David Calley is member of the CAFE Foundation Advisory Board, with a great deal of technical expertise to offer. His small wind turbine sold over 150,000 units. His patented design for the TrailerTail® increases fuel economy on semi-trucks and trailers by 5.4 percent at 65 miles per hour, according to SAE tests. Last year at EAS VIII, he showed the potential for small motors with incredible torque that could power Sky Taxis. At this year’s EAS IX he described, in depth, the type of motor design he has been developing to power things like his three-wheel electric/pedal-powered commuter vehicle and landing-gear wheels on Sky Taxis and even rocket fuel pumps. He asked the not-too-rhetorical questions, “How high can electric motor power go?” and “Where do these forces come from?” His answers took attendees on a high-level look at electromagnetic and permanent magnet (PM) materials theories. Electric motors rely on interactions between fields to produce power. “Fields” in this case are …
Getting a GloW On
Great Britain has recently allowed very light aircraft to fly under SSDR (Single-Seat DeRegulated) rules, which permit single-seat aircraft with an MTOM (maximum take-off mass) of not more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) and a landing speed of not more than 35 knots (40.27 mph or 64.82 kilometers per hour). With weights and speeds a bit higher than those allowed for American ultralights, these would be desirable as a way to expand the number of aircraft flying under ultralight rules. How a machine such as the ProAirsport’s GloW will be regulated in America remains to be seen. Formed in 2014, ProAirsport will built light aircraft around the new British rules while adopting ASTM F2564, Standard Specification for Design and Performance of a Light Sport Glider, as a way to meet light sport standards worldwide – including in America. You can see the abstract here, but the full set of standards costs $49.00 plus shipping. The actual machine, shown here in …
EAS VIII: Bruno Mombrinie and Dr. Brien Seeley – Economies and Practical Considerations for Sky Taxis
Bruno Mombrinie, a director for the CAFE Foundation, and Dr. Brien Seeley, founder and President of the organization, gave a one-two presentation on pocket airports and Sky Taxis that examined the practical and operational facets of such a program, first described in detail in a joint NASA/CAFE Foundation document. According to Bruno’s CAFE biography, “As a freshman, he helped build MIT’s Chrysalis human powered airplane. Later that summer he got to fly the plane several times. ‘The feeling of being so, so high (39ft)…to fly under my own power was beyond…I just wanted to burst…actually I was so out of breath from the effort, I could hardly mouth ‘yippee!’” (The Chrysalis, and other MIT designs led to Daedalus, the HPA that flew from Crete to Sicily on April 23, 1988 – 72.44 miles in less than four hours.) This experience with extreme pedal power probably helped inspire his work on the Negative Mass two-piece crankset, reputedly the world’s lightest and stiffest bicycle crankset. His …
Aviation Week Recognizes CAFE Foundation’s Efforts
As noted in this blog. Dr. Brien Seeley, President of the CAFE Foundation, has been actively promoting the idea of a short to intermediate range Sky Taxi, a two-seat aerial vehicle that would carry its passengers safely from 420-foot runway “pocket airports” to other such runways at other urban and suburban settings, or even pockets situated within major airports. The safety and utility promised by these electrically-powered aircraft would provide convenient, inexpensive trips for commuters who would enjoy TSA-free travel up to 500 miles at point-to-point speeds exceeding even private LearJets. Aviation Week recently noted efforts by John Langford, CEO of UAV specialist Aurora Flight Sciences, to achieve part of Dr. Seeley’s far-reaching goals with today’s technology. As Graham Warwick reports in the magazine, “Five years after DayJet’s on-demand air service using very light jets ceased operations, the dream of air taxis remains alive. But industry is looking at unmanned aircraft technology as a way to reduce or eliminate the …