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Last week, NASA administrator Charles Bolden introduced the agency’s newest X-plane — the X-57 — at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ annual Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition in Washington, D.C.
“With the return of piloted X-planes to NASA’s research capabilities — which is a key part of our 10-year-long New Aviation Horizons initiative — the general aviation-sized X-57 will take the first step in opening a new era of aviation,” said Bolden. The initial X-plane, the X-1, was introduced in 1947 and became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound.
“Dozens of X-planes of all shapes, sizes and purposes have since followed — all of them contributing to our stature as the world’s leader in aviation and space technology,” said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “Planes like the X-57, and the others to come, will help us maintain that role.”
The X-57 will be built from a Tecnam P2006T, an Italian-designed twin-engine light aircraft. According to NASA, “Its original wing and two gas-fueled piston engines will be replaced with a long, skinny wing embedded with 14 electric motors — 12 on the leading edge for take offs and landings, and one larger motor on each wing tip for use while at cruise altitude.”
The goal of NASA’s team of aeronautical researchers is to show that by distributing electric power across multiple motors, they’ll be able to achieve a reduction of 5x the energy required for a private plane to travel 175 miles per hour. This improved energy efficiency could lead to shorter flight times, less fuel usage and smaller operational costs. The plane will also be battery-powered, eliminating any carbon emissions — and hopefully clearing the path for a much greener future for the aviation industry.
Source: thepointsguy.com
President Trump is going to stop this nonsense or we’re going to leave the EU too.
No mention of range. The best batteries today have 25 times less energy density by weight (8 times less by volume) than Jet Fuel. Hopefully they’ll be able to find some way to extend the range with solar panels, and there has to be some way to regenerate some of the energy during descent. I’m glad to see the research being done, but I suspect it will be a while before this is anything commercially viable.
Solar is a complete waste for most aviation purposes. In most cases, the energy required to lift the weight of the panels themselves would exceed their output, even if the panels were 100% efficient (and reality is more in the 20-30% range.) While it’s true that you can fly a single person at 30-50 mph using an aircraft with a wingspan that is 12 feet longer than that of the 747-8 (yes, really,) that’s not really useful for any practical purpose other than aerial sensor platforms that are designed to loiter on-site.
While that’s true, electric motors are much lighter than the internal combustion engines that are being replaced. Electric airplanes in this size can fly for up to two hours. That’s enough to satisfy the flight school requirement today, where most training flights are 75 minutes or less.
The problem with that is that it’s not so useful to learn to fly an electric airplane when you’re going to need an avgas-powered one for any useful purpose after obtaining your license. There are several things you have to keep an eye out for with a piston engine that you wouldn’t have any practice with if you learn on electric motors. Also cross-country flight training can be quite a bit longer than 75 minutes. I’ve flown 3 hours on a training flight, for example.
Also, the weight savings of an electric engine over a piston one is nowhere in the same ballpark as the weight savings of avgas vs. batteries. Even a light, single-engine airplane like the Cherokee carries 300 lb of avgas. If we assume an energy density similar to electric car batteries, batteries that could store an equivalent amount of energy would weigh 5,300 lb (which is roughly 2.5x the total max takeoff weight of a Cherokee, which includes the weight of the airframe and engine.)
Solar panels won’t really help much either. You’re talking 10, maybe 15 watts per sq ft. Unless this thing has a truly incredible WHr/mile (like, orders of magnitude lower than electric cars) it would be a drop in the bucket. All in all biofuels seem vastly more viable for reducing the environmental impact of commercial aviation. Of course NASA has already been researching that heavily for years now…