e-flight-Journal01-2017

e Airshow
FFA President Jean Luc Charron signed a “Letter of Intent”
together with the Pipistrel Importer Christian Stuck and
Ivo Boscarol CEO of Pipistrel that FFA will purchase three
Pipistrel Alpha Electro aircraft to use for flight training in the
French Federation. The interesting thing is that the aircraft,
which the Aeroclub has chosen, is designed as an ultralight
but will now fly with “Permit to fly” and later as a LSA. Two
years ago the e-Fan was the big hype at the Le Bourget show.
Dr Mueller-Wiesner, Project Manager of the e-Fan Program,
stated in Le Bourget: “We already talked with DGAC and the
French Aeroclubs and we want to establish private pilot flight
training on an electric aircraft as soon as possible,” but then
the Airbus program stopped so the Aeroclub was left on its
e-plans without a plane.
Profit from Airbus work
The French Pipistrel importer Christian Stuck explains the electric
Flight Trainer to the pilots from tomorrow.
On the other hand is Pipistrel: they developed the Alpha
Electro and presented it as an e-Flight-trainer 2014 in Blois.
However, Pipistrel´s Alpha is an ultralight, although it is flying
in the US with 600 Kg as an LSA, in Europe it’s limited
to the 475.5 Kg MTOW as all ultralights are. Ivo Boscarol
and several other manufacturers tried to get the EU institutions
to raise the weight limit to 600 Kg but the rule change
is still pending. The European Council, European Parliament
and European Commission have differing opinions on this
so they are still negotiating. So for Pipistrel, which has the
Alpha Electro ready for production and even sold a production
license to China, the aircraft could not be sold in Europe.
Airbus announced that - after the end of the EFAB 1 and 2 - they are working
on the e-Fanx (passenger plan) and showed the city airbus as model.
eViation showed a scaled model of its all-electric airplane.
It’s designed to fly 600 nautical miles at a price similar to
travel by airliner over the same distance.
Next year the Israeli startup plans to build a prototype of
the three-engine distributed-propulsion aircraft that would
feature one electric motor at the tail and one on each
wingtip for more aerodynamic efficiency. The motors on the
wingtips are designed to enable significant drag reduction
and the motors can also be used for controlling the aircraft
(this engine control will be managed by a computer).
The company wants to show the first full size prototype
at AERO next year and the production model is planned to
arrive in 2020.
The goal is six to nine passengers maximum. The engines
will mostly likely come from the German Siemens e-aircraft.
The aircraft shall fly fully electric and shall carry 6,000
pounds of batteries. The planned MTOW is about 12,000
pounds, (cruise speed 240 ktas).
e Flight Journal
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