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Big Buzz For $60,000 Electric Flight Prize
gilgsn writes "Electric Light Sport Aircraft are sprouting up all over. Now that the Experimental Aircraft Association is offering a 60,000 prize for the best ones, manufacturers are gearing up for the competition to be held the last week in July, at AirVenture 2011 in Oshkosh, 'The World's Greatest Aviation Celebration.' Airplanes will be tested for endurance, speed and time-to-climb. Pilots, charge up your batteries.."
Fo sho?
Or perhaps the editor meant "for".
ow dat is some big prize fo sho
TFA is not loading for me at the moment, but it seems you could strap just enough battery on a high performance glider to get you up, then stay there indefinitely if you were skilled at finding thermals.
There aren't any commercial avgas or Jet-A fueling stations at 30kft, either.
The only fueling stations at 30kft are by the military, and they could probably create an in-air charging system, too.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
They should have been more clear and had it something like this:
BONG BONG son! sitty stacks fo lectric planes kid.
The world is how you make it
I didn't realize Slashdot is now offered in Ebonics.
The sound you just heard was an electric plane, carrying the joke, flying right over your head (at 30,000 feet).
not too many gas stations either, ask John
Switched reluctance motors and Toshiba SCiB batteries.
As of today, there is no way to do it better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor
http://www.toshiba.com/ind/product_display.jsp?id1=821
Just sayin'
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Doesn't this seem like this will give explanation to many UFO sightings and/or attract unnamed government agencies eager to arrest many amateur aviation enthusiasts?
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
The problem is, it takes a lot of energy to power an aircraft. While a car engine runs at only a very small percentage of its rated power most of time, aircraft engines run at 60% or 70% of full power all the time. We need to store a lot more energy per unit time than we do for a car, and more energy per unit energy source weight. So far, petroleum products store more energy per unit energy source weight than anything else, except perhaps nuclear power. So this isn't going to be very practical.
As an experimental thing, to see what can be done, it sounds interesting, and like a lot of fun. But a practical idea, it isn't.
"Now that the Experimental Aircraft Association is offering a 60,000 prize for the best ones"
The prize is 60,000? Really? That's not hard, here's a 60,000 just for asking, and i can offer a lot more than that. How about 600,000? Or 6,000,000? Really i can sit here and hold the "0" key down all day, so you can have as big of an integer as you want. (Though at a certain point i might have to switch to scientific notation.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Same thing that happens when the fuel tanks run dry? The prop stops spinning, and the pilot makes a non-powered landing on a nearby flat surface (preferably an airport).
I'm more concerned about what your Light Sport Aircraft at 30,000 feet, you'll find the fueling station infrastructure at lower altitudes is quite fine.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I'm more concerned about what your Light Sport Aircraft at 30,000 feet.
No kidding. By definition they are not pressurized. Which makes breathing a bit of an issue for starters.
Ignoring the snarkiness of the comment, there's actually a large runaway fusion reaction going on relatively near our planet, which solar powered electric planes can use to extend their range...
Takes a minute to pump 1000 gallons of kerosene at 30,000 feet.
Takes 6 hours to pump that many joules of excess electrons.
Chemical fuels will be used for performance aircraft for as long as they can be found or synthesized.
There are aircraft supplemental oxygen systems - either cannulas or masks, so breathing at altitude isn't an issue.
No, the big issue is that LSA aircraft is they're not IFR equipped, and above FL180, it's IFR-only.
Install an APU, an Inverter and an electric motor. Win every event. You'd have to in order to pay for the APU.
I'm sure they thought of that, the sight is /.ed so I can't tell for sure.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No kidding?
I thought the entire point of this thread was kidding.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The future of aviation is nuclear. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Besides this EAA Electric Airplane prize, there's 3 more that I know of:
- The biggest purse is the CAFE foundation Green Flight Challenge $1.6M Presented at Airventure in Oshkosh this July
- The Lindberg Electric Aircraft prize is an annual prize that started last year at Oshkosh
- The Berblinger prize 3 weeks from now in Germany
Not just for cool RC model airplanes any more. E-flight is on the rise - the first killer app will be UAV's and motorgliders.
If you're looking to travel cross country, nope...not practical at all.
But given that a lot of General Aviation is recreational only....given the speed of ultralights and light sport aircraft. Most purely recreational pilots for up for an hour or two at a time.
Finally, trainers (used by schools) usually do flights of up to an hour (except for cross country).
Given that most light planes burn between 4 to 7 gallons of fuel per hour by $3+ dollars per gallon...electric isn't so bad.
(But it's not new either....electricflyer was out in 2009. http://www.electraflyer.com/
Takes 6 hours to pump that many joules of excess electrons.
That's not the main issue: You could even leave the battery recharging, pick another one and fly, like we do with electric model aeroplanes.
The real problem is power to weight ratio, which is critical on aeroplanes and which, on electrical systems, is orders of magnitude lower than a equivalent combustion system due to the low energy density of batteries compared to fuel.
how about-- how much of the battery is depleted on takeoff?
could you power takeoff through induction instead of on-board batteries, then switch to the batteries for level flight?
just unroll a mother of a long coil down the side of the takeoff path...
hmmm???
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
What the fuck is this thread? It can hardly be called a Troll or Flamebait, esp. the GP, and there's no affiliate site that appears to be benefitting from it, so it's not spam. Can someone please explain the parent post and it's grandparent post?
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Now we'll have more airplanes "landing" on US 41 and other random farm fields during that week.
This plane has been revised this year: http://www.pipistrel.si/plane/taurus-electro/overviewTaurus Electro Comes with a trailer with battery storage and solar pannels on the roof.
Burt Rutan had comments about this at last year's EAA Convention.
He recommended that the next step be an electric plane with a special purpose design for doing aerobatics in air shows.
A standard act is only about 15 minutes, which is within the current practical power design restrictions.
Burt stated that propeller drives didn't need to be only put on the front or back of the plane inline with the forward motion. Smaller propellers with motors could be put on the wing tips and/or tail to create unique aerobatics.
Back to my point of view:
Throughout aviation history, it's the engine that drives aircraft innovation:
The Wright Flyer wouldn't have existed without Charles Taylor's lightweight engine.
The P&W R-2800 Double Wasp enabled many aircraft designs from the B-26, P-47 and Douglas DC-6
The P-51 wasn't the success without the Merlin engine.
The 747 couldn't have existed without the high-bypass turbofan.
The 777 wouldn't exist without the huge power engines.
The 787 and any future airliner design wouldn't exist without an engine with better fuel economy.
Spam filter testing? I have never been able to figure it out either, I even get some in my inbox.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?