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.."

Comments

Fo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fo sho?
Or perhaps the editor meant "for".

Fo' Sho' Brotha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize Slashdot is now offered in Ebonics.

Re:what means "electric flight"?

[PhillC]

There are a few electric light sport aircraft starting to emerge:

http://www.yuneec.com/index.html
http://www.electraflyer.com/
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/research/e-flight.html

None of these have the same glide ratio as a motor glider, and are the beginnings of an emerging electric light sport aircraft industry. A long way to go, but with the rising prices and limited availability of Avgas in many regions of the world, many changes are needed within the General Aviation community to ensure a sustainable future.

Is electric flight the way forward? Maybe, maybe not in the short term. With options like Rotax engines already commonly available for many types and "diesel" (JetA1) engine options also growing for many legacy airframes, as well as new models, there is hope and a number of different routes GA could end up going down.

Big year for aviation tech competitions

[jwold]

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.