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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."
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.
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If I remember correctly, the Martian atmosphere is about 1% as dense as ours, so I'm guessing airfoil technology wouldn't work as well there.
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it is .006x as dense as ours, and gravity is 0.38x from - http://www.amnh.org/rose/mars/pl2.html
From the link
Hardly comes close to the 200 miles at 100+ MPH. That's about Two Hours at 160kph (if I read it and did my math right).
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or not bothering with building the plane until a more sustainable form of battery or capacitor is on the market.
I wonder, wonder, wonder if having more electric vehicles will result in more research for better batteries and capacitors compared to not having electric vehicles.
I wonder, wonder, wonder.
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.
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Could such an aircraft be configured for mapping the surface of Mars?
Try it and see. X-Plane lets you fly on Mars. Yes, there's a Linux version too, and you can find a bunch of electric (and/or rocket) aircraft for Mars on X-Plane.org.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
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!
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.
Without checking, I'll just assume that the contest was designed with an enormous and obvious loophole, that way I can criticize it more easily.
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.
Electric vehicles can benefit from upgrades in battery tech even if it's a radically different electricity storage medium (say a supercapacitor). Electrons are electrons, motors don't care if the wattage comes from a LiPo, LiAir, Supercap, NiMH, NiCad, or even lead acid...
Besides, in 3-4 years we'll have Mr Fusions and our electric planes and cars will be ready for a drop-in replacement. Combustion vehicles will require a major retrofit.
Combustion vehicles would generally need an entirely new engine if someone discovered a more energy dense fuel.
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Yes. Link is to a flight test on Earth in as-close-as-we-can-get Mars-like atmospheric/gravitational tradeoff conditions of a prototype Mars aircraft. In fact, that is probably what NASA intends this design to be used for.
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But you're obviously neglecting the energy required to refine the jet fuel. And the fuel required for all the employees at the refinery to get to work. And the fuel required at the farms that produced the cereal for those workers' breakfasts. And the fuel required to power the turtles all the way down.
Or maybe the original metric made the most sense for head-to-head comparisons, and you won't be as nit-picky in the future. Though that's a lot to ask of slashdotters.
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.
While the initial 'cost' of a lithium battery is higher than the initial 'cost' of an internal combustion engine, the overall or "lifecycle" cost of a lithium battery is lower than that of an internal combustion engine.