eFlight Journal 02-2020

Cover News Story
NASA gives grant to electric aviation projects
NASA announced that it has issued a total of
US$ 51 million in aerospace research funding
for the first phase to the selected 409 companies,
including over 30 projects involving electric
aviation and urban air transportation (UAM).
Each winning company in the first phase will receive
no more than US$ 125,000 and the duration
will not exceed 6 months. Each successful
bidder selected in the second phase will
receive no more than US$ 750,000 in funding,
and there may be follow-up Larger financial
support. A number of the technology proposals
in NASA’s latest Phase I funding round relate
specifically to UAM, an emerging market in
which NASA is playing a leading role through its
Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign. The
winning projects focus on the areas including
unmanned traffic management, noise reduc-
tion, weather forecast, ride quality and passenger experiences,
flight testing and so on.
German regulator issued electric
drivetrain specification for ultralight
On May 19th the German Civil Aviation regulator LBA issued
a technical specification requirement (NfL 2-547-20)
specifically for ultralight aircraft (UL) using electric drivetrain.
This is currently one of the very few in the world with
detailed technical specification requirement for electric
drive train system including motors, batteries, and safety.
The technical specifications for batteries and motors re-
fer to existing industry standards and aviation technical
specifications, in which the battery requirements refer to
UN 38.3. and RTCA DO 311 standards. The specification
requires that the motor be subjected to a durability test
to determine the battery energy consumption and motor
power consumption according to the tested power level.
CityAirbus made first public demonstration flight
On July 30, Airbus’ multicopter eVTOL demonstrator
CityAirbus made the demonstration flight in
public for the first time since its first flight last
April. The flight occurred at Donauwörth airport
where CityAirbus has been conducting test
flight and is also the head office of Airbus Helicopter
in Germany. The aircraft hovered two
to three meters above the ground for a few
minutes before touching down again. Bavaria
Prime Minister Markus Söder was among the
spectators at the site. Söder said after the demonstration
flight that “climate-friendly aviation of
the future is being developed here. We want to
remain a strong aerospace and helicopter base
in the future.”
6 e Flight Journal
2 / 2020