic wrapping it …

Electric Cri-Cri Crosses English Channel

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Michael Coates, the U. S. General Distributor for Pipistrel Aircraft, sent the following missive from Ivo Boscarol, General Manager and Founder of the Slovenian company, now in its 26th year. “Dear All, “It is my pleasure to inform you that our friend Hugues Duval after reading the information that Pipistrel was blocked in flying across the English Channel today became the first electric aircraft to cross the English Channel in his CRI-CRI E-Cristaline Electric aircraft. “As Duval already had the permanent permit to fly his aircraft there was no need to ask for a permit to fly over the English Channel, but only to fill the flight plan. It was possible to keep the flight information secret up to the end. “From the available information that we have, shortly after the flight announcement, an order was issued to stop him but he did not respect it and he successfully crossed the channel this evening, 9. July 2015 in the first flight …

Pipistrel,PADA, and “Gus” Raspet

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Pipistel, the innovative Slovenian company that won the Green Flight Challenge with its G4 electric four-seater, continues to earn plaudits from the aviation industry. At this year’s AirVenture, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual gathering at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the company was honored with the Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award and original and pace-setting design work exemplified in Pipistrel products. The Exerimental Aircraft Association has awarded the “Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award” annually since 1960 “to a person who has made outstanding advancements in the field of light aircraft design and the Experimental Aircraft Association.”  John Thorp, Lockheed engineer and designer, was the first recipient, with those following including Curtiss Pitts, Burt Rutan, Alan and Dale Klapmeier and Gordon Pratt. Taja Boscarol, in the company’s press release, notes that, “This year’s award being given to the Pipistrel Team is definitely proof that Pipistrel’s innovativeness is now fully recognized and appreciated even in the cradle of the aviation industry, the USA.” Michael Coates, …

Pipistrel Preparing for Green Flight Challenge

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Michael Coates, American distributor for Pipistrel, shares some pictures and videos of the G4, four-seat, twin-fuselage electric motorglider a “technology demonstrator” for the company and its entry in the Google/NASA/CAFE Foundation Green Flight Challenge, which starts Sunday, September 25 in Santa Rosa, California.  The Pipistrel team, headed by Jack Langelann of Pennsylvania State University, is working out Hollister, California’s airport, about 70 miles south of San Francisco and 150 miles from Santa Rosa.  The team expects to fly to Charles M. Schulz field on “Friday or Saturday of the this week” for the competition. Pilot Robin Reid guided the big bi-fuselage craft through its paces and brought back this in-flight video, which shows the visibility is better than one would expect – except of the other fuselage, the nose of which can be seen just under the central propeller. Coates reports, “Hollister airport has been our base for the last four weeks as we continue to extend the flight envelope …

Pipistrel’s Four-seat, Side-by-side Electric Airplane

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

One of the most anticipated presentations at this year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium in Santa Rosa, California, April 29th and 30th, was that of the CAFE Foundation’s Vice-President, Larry Ford.  He had the enviable task of unveiling the contenders in the Green Flight Challenge – a mix of conventional aircraft powered by unconventional means, unconventional craft being sent aloft by a variety of the mundane and the exotic, and wildly unconventional concatenations of technologies. Pipistrel’s G4 turned out to be simple math: G2 plus G2 equals G4.  The configuration could hardly be preconceived, though.  According to Pipistrel USA’s Michael Coates, “This unique design has come about by grafting two Pipistrel Taurus aircraft together with a center section which is some 5 meters (16 feet) wide and includes a center pylon housing the electric engine and batteries designed to successfully carry this aircraft to the skies and hopefully to the completion of the 2011 CAFE/NASA challenge, the design bears some similarity to the twin …