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NASA, Google Award $1.35M For Ultra-Efficient Electric Aircraft
coondoggie writes "NASA today awarded what it called the largest prize in aviation history to a company that flew their aircraft 200 miles in less than two hours on less than one gallon of fuel or electric equivalent. Their aircraft is the Taurus G4 by Pipistrel-USA.com. The twin fuselage motor glider features a 145 kW electric motor, lithium-ion batteries, and retractable landing gear."
Could such an aircraft be configured for mapping the surface of Mars?
I wonder where most of the technology is driven, by large scale commercial operations like Boeing etc, or the smaller scale university departments and independent efforts. Most of the new Dreamliner "concepts" like the composite materials are something sport gliders have been pioneering for decades. Hopefully we'll see some trickle-up from this, or at least encourage some good engineering.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
What about the 10 million dollar X-Prize handed out a few years ago? Not sure how that was not an aviation prize, since it didn't award based on doing anything space, just getting there (which ensured >98% of the activity was done in the atmosphere and required appropriate licensing by the Federal AVIATION Administration).
Cri-Cri electric plane ;-)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
No the rule is that there must be at least one 'story' about Australia every day. There can be many more than that (and there usually are) but not ALL stories have to be about Australia. So long as the Aussie egos are stroked they are satisfied with at least one story from or about their homeland. Of course that will change and they'll go all Rupert Murdoch and Slashdot.org will become Slashdot.org.au and the byline will be 'News for Aussies. Shit No One Else Cares About.' But by then the rest of the world will have long abandoned the site anyway.
So instead of paying for fuel you end up paying about the same in 'wear' on your battery pack. You might think "but it's good for the carbon footprint, environment, reducing the peak oil problem, etc" but it isn't.
The money you spend on the battery pack goes to fund the fuel for the large diesel engines used to help get the raw materials out of the ground in Bolivia, shipping and so on. End of life Li-Ion batteries cannot be easily recycled into new Li-Ion batteries either. So really they'd be better off making a plane that runs off ethanol (but not corn ethanol, production of this stuff is woefully inefficient), ordinary petrol or not bothering with building the plane until a more sustainable form of battery or capacitor is on the market.
on less than one gallon of fuel or electric equivalent
This is obviously neglecting the energy required for the initial charge of the batteries. A jet would fare much better if you didn't count the fuel in it's tank when it took off.
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All of those metrics would have been met by the Rutan Voyager in 1984. They flew 26,366 miles on 1080 gallons of fuel and flew at an average speed of 116mph.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Composite aircraft components have been used in military aircraft for quite some time. I believe the AV-8 Harrier of the 1980s is one example. While these aircraft may not have the mass of a commercial airliner keep in mind their high G maneuvering. The loads/stresses on these smaller aircraft may be comparable or greater than those on a commercial airliner.
Interesting to see how many NASA and DoD contracts they've identified that are essentially trying to crowdsource innovative, cost-effective solutions that improve the aerospace performance envelope.
Big budgets and high-caliber engineering skill and equipment are great for developing a concept, but unfortunately, innovation isn't a skill we teach well in school yet, and the need for innovative approaches are at the core of these problems. I really hope these programs have success!
Your mother's a whore, subby.
I'd also look at the various civilian spacecraft efforts going on. They seem more innovative than the traditional aerospace companies. Of course to be fair these traditional aerospace behemoths have been working to NASA specs and have not done anything on their own like the little guys out at Mohave and elsewhere.
Peregrine falcons can reach over 200 MPH in a dive.
They get their own fuel.
They are self replicating and have amazing eyesight.
They can be trained.
While they're not naturally distance fliers, then can convert their insane dive speed to distance.
Why spend millions developing fragile, limited, little planes?
Spend tens of thousands training a bunch of birds, and strap a camera to them.
They last for years, are undetectable by radar, and are unremarkable when actually detected.
Or at least take a clue from birds - why spend lots of energy flying non stop? Build an ultralight with the ability to perch and take off from a perched stance. Give it solar panels so it can recharge while perched. Hell - give it some probes so it can siphon juice from power lines.
If the goal is automation and size, we need to stop with the fixed wing bullshit.
If the goal is speed and flight duration, we've got larger, high-altitude craft that already fit the bill.
If the goal is all four, then until there's a major materials-related breakthrough, training birds is probably the best bet.
I do not believe that Pipistrel-usa does any building. I think that it is all over in Europe.
You do realize that a camera and wireless card would significantly reduce this plane's efficiency, right?
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The test is to deliver 200 passenger miles per gallon. The winner had four seats so it was allowed to use up to four gallons (equivalent) of fuel to cover the 200 mile distance.
Just because our economy still works doesn't make it our fault interesting stuff happens here.
Not only is the fuel consumption impressive it is even more so as the craft exceeded a 100 MPH speed average, or speed comparable to real world aviation. The fuel used would not be impressive if it was a super slow aircraft.
Like what?
Deeed a deeeeeeeeeengo steeeeeeaaaal a baayyyybeee deedgeereedoo?
Strewth.
Mate, our economy is a fantasy teetering on the brink of collapse.
It's only the fact that China has been buying most of the raw materials as fast as they've been pulled from our mines that has allowed us to believe that we're economically bullet-proof.
Just look at the current Australian property bubble: it makes the US one look like a mere baby.
Aussie houses are horrifically overpriced, and only the blindness and greed and ignorance built on recent Chinese investment has allowed the market to get that way.
If - when - China scales back its Aussie buying sprees our economy will implode in a way that will make the collapses in other countries look utterly trivial.
I recall reading that Blue Origin had made some startling advances in achieving "smoking crater".
Maybe NASA is funding these projects is to show that it isn't that easy.
Space never existed; thats the whole point. If it exists, it isn't space.
Also, although NASA haven't noted it, There is no dark side of the Moon, really. Matter of fact, its all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the Sun.
African or European? Either way, I bet they can carry a couple of coconuts.
Yap, and this Pipistrel is 100% Slovenian company... (Pipistrel-USA IS just branch office)...
http://www.pipistrel.si/
http://www.slovenia.info/?lng=2
congratulations from Slovenia
Shut up you insensitive bastard, a woman lost her baby its no laughing matter.
Rocket Surgeon.
funny how they seem to hide the fact that the winner is a small glider company from Slovenia, EU, called Pipistrel, see here: http://www.pipistrel.si/news/pipistrel-won-the-nasa-green-flight-challenge-for-the-third-
and they have been winning this challenge for 3 years in a row now!
funnily enough, the winner is a European company, called Pipistrel, see here: http://www.pipistrel.si/news/pipistrel-won-the-nasa-green-flight-challenge-for-the-third-
they have been winning this award for 3 years in a row...
Airport taxes get higher. Freedom suffers.
If you could use your time off to live in Thailand for two weeks on $200 wouldn't you? Even if it took 22 hours to fly there?
Subject line says it all: the government is notoriously stupid when it comes to picking winning technologies (Helo Solyndra! Hello corn subsidies for ethanol fuels!) but prizes like this always work because they ONLY pay for success. Even if you sweetened the pot to $10M, you could still have around 50 X-prize type competitions instead of a single Solyndra fiasco.
Here's how it works when you don't have the USA Credit Card to use: 1) announce a prize and set a goal that has to be met. 2) researchers/industry/investors get excited because an X-prize winner will almost certainly attract more investment. 3) VCs, universities, businesses invest their own money into research. 4) Eventually a winner meets the stated goal and they (probably including the losers!) now have new technologies to play with.
Minimal expense. Maximum use of the competitors' creativity and drive. Maximum reward. Why do we need to let the feds pay off their campaign contributors with our money?
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.
the company is from slovenia, a nation of only 2 million people. Search pipistrel on Google