Lilium has selected Lufthansa’s training arm to develop a programme that will deliver a pipeline of qualified pilots for its developmental electric air taxi, as the Bavarian start-up solves another part of its pre-launch puzzle.
Category: transportation – Page 385
NASA backs development of cryogenic hydrogen system to power all-electric aircraft
Circa 2019
The University of Illinois has announced that NASA is underwriting a project to develop a cryogenic hydrogen fuel cell system for powering all-electric aircraft. Funded by a three-year, US$6 million contract, the Center for Cryogenic High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft (CHEETA) will investigate the technology needed to produce a practical all-electric design to replace conventional fossil fuel propulsion systems.
The jet engine in all its variations has revolutionized air travel, but with airline profit margins running wafer thin in these ecologically conscious times, there’s a lot of interest in moving away from aircraft powered by fossil fuels and toward emission-free electric propulsion systems that aren’t dependent on petroleum and its volatile prices.
The CHEETA project is a consortium of eight institutions that include the Air Force Research Laboratory, Boeing Research and Technology, General Electric Global Research, Ohio State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Arkansas, the University of Dayton Research Institute, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Although the project is still in its conceptual stage, the researchers have a firm vision of the technology and its potential.
The scramjet is a super-fast, experimental engine with no moving parts
To test its experimental X-43A — an unmanned, single-use, scramjet-powered, hypersonic aircraft of which three were built — NASA piggybacked it on two other aircraft.
First was the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which carried under its wing the other two vehicles to an altitude at which they could be ‘drop-launched’.
Then there was the booster rocket, a modified version of a Pegasus rocket, which would accelerate the X-43A after the drop launch to a speed at which its scramjet engine could operate.
Video: Flying Car Takes Off in Japan
Japanese company SkyDrive has completed a successful manned test flight of its flying car prototype. “Of the world’s more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful has succeeded with a person on board,” said Tomohiro Fukuzawa, head of SkyDrive. The vehicle uses electric vertical takeoff and landing for efficient point-to-point travel, and could one day offer a viable option to busy airport terminals and roadway congestion. Fukuzawa hopes to have a commercial product ready to launch by 2023.
