Search Results for : electric

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.

Let’s be clear. Boeing, Airbus, Google, Amazon, and other immensely deep pockets are not seeking to build fun flying machines for you and me. Well… not initially, at least. And even that statement is somewhat wrong based on the development of the Kitty Hawk Flyer (video below).
Big money doesn’t begin investing hoping to sell 100-200 aircraft per year. Such a performance would be more than acceptable to most manufacturers of Light-Sport Aircraft, light kit aircraft, or ultralights. Indeed, 200 deliveries a year would qualify as a major success for most such builders.
The billionaire class dreams much bigger, probably thinking they can sell many thousands of aircraft or much higher cost aircraft than we recreational aviators want to buy. Most will center on doing transportation or package delivery. Most will not seek to increase your weekend flying fun.
You know what, though? Neither did the Wright Brothers or the other pioneers of flight have recreation in mind.

Here in Florida, home to ByDanJohnson.com, we take hurricanes very seriously. While you know they are coming, unlike a tornado, they are nonetheless incredibly powerful forms of destruction.
Hurricane Maria produced winds of 200 mph, enough that the weather gurus talked about creating a new category of storm called a Category 6; Cat-5 is presently the maximum. Whatever the label you apply to it, this was a major storm of almost incomprehensible proportions.
We got lucky here in the Daytona Beach area. Once a hurricane comes over land, it begins to lose power. By the time it reached us, it was still pretty scary but not remotely like what had been seen in south Florida or in the Caribbean.
As most of us have heard, Puerto Rico was massively hit, enduring those 200 mph winds (four times as potent as 100 mph winds, which are already mighty frightening).
In September 2017, Hurricane Maria entered Puerto Rico like a battering ram, sweeping through the southeastern coastal city of Humacao and into the island’s history as its worst natural disaster.

[from a talk given at DeLand Showcase 2017…]
After more than 13 years of LSA, I believe the industry can stand tall and proud…
Even with more than 140 attractive, innovative, and roomy LSA of every description, much of what makes LSA a strong and worthy addition to aviation is less obvious to many.
Sure, pilots love the nuts and bolts and hearing about performance or flight characteristics of our favorite aircraft but what has really brought LSA to the forefront of aviation… worldwide?
I’m lucky. I’ve had a front row seat to what I consider to be the greatest modern story in aviation.
Since the 1970s, I watched hang gliders evolve into ultralights and ultralights transform into LSA. Then I watched as a worldwide fleet launched into the skies over the past 15-20 years. This has been humbling to experience and a source of constant delight …as well as a source of material for thousands of articles and hundreds of video.

It’s over …yet it’s just begun. I refer to the Midwest LSA Expo, which, you might say, kicks off the LSA show season including light kits and ultralights in addition to LSA. Midwest runs in the first weekend in September, followed by Copperstate in October, followed by DeLand in November, and climaxing with the granddaddy of these shows, Sebring, in January.
Copperstate has more than LSA and light kits but it has a focus on those aircraft. The organizers enjoy such light recreational flying machines so they focus on this segment. That show is coming soon. DeLand will later host the second-annual event. Sebring will be hosting its 14th event. The last is the largest and best established of these and, indeed, has been the wellspring from which the others of these evolved …except for Copperstate, which will celebrate its 45th year in 2017 — impressive!