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Siemens Sends Do-Not-Fly Order For Pipistrel's All-Electric Channel Crossing
An anonymous reader links to Flyer's coverage of a squabble that seems to feature the aircraft giant Airbus aiming bad sportsmanship in the form of corporate pull against much smaller light aircraft maker Pipistrel, thereby "squashing the ambitions of light aircraft maker Pipistrel to be the first to fly an electric aircraft across the English Channel." Though Pipistrel acquired the flight permissions it anticipated needing in connection with its announced ambition to cross the channel, they've been grounded by allegedly underhanded means: Siemens, which supplies the electric motor used in the craft which was to make the journey, contacted Pipistrel to prohibit over-water flight with that motor (partly German). U.S. Pipistrel dealer Michael Coates believes he knows why (as quoted by Flyer): "Airbus managed to flex their muscle with Siemens who are supplying motors to Pipistrel and have the Pipistrel motor agreement immediately terminated," he said. "The Airbus E-Fan project does not use Siemens motors but it does have Siemens stickers over the side of their aircraft.
It's Europe. There are no explanations, just mindless greed and a shitton of logos on everything. Most of us Europeans won't admit it, but US society, and especially anything involving R&D, is far less hypercommercialized than Europe. If you've ever flown through Heathrow, you understand. You can't have a conference presentation, a remote controlled airplane, an academic interdisciplinary program, or sex without logos. Having logos means that you have tentacles of power that descend from nebulous beasts: nobody knows exactly what the beasts are, if they have any power, etc., but every now and then one beast gets upset about some logo sacrilege and something bad happens. No one understands why, really, but it's bad, and it stops a project. Then men come from Brussels and clean things up and take away our insufficiently packaged olive oil, and we get more logos, and we go on.