Oshkosh: If aircraft designer Burt Rutan gets his way, vacationers someday soon will leave terra firma aboard one of his brainstorms and spend their holidays in orbit. The next step in that dream – an odd-looking mother ship originally dubbed WhiteKnightTwo and now called Eve – performed flight demonstrations for thousands at EAA AirVenture on Tuesday afternoon…
Posts Tagged Airventure
General Atomics Predator B
An unmanned General Atomics Predator B landed at Whitman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin Wednesday in preparation for Aiventure 2009. The plane, operated by the Customs and Border Protection agency departed from Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota and later control was transferred to a cockpit equipped command center which was located on the ground at the Whitman airport. This was the first time an unmanned aircraft was allowed to land at a civilian airport.
The turboprop has a maximum gross weight of 10,500 lbs and can remain aloft for 30 hours and is flies at an airspeed over 220 knots. It was designed to provide remote sensing and targeting with which it can observe targets from as far away as 18 miles.
According to the CPB the Predator’s “primary mission of securing the border and preventing acts of terrorism by providing long-duration reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance, tracking and acquisition capability to augment crewed law enforcement aircraft and watercraft as well as ground interdiction agents.” It has flown more than 3000 hours since operation began in 2004.
Pioneer Alpi 300 SkySpark
Recent developments in electric motors, storage devices and controllers are now beginning to enable conventionally piloted aircraft to be powered solely by electricity. Several aircraft which were originally designed to use an internal combustion engine are now being converted to use electric power alone. On its inaugural flight, SkySpark, based on the Italian designed Pioneer Alpi 300, set a speed record of 135 knots.
Sonex Aircraft, along with partner AeroConversions, has launched the e-Flight Initiative, which is converting a Sonex Waiex using a purpose built dc brushless motor and controller to power the aircraft. The airplane, which has yet to fly, is estimated to reach 130 knots and have a range of approximately 30 minutes.
Boeing has been experimenting with an electric Diamond Super Dimona HK-36, but using a hydrogen fuel cells to supplement the batteries. During test flights, the batteries were totally disconnected and the Dimona was powered exclusively by the fuel cells alone. The fuel cells, developed by Boeing Research & Technology Europe (BR&TE) in Madrid, Spain, kept the plane straight and level for 20 minutes.
Yuneec International's E430
Yuneec International’s E430 recently made its first flight with 4 successive hops of about a minute each. The Chinese LSA category craft, which is designed to have battery power to remain aloft for 1.5 to 2 hours, will continue its flight testing in Camarillo, CA in the next couple of weeks. It is expected to then be displayed at AirVenture 2009, EAA’s annual gathering of aircraft and aviators, at the end of July.