While I doubt airliner behemoths Boeing or Airbus are aiming to create aircraft you might buy, their work along with other developers, may nonetheless lead to something new in the future for recreational aircraft pilots and buyers.
According to a report in Wired magazine, “On the morning of January 31, eight buzzing rotors lifted a black bubble of an aircraft off the ground for the first time … Vahana Alpha One spent 53 seconds aloft, under its own power and autonomous control. It reached a height of 16 feet. The flight may not sound like much, but the team from Airbus … and aerospace experts say such flights of experimental aircraft mark the start of a fundamental change in the way we get around.”
Writer Jack Stewart goes on to state, “Alpha One … is a full-scale demonstrator of a single-person, vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The idea … is to remake the way we fly.
Search Results for : Alpha
Not finding exactly what you expected? Try our advanced search option.
Select a manufacturer to go straight to all our content about that manufacturer.
Select an aircraft model to go straight to all our content about that model.
What’s in a Word? A Tale of Two Countries Involving Light-Sport Aircraft
One word can make a huge difference. This unassailable logic was recently put forth by Michael Coates of Australia regarding the LSA regulation. The offensive word? —Reciprocating.
It sounds so innocent until you consider what that word prevents in the USA. Like so many laws and regulations, the original idea didn’t work out anything like what was intended.
In its ground-breaking — I’m tempted to write “daring” — Sport Pilot / Light-Sport Aircraft regulation of 2004, FAA specified that all LSA must use only a reciprocating engine. Their stated goal was to avoid turbines that were thought too complex for the “simple aircraft flying in simple airspace” mantra of the day. (For the record, numerous airline pilots I know confirmed that turbines are far simpler than any reciprocating engine. They do require different techniques that are not familiar to recreational-only pilots but they are actually very easy engines to operate, say these professional pilots.)
Regardless, FAA’s word choice not only prevented turbine engines but unknowingly prevented electric propulsion as well.
Electric Experimentation Grows; LSA and Ultralights Will Succeed First
As the world appears to shift into overdrive about electric cars, planes, and drones, what is happening in this dynamic, unfolding sector in aviation?
Recent news from Pipistrel spoke to their continued development of their Alpha Electro. This Slovenian company has long pursued this and may be leading in commercialization but — as with electric autos — this remains a minuscule part of total sales. However, it attracts outsized attention from mainstream media, regulators, and others.
Recently, my friend and LAMA Europe associate, Jan Friedrich, alerted me to a new success story.
The Skyleader company is somewhat known in the USA although perhaps by their earlier name Kappa. The more correct name was and is Jihlavan Airplanes but Skyleader is a better marketing name.
Americans have seen examples of the company’s top-of-the-line Skyleader 600 — here’s our video review of the model — but sales have not taken off in this country.
DeLand is Approaching… Video Deluge Brings Attention to Exhibitors You Will See
My video partner must be working around the clock as he prepared a blizzard of videos for release starting November 1st.
As you see in the list below, 20 videos will soon be available. I hope you’ll enjoy them.
Besides giving you info on various aircraft to see at the event, we hope to encourage you to attend DeLand #2. Videos are great and in them we try to ask the questions you would ask and to show you things you’d look for if you attended. Good as videos are, nothing substitutes for you being present to ask and look yourself. I hope you can.
Videoman Dave and I will be on-site all three days of the event. We will likely be a blur in motion dashing from one fetching aircraft vendor to another to gather more article material and video interviews. We also hope to record more Video Pilot Reports, as we did last year.
You Love YouTube Videos. We Love YouTube Videos. See a Batch as DeLand 2017 Arrives!
Are you a YouTube fan? I don’t mean the company or its owner Google/Alphabet (which has removed videos for reasons only a YouTube censor could comprehend). What I’m a fan of is YouTube content creators.
Like literally billions of other people, I’ve come to depend on YouTube videos, whether for pure entertainment or when I’m trying to fix something in my house or on my car. As you probably know, YouTube will almost certainly have not one video to help or delight you, but dozens …on the same topic. More than 300 hours of video are uploaded to Google’s computers every minute of the day, 24×7. Amazing! More than 5 billion videos are watched every day by more than 1.3 billion people (and that’s without China’s 1.3 billion people as the government does not allow YouTube in that nation).
However, this post is not to sing the praises of YouTube but to bring to your attention the yeoman’s work done by my video partner, Dave Loveman, whom I’ve come to call “Videoman Dave,” because unlike yours truly, he tends to shy away from being the on-camera guy or even promoting his name.
Pipistrel — Electro (04/15)
We first knew of this project as WATTsUP. That name was fun but as the project came to production, it was renamed Electro … basically their Alpha but with electric propulsion. In this interview, Dan Johnson speaks with Light Sport and Ultralight Flying editor and longtime pro photographer, James Lawrence, about his upcoming visit to Pipistrel in Slovenia. James recently spoke to chief engineer Tine Tomazic who provided some operational details on matters like endurance, recharging, regenerative charging and more.
Pipistrel — Elektro (04/15)
We first knew of this project as WATTsUP. That name was fun but as the project came to production, it was renamed Electro … basically their Alpha but with electric propulsion. In this interview, Dan Johnson speaks with Light Sport and Ultralight Flying editor and longtime pro photographer, James Lawrence, about his upcoming visit to Pipistrel in Slovenia. James recently spoke to chief engineer Tine Tomazic who provided some operational details on matters like endurance, recharging, regenerative charging and more.
Will Third Class Medical Reform Hurt LSA?
One of the most common questions I got at Oshkosh 2016 was the title of this article. I’m only one person with an opinion, but since I work with many airframe producers in the LSA space, I heard this question fairly often, several times from airplane sellers who were curious what other producers thought.
Just shy of five years ago, EAA and AOPA caught the LSA industry off guard by announcing plans to push FAA to drop the Third Class medical. Most LSA professionals likely agree with the basic idea that FAA ought to keep their noses out of the recreational end of aviation. Many feel that the medical requirement has prevented almost no accidents. Nonetheless, this new initiative took aim at the primary reason LSA builders were then selling airplanes like crazy. If you wanted to fly without a medical you had ultralights (Part 103… and still do), or sailplane motorgliders, or Light-Sport Aircraft.
Early Preview of Aero Freidrichshafen 2016
The great show of Europe called Aero Friedrichshafen is about to begin. It starts officially tomorrow and runs through Saturday (April 20-23, 2016). I’ve lost count, but believe this is my 20th year of attending, far more than any other European show. As he worked to help exhibitors and manage the million details of his event, boss Roland Bosch said the event started in 1977, meaning next year would be its 40th, but… Aero alternated years from 1977 through 1991 (as do many European airshows). With the 1993 event it went annual, meaning this is the 31st Aero.
On Monday, the vast 11 halls of the Messe (the facility name) were largely empty but slowly becoming populated with airplanes. In all of the gymnasium-sized halls with their elegant curved wood roofs, workers assembled displays. In Halls B1, B2, and B3 — where the light aircraft I follow are concentrated — displays are more elaborate than anything we typically see at U.S.
VIDEO — Check Out the Speedy Swiss Risen
In addition to what you can read on ByDanJohnson.com, we have a growing library of videos. When I attend airshows, I frequently hear from attendees that they thoroughly enjoy these 8-12 minute productions. I have the fun job, seeking out airplanes and speaking to the developers behind them while on camera. After that my video partner, Dave, does the big job of editing these things into what I consider to be very nice productions. You get views of the airplane, hear the details, and see more about them than any other way than attending the airshow yourself.
In this newest posted video, you see the gorgeous Risen from Sea-Avio.com (SEA is Swiss Excellence Airplanes). Update June 2020 — SEA is now Porto Aviation Group. Now, this is not simply one more entry in the increasingly crowded Light-Sport or (European) microlight market. This may be the fastest airplane in the fleet and is certainly — if not the fastest — one of the speediest airplanes to use the Rotax 912 ULS engine.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 7
- Next Page »