Electric Aircraft Symposium will take-off April 24
If you have a strong interest in electric vehicles taking flight (in both the metaphoric and non-metaphoric senses) than you may want to attend the upcoming Electric Aircraft Symposium on April 24th at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California. The impressive line up of speakers features such notables as Dr. Yi Cui of nanowire battery breakthrough fame and will touch on subjects ranging from climate science to the proposed Aviation Green Prize (an Automotive X-Prize type competition). Though your electric vehicle interests may be oriented more toward the surface-based variety, the same concerns about energy and efficiency exist in the airborne sort too, perhaps to an even greater extent. The expertise on-hand may be quite valuable. Speaking of value, if you register before the 15th of April you can save $60 and pay only $245 for the full day affair which includes snack breaks and a networking lunch and dinner. Click here for the list of speakers that have been confirmed so far.
[Source: CAFE Foundation]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luke 12:50PM (3/09/2009)
I'm a general aviation pilot (ASEL/ASES), and I've flown mostly for recreation and a little bit of fairweather travel. I'm not current at the moment, since I don't have a lot of dollars and hours to put into it -- but I'm still an aviation enthusiast, no matter how many landings I've flown in the last 90 days.
100LL avgas is down th $4.28/gal at my local airport here in the midwest, and my favorite play-around-in-the-sky airplane (the Cessna 172) is uses around 9 gallons/hour -- and 1/2 to 1/3rd of the operating costs of such an airplane. Also, for those of you who don't know, 100LL avgas means "100 octane low-lead aviation gasoline". That's right, general aviation aircraft still use leaded gasoline and carburetors. Electronic engine controls, like those that have been used on cars for 30 years are available for some aircraft (called FADEC in aviation-lingo), but are so expensive that almost nobody has installed them. Those of you who have tinkered with lawnmower and motorcycle engines recently may wonder how the mixture is adjusted -- there is a big red knob (or similar control) right next to the throttle, and the pilot is supposed to adjust it whenever they change altitude. Many low-land pilots just keep the mixture rich no matter what altitude they fly at, and mountain pilots aren't much better -- if you lean the engine out too much, you risk heating the aluminum engine block (it's not really an engine block) up to the point where you can shorten the life of the engine significantly -- and none wants to find themselves unexpectedly flying a glider. And, yes, the reason that new technology doesn't make it into aviation is "safety". Using rudimentary, obsolete, and expensive technology is "safer" than using modern proven-over-the-decades methods -- at least according to the FAA approval process and the insurance companies.
Using a few hundred KWH for an afternoon's sightseeing seems like a great solution for all of the technical problems -- if the batteries are light enough, and if they can get the FAA and insurance companies to OK the new parts, anyway. I imagine that these issues will be the main focus of the conference.
-Luke
P.S. I've spent an awful lot of time looking at these issues both alone and during extended hanger-flying sessions with my friends, and I'm convinced that the conscientious application of new engine technology to aviation would be a wonderful thing -- but the economics are distorted by liability law (mostly) and government rules. There are some brights spots, though -- the Light Sport Aircraft rules seem to be our society dipping it's toe in the water. And some of the new glass-panel display systems (like the Garmin G1000) are also a step in the right direction. The aerodiesel engines and the new aircraft from Diamond and Cirrus look wonderful -- but the aerodiesel engines cost about as much as a Hummer (and get much better mileage), and a new 4-seat single engine aircraft with these modern technologies will usually cost more than a Ferrari (but fly slower than a Ferrari). So, most of us who can't help but fly putter along in Cessna and Piper aircraft built in the mid-1950s to the late 1970s... Personally, I need to finish up my glider rating.
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olhat 2:02PM (3/09/2009)
Good Read!
I guess that aviation authorities are conservative lots all over the globe but you still should not forget that there are other countries that might open for some modernization before the US does. Electric propulsion and autopilots in small planes for 'everyman', way to go!
Luke 3:09PM (3/09/2009)
I sure hope so! If we could point to, say, Brazil, Austria, or New Zealand and say "hey, they've been doing that for years and their accident rate has gone down, even with more people sharing the sky", that could really help improve things here.
Autopilots are wonderful, but I want to point out to the nonpilots in the audience that in small general-aviation aircraft, the autopilot doesn't fly the airplane any more than cruise-control drives a car. Even though autopilots can hold the wings level, follow a course, and sometimes even hold an altitude, the pilot is still in charge and still needs to set the course, needs to take off and land the aircraft, needs to transition between flight modes, react to other traffic, talk to air traffic control, and so on -- and that's if the pilot uses the autopilot whenever he/she can. I've heard that big commercial airliners and military aircraft often have autopilots (and a flight-management system) that can take off and land... But they don't invite regular folks to come around and fly their airplanes for fun, and I've never even heard of an autopilot that sophisticated for my kind of airplane.
slk23 3:17PM (3/09/2009)
Luke,
I suggest that you look into the "experimental" homebuilt aircraft scene; that's where the interesting stuff is happening. It's very expensive for companies like Cessna to get new technologies certified for use in production aircraft. So homebuilders have pioneered the way for composite construction, low drag canard designs, electronic ignition, advanced avionics, etc.
I fly a VariEze which cruises at 180 mph while doing 35 mpg. And that's with a carb. I'm getting ready to replace the carb with a throttle body which should boost efficiency by ~10%. I don't mind having a manual mixture control -- it gives me control over the engine so I can wring out maximum efficiency. I use an engine monitor to measure many parameters, including exhaust gas temperature, so I can run the engine at LOP (lean of peak) in cruise and reduce fuel consumption. BTW, the danger of over-leaning is not overheating the engine, it's detonation in the cylinders. But detonation is not a problem if aggressive leaning is done at 75% power or less.
Gas is expensive where you are. Here in the California, where fuel is relatively pricey compared to the rest of the country, it's currently $3.50 - $3.75. I often fly an hour-long "bay tour" around San Francisco and the total for gas is less than $20.
Luke 5:36PM (3/09/2009)
I've spent a lot of time looking at experimental aircraft -- but I currently don't have the resources to build one. Those $30k firewall-forward kits, plus another n-thousand dollars for avionics are just too much until I get another couple of raises. Plus, flying aircraft from popular kits (like Vans) run in the $50k-$100k range.
I do like the looks of Rutans' canards (like the Long EZ for the nonpilots in the audience), and I've spent a lot of time drooling over the Velocity XL's go-places abilities. But I think I'm really a short-field guy at heart, so the Zenith STOL CH 701 and 801 seem more like my speed. And I'd also have to decide if I'm conservative enough to buy one of those firewall-forward kits, or decide if I'm brave enough to convert a Subaru engine, or if I want to take a more middle-of-the-road approach. I really do have to decide what kind of airplane I want/need before I spend a few years building an airplane. And it's made more complicated by being 30-ish and in a committed relationship, so it's theoretically possible that kids could come along and change my requirements mid-project... On the other hand, my fabrication skills and my workshop are getting better every day, so maybe I'll be prepared to build something in a few years.
So, for me, I think spending a few months/years flying with the local glider club seems like a win. It'll be good for my airmanship, cheap, and the view from a glider-cockpit is pretty awesome.
jharlan 3:22PM (3/09/2009)
I'll wait until it comes out on CD, thank you!
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Domenick Yoney 3:16PM (3/09/2009)
Huh? It's EAS not ELO. ^_^