Green Speed Cup Final: a Mix of Well-Flown Aircraft

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

Day three of the Green Speed Cup in Strausberg, Germany brought few surprises other than how fuel efficient all of the aircraft turned out to be, especially considering they are all powered by gasoline engines.  Normally, this would demonstrate that even a light machine uses large amounts of fuel, but this contest demonstrated the benefits of good design and careful piloting. The Akaflieg Darmstadt D39 flown by Holger Massow came in first, winning the last two days outright.  Second went to Hans-Peter Ortwein flying a Stemme SV-10T, and third, perhaps surprisingly, to the only two-stroke powered machine, a Technoflug Piccolo, a fixed-gear, high-wing motorglider with an engine sticking up behind the wing.  The Piccolo was flown by Werner Scholz. Two Valentin Taifuns came in fourth and fifth, and a Stemme S6 took sixth place.  Two Scheibe SF-25s, a B and C model, took seventh and eighth places respectively.  A Fournier RF-5 captured ninth place and another SF-25-C rounded out the …

The Green Speed Cup – Fourth Edition

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Robert Adam helps run the Green Speed Cup, a time, speed and economy run for aircraft in Germany.  The rules for this year’s contest elucidate the intent and ambitions for the event: “The GREEN SPEED CUP is an aviation competition focusing on efficient flight. The emphasis lies on fast and energy saving transportation. The competition is meant to develop new methods to reduce energy consumption of motor driven aircraft using external energy sources like lateral winds and updrafts. In making the ability of certain aircraft and techniques transparent, the competition shall set new standards in general aviation.” The Cup provides a sounding board for discussion of energy efficient flight and the changing experience of flying while exploring new techniques and technologies.  Hosted by STEMME Aviators e.V., the contest is open to “all aircraft capable of taking off under their own power,” with the following restrictions: In the Electric Class, airplanes may have one to four seats, weigh up to 2,700 …

Green Speed Cup Day Two – A Clear Winner

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Robert Adam, one of the organizers of the Green Speed Cup in Germany and pilot of the Flight Design CTLS that ended the competition in seventh place, shared some information on the challenges faced by pilots in this year’s event. “We had 12-15 knots crosswind today (only a little less yesterday) and Tim-Peter (-Voss) managed this demanding taildragger (the SPACEK s.r.o. SD-1 microlight) calmly!”  This very light and short-coupled airplane flies with a variety of two- and four-stroke engines, but Voss’ had a Verner JVC-360 four-stroke unit of 38 horsepower.  It averaged a little over four liters per hour fuel consumption per 100 kilometers (59 mpg) over the practice day and two contest days.  In the Green Flight Challenge, it would have been penalized for being a single-seater and thus having a lower passenger-mile-per-gallon figure than the two, and even four-seat entrants. The TDI turbo-diesel DA-40, for instance, would have had a 4X passenger mile per gallon figure if that had …

Green Speed Cup – Year Two, Day Two

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The Green Speed Cup is a closed circuit race similar to the Green Flight Challenge, but with a more free-style approach to how each team flies the course. As reported yesterday, the first day’s competition was won by Markus Scherdel, test pilot for Solar Impulse. The second day’s competition was a complete turnaround of day one’s results, with Wolfgang Uhlig taking the crown and Markus sliding to fourth place. Most interesting, the Diamond DA40 TDI, a four-seat Diesel-powered aircraft flown by Daniel Hirth, took second place. A longer event than day one, the task required pilots to fly from Strausberg down the longest leg of a scalene triangle to Klix, a village in Saxony. From there, they turned northwest to Finsterw Heinri and then sped north back to Strausberg to complete the 326.4 kilometer (202.4 mile) course. Uhlig’s winning S10VT toured the triangle at 163.4 kilometers per hour (101.3 mph) while consuming a total of 202.8 kilowatt-hours of energy, achieving …