Recently, Pipistrel won $1.35 million for placing first in the NASA Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFÉ) Green Flight Challenge, sponsored by Google. The goal of the competition is to make a step change in the efficiency of aircraft. Pipistrel designed and flew their Taurus G4, a futuristic 4-seat all-electric aircraft, for almost 200 miles in less than two hours.

Click here to read EAA’s story on Pipistrel, and view photos.

This is a HUGE advancement in electric flight. Current all-electric aircraft would either have short flight time, which are less than one hour, or low speed to increase their range and flight time. Either way, it was impractical to fly electric aircraft beyond recreational flying. It’s also important to note that Tauras G4, as well as the second place e-genius, beat out hybrid powered competition by a wide margin.

While the range, speed and payload performance of Pipistrel’s Taurus G4 doesn’t quite match up to their avgas powered counterparts, it’s not hard to envision electric powered LSA or even GA aircraft in the not-so-distant future. What would help make electric aircraft viable? Could fuel cell be the solution? We will take a deeper look in part two.

In case you haven’t already seen it, the most recent issue of “The Economist” had an excellent piece on UAVs entitled “Flight of the drones: Why the future of air power belongs to unmanned systems.”

A few points were correctly brought out in terms of overall UAV weaknesses. I’ll be the first to admit that UAVs are not a panacea for current and future traditional manned platform issues. In other words, fighter pilots now and in the foreseeable future should feel confident in their job security. However, the defense industry and government partners are working to address the primary issues affecting UAVs. Therefore, UAVs will remain an important and growing part of the military portfolio of airborne platforms.

Figure 1: Select worldwide UAVs

The degree to which UAVs can operate autonomously right now is limited, especially for any complex military mission. Nonetheless, as Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (ret), mentioned in the article “Technologically, we can take [autonomy] pretty far, but it won’t be technology that is the limiting factor, it will be policy.” In the short-term, technology will be the limiting factor when it comes to autonomy. But in the long-term, military policy will be the ultimate challenge.

Related to autonomy is the delay in reaction time between UAVs and control stations. For the most part, UAVs are heavily reliant on data links, and the proliferation of information from FMV (full-motion video) has only exacerbated this issue. Furthermore, encryption problems have just recently surfaced within US DoD ground control stations (see related article here). The defense industry is developing products that will increase the overall data link speeds, broaden the bandwidth, and add a level of encryption necessary to protect against future cyber-attacks. In addition, an effort is underway to add “smart” processing and exploitation capabilities to onboard sensors so that only significant information is disseminated, thus minimizing unnecessary data transmissions.

UAV access to the civil airspace has huge ramifications, both for military and civilian UAV uses. This issue became even more of a hot topic after an RQ-7B “Shadow” collided with a C-130 “Hercules” in Afghanistan on August 15^th this year (see related article here). While at AUVSI in DC, I think UAV access to the civil airspace came up during 75 percent of the presentations I attended, regardless of the overall topic. In other words, everybody and anybody were talking about it. Again, the defense industry is addressing this challenge via a multitude of “sense and avoid” approaches. The FAA will certainly not bend any rules for UAVs, nor should they. I see a solution here in the near-term, due mainly to the fact that all parties involved recognize the problem yet see the enormous benefits for civil and military applications.

Fly safe,

Marc

During a much anticipated set of press briefings at NBAA, GE and Gulfstream announced yesterday that the Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) system has been selected by Gulfstream for its new, state-of-the-art aircraft, the G650.

The announcement is significant for GE in two ways. First, it shows that IVHM is not merely a concept. GE has been hard at work on this system for a long time: the system has been tested on a variety of platforms and its added value has been proven time and again. Second, it ties IVHM to an impressive airframer and platform: not only is Gulfstream an extremely forward-looking company, but the G650 will represent the pinnacle of its fleet once it enters service next year.

At GE we are understandably proud of what we have accomplished so far with this system and we look forward to expanding our portfolio to new platforms and segments in the industry.

Why do we feel that IVHM is such a game changer? The following three distinguishing elements are at the heart of our value proposition:

• Prognostics: if you are unfamiliar with the term, think “predictive”. IVHM doesn’t only collect data from the onboard systems: it actively analyzes it to predict when certain events may occur in the future. In practice this allows operators to pro-actively apply corrective measures during the aircraft’s downtime, rather than react to events after the fact.

• Resolution: Through GE’s close ties to the airframers, IVHM can provide guidance on the severity and resolution of certain events.

• Agnostic: IVHM has proven its effectiveness on many test platforms, equipped with a seemingly endless variety of systems. As such it allows airframers, operators and aircraft owners the freedom to select an aircraft without worrying how the health management system will be integrated.

If you happen to be at NBAA when you read this, feel free to pass by our booth: we will be showcasing IVHM through videos and interactive experiences.

If you are unable to attend but would still like to see what we’ve been up to, take a look at the following video. We think you’ll agree that our excitement is not misplaced.

Raf.

EAA/Oshkosh dubs itself as “the world’s greatest aviation celebration” and any aviation enthusiast who has been lucky enough to go there would likely concur. Perhaps it’s the sheer number and variety of aircraft present, or the impressive show that EAA puts together each year. Personally, the creative ideas and new products that the attendees bring to Wittman field rank very highly: they infuse a great deal of enthusiasm into an already electrifying atmosphere.

During our week-long exhibit, GE showcased some of its more recent products, such as the H80 turboprop engine, and our Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) system.

I have talked to you about IVHM in my recent posts and the response that we have been getting from industry leaders has been tremendous, so I thought I’d share with you some of the slides that we presented at Oshkosh.

IVHM Oshkosh

As you may expect, many of the aircraft health management questions that we have been posed recently revolve around the possibility of reducing delays and improving the efficiency of maintenance operations. They can generally be categorized into three main areas. First, operators and airframers alike are interested in solutions that can not only gather data, but also analyze it. Second, they want to harness the computing technology of such systems to potentially uncover issues before they occur (prognostics). Finally, they want to ensure that the data is protected from unauthorized access.

I am obviously pleased by the fact that GE’s IVHM addresses all three areas. Moreover I am excited by the fact that the world of aviation is becoming increasingly savvy about the potential to channel today’s technology towards improving the experience of flying.

It will be interesting to see what the creative minds of industry players will bring to Oshkosh next year.

Raf.