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The
arrival of a Chinese-built electric-powered aircraft at the
Experimental Aircraft Assn.'s AirVenture 2009 has sharpened the focus
on making the technology commercially viable.

Industrialization will be key, bringing economies of scale that will
in turn spur further development of lighter, more powerful fuel sources
than today's lithium polymer battery packs. And Shanghai-based Yuneec
International might prove to be the catalyst to accelerate the
technology into the commercial arena, making economic electric flight
possible for sport pilots and, eventually, heavier aircraft and
military UAVs.

"The motors and the electronics are already here and are scalable,"
notes Clive Coote, managing director of Yuneec International, a company
owned by Chinese entrepreneur and electrical engineer Tian Yu. His
business conglomerate is the world's largest manufacturer of
ready-to-go radio-controlled model aircraft with an emphasis on
electrical powerplants.

"We said let's do something bigger," says Coote. And construction is
now underway in China on a 260,000-sq.-ft. factory that will employ 250
making all of Tian's electrical model and Yuneec electric products. An
aircraft factory will follow.

Yuneec has been building air-cooled, brushless electric motors of 10
kw./23 hp. and 20 kw./27 hp. for parasail and ultralight aircraft, and
has developed the 40-kw./54-hp. motor that powers its Yuneec E430,
which arrived at Osh­kosh with 21.5 flight hours on it. "We are
planning production for mid-2010," notes Coote.

What buyers will receive is an all-composite, two-seat
motorglider-type aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,034 lb. It
will fit the Light Sport Aircraft category when the FAA adjusts the
rules to allow electric power. (The current language specifying piston
power was written to exclude jets and turbines.)

Endurance, utility and speed are the three big questions. Yuneec
estimates that the aircraft will fly 1.5-2.0 hr. at optimum cruise of
60 mph. with two people on board and with the standard six batteries
installed. Much depends on the aircraft's aerodynamic efficiency, which
will be explored as flight testing gets underway. Recharging the
batteries on the ground takes 3-4 hr.

The three-phase motor - which has magnets and sensors on the rotor
and stator to provide optimum phase timing through sophisticated
electronics in the engine and battery management controller - runs at a
maximum 200 volts and 400 amps. In cruise, it turns over at just 1,800
rpm.

Batteries will need replacing every 600 cycles, or roughly every
1,200 hr. of flying, at a cost of about $20,000. While that sounds like
a lot of money, Coote points out that with electricity adding up to $3
an hour, the operating costs work out around $25-30 an hour, or
somewhat lower than for a piston engine. And there is no maintenance on
the electric motor, he points out. It is oilless and needs nothing more
than its two bearings replaced every few thousand hours, a task that
takes 1 hr.

Critical to the system - and safety - is the battery charger, which
has been developed to charge each cell within ±5 millivolts. Every part
of the system is sealed to prevent electrocuting the pilot or mechanics.

In Coote's view, today's battery specific-energy density of 170
kwh./kg. needs to be doubled "to make electric power really
interesting." Yuneec will be manufacturing its own batteries and will
work toward that goal, he says. (For more details, go to www.yuneec.com)

The U.S. is making technological progress as well. Randall Fishman
has more than 70 flight hours on the Sonex motorglider-based electric
airplane that he flew to Oshkosh last year. It has a liquid-cooled
brushless motor and lithium polymer batteries of his own manufacture.
His Electric Aircraft Corp. in Cliffside Park, N.J., will offer the
soon-to-fly composite ElectraFlyer-X as a kit for $65,000, plus another
$15,000 for batteries.

He expects the new airplane will use 37 kw./50 hp. for takeoff and
just 6 kw./8 hp. to cruise at 80 mph., giving an endurance of up to 2
hr. Fishman believes industrialization is key to future development,
and he plans to ramp up production of the aircraft, batteries and
electrical components as demand grows. Making his own batteries will
ensure quality control, he adds, as it is not consistent from outside
suppliers. (For more details, go to www.ElectraFlyer.com)

Oshkosh-based Sonex Aircraft is now three years into its goal to
develop an all-electric sport aircraft, a project that it recognized
from the start would be "extremely difficult," as it determined to make
everything but the lithium polymer batteries itself.

Its E-Flight team is now integrating the system into the test
aircraft, a factory Waiex, and hopes for first flight before year-end.

A major breakthrough in Sonex's proprietary technology has been the
use of the 55-kw./75-hp. brushless motor's own back-EMF signal for
commutation, providing extremely accurate timing, following
unsatisfactory results with a Hall Effect sensor ring. Other challenges
included overheating of the motor on ground tests. That problem has
been overcome by increasing the cooling air and reducing a gap between
the winding and the motor barrel.

"This is one of the largest, most powerful systems devised for an
aircraft," says Sonex's Mark Schaible. "There just wasn't anything out
there of that size at the right cost."

A lot of effort has been expended on isolating the airplane's
low-voltage systems, such as avionics and throttle-by-wire, from the
high-voltage runs.

The E-Flight Waiex is designed to be aerobatic and reach 130 mph.,
although at that speed its endurance might be reduced to a mere 15 min.
A more moderate hand on the throttle could extend it to 45 min.; Sonex
is expecting battery power densities to double in the next 3-5 years.
"We wanted to debunk the notion that electric power is only for
motorgliders," says Schaible. The company hopes to price E-Flight Waiex
kits for less than $50,000 in 2007 dollars. (For more details, go to
www.AeroConversions.com/e-flight)

Also at Oshkosh was PC-Aero of Landsberg am Lech, Germany. The
company's president, Calin Gologan, plans to compete with an
electric-powered aircraft of his own design for the $1.65-million prize
to be offered in 2011 by NASA/CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight
Efficiency) Foundation's "Green Flight Challenge." This calls for a
two-seat aircraft to fly on less than a gallon of fuel or 33.7 kwh. at
100 mph. for more than 200 mi., or 0.5 gal./16.85 kwh. for a
single-seater. Gologan, who worked as a consultant designer on the
Yuneec airplane, is basing his design around a Yuneec power system.

Gologan expects electric airplanes to come into their own in 5-10
years "when the cost of batteries will be halved and the price of fuel
doubled." At that point four-seaters will be feasible - and he already
has one on the drawing board.

Within a decade, completely carbon-neutral flying will be possible,
Gologan asserts. He is already pursuing technology for "green village"
airports where electric aircraft will charge up overnight on solar cell
or wind-generated power-feeding communal storage batteries. (For more
details, go to www.pc-aero.de)

But while Detroit was stealing headlines on the ground, a little-known Chinese company was doing something even more incredible in the skies.

At the OshKosh AirVenture show a few weeks ago, Beijing startup Yuneec International took the wraps off the world’s first commercially produced electric aircraft, the E430.

Powered by lithium polymer batteries, weighing close to a thousand pounds, and sipping about $2.50 worth of electricity per hour of flight, the E430 has completed more than 20 hours in test runs during the last couple months, including one in Camarillo, CA, that can be seen here.

Little more has been revealed about the E430, other than some technical specifications and that it can operate for up to three hours without a charge.

Today: adding electricity-powered systems

And while the E430 may be the aircraft equivalent of an auto show concept-car, there’s a good deal of progress being made in the advancement of electrical aeronautics on the whole. “What’s going on with modern aircraft is a revolution, whether you’re thinking about commercial or military aircraft,” says Bob Smith, VP of advanced technology at Honeywell Aerospace, a unit of Honeywell (HON).

Smith doesn't mean fully electric-powered aircraft – at least not yet. In aeronautic jargon, he’s talking about developing More Electric Architecture (MEA). Enabled by much larger and more sophisticated next-gen aircraft and more efficient generators, Honeywell is replacing the pneumatic and hydraulic power transference systems of with new electric versions.

“If you look at how much power a Boeing 777 generates, it’s on the order of 200-300 kilowatts. If you look at the 787, a next-gen aircraft, it’s 1.5 megawats,” he says. “That’s a massive change, because the generator technology has improved so much.”

Moving power around aircraft has always been cumbersome. In last-gen aircraft, high-pressure gas is taken from the engine and transported through bleed valves to the auxiliary power system, which controls air-conditioning, for example. This is a massively inefficient process due to the energy required to heat and cool the gases and because of the weight of the systems. “If you can put a more efficient generator in there, you have a power station as opposed to a boiling room,” says Smith.

Electrical systems are now being used to power reverse-thrusters – air brakes, essentially - in aircraft like the A380 – and for de-icing wings.

The upside: gains in fuel efficiencies

But two of the greatest benefits electrical systems provide are simplicity and merely lightening the load. Eliminating hydraulic systems reduces the complexity of repairing leaks and eliminating hundreds of pounds of tubing.

This can lead to as much as 30% gains in fuel consumption. For military aircraft, such a system is revolutionary. In the F35 Joint Strike Fighter, Honeywell’s system carved 1,000 pounds off the weight and 11 inches off the length of the plane.

Does Honeywell have its own E430 read for prime time? Not quite, but Smith suggests the real near-term potential for fully electric aircaft comes in the form of unmanned drones. Think about light-weight drones that travel constantly, their electric systems being continually replenished by advanced technologies like super capacitors, fuel cell systems and solar power.

“Once you have large power-generating systems, you have the capability of moving the power around a lot of different ways,” says Smith. “Then things get pretty interesting, allowing you to get into very long surveillance periods.”