New Atlas (formerly Gizmag) alerted your editor to this web site, which in turn features over a score of YouTube videos on this fascinating project in Sweden. Axel Borg has created, as promised by the web site, an Amazing DIY Project, flying around a hilly woodland on the power of 76 electric motors. Undaunted by Fuel Fumes or Crashes More amazing, perhaps, he tried this configuration a year ago with eight internal combustion engines (extremely noisy), but managed to crash that. Resisting the fear that would instill in queasier souls (your editor, for instance), Axel made four tubular rings, within each of which is mounted a set of 19 motors. The four rings surround the pilot’s seat, under which are mounted four battery packs – each one supplying a set of motors with power. Axel has apparently done a good job of managing the control of the machine, showing in several videos his ability to maneuver in roll, pitch and …
Another Electric Lazair
Besides the incentives offered by the Green Flight Challenge and the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize, a venerable institution is encouraging electric flight with a series of prizes. The Experimental Aircraft Associations plans on awarding $60,000 to electric flight competitors during this year’s AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to EAA’s Newsline, “One entry in the EAA’s $60,000 Electric Flight Prize during AirVenture comes from a well-established design, the Electric Lazair, based on an ultralight designed more than 30 years ago by Dale Kramer, EAA 145132. Between 1979 and 1985, his company, Ultraflight, produced about 1,200 kits. Calling the twin-engine Lazair ‘an ideal vehicle for electric conversion,’ Kramer wrote that he has dabbled in trying to ‘electrify’ one several times.” Kramer recounted making several “thwarted” attempts, but shared the news of a Lazair flying in England on two Plettenberg Predator motors, as reported in this blog. Kramer said the radio-control world “has been invaluable to me in obtaining knowledge that I need to …