Today marks the first day of the Green Flight Challenge. An event that will see 13 experimental aircraft go head to head for a grand prize worth 1.6 million USD. What makes this event so interesting is that these aircraft are not competing to be the Navy's next top dog fighter or anything like that, rather they are competing for extreme fuel efficiency.
The goal is to have an aircraft that can travel for 2 hours at 100 miles per hour only burning one gallon of gasoline per occupant with low noise. That's 200 person miles per gallon; far better then any commercial airliner or passenger jet today, and even better then most cars.
It's all part of NASA's grand plot to get everyone flying by the end of the decade: SATA or Small Aircraft Transportation System is an idea conceived by NASA back in 1997 in which they hope to decongest commuter traffic by making air taxis a viable option for everyone. It's all a good idea in theory however it's taken quit a bit of time for them to get to this point, but it's a big step forward.
Most of the aircraft will be electric, historically marking the first event in aviation history where electric propulsion will compete in a challenge. However quit a few will run on Bio-diesel, one will run on ethanol and another will run on good old JET-A. Some of the aircraft have hybrid propulsion systems that use a combination of Bio-Diesel and electric power to extend their range.
My money is pinned on the Synergy Aircraft as the winner of this event. It's the only one that can fit 6 people and uses the most innovative aerodynamics I have seen. However there are a lot of other contenders that could easily get first place. Still whoever wins it's a win win for everyone.
The military is good for something but when it is, it's generally by accident. In this case the notorious "war on terror" has led to the need for spy drones that can stay on location for long periods of time. In an effort to combat, whoever we're fighting, the military has reinvested it's interest in airships for the task. LEMV or Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle is the military's answer to long endurance with enough payload to have 92 cameras scouting the field at 21,000ft for insurgents for up to 21 days (Or more accurately it's scouting for people who took up arms against the U.S. because we're supporting the government that treats them like slaves, but enough about politics.)
The LEMV is not just a surveillance platform. It can easily and efficiently fulfill all the rolls a C-130 Hercules can, save top speed, for slightly less operating costs and requires quit a bit less training to fly compared to the Hercules. It achieves this by utilizing the technological innovation of Hybrid Airships: This is where the body of the envelope is shaped like a wing to give it more lift when moving forward like an airplane. The result is something massive that flies with very little effort. Up to 40% of it's lift comes from it's shape. That means that ground crews and tethers are no longer necessary. Increasing the payload just increases the stall speed. Light loads can take off at around 10kts and full loads can take off at around 40kts. This means it needs less runway then a Cessna 172, even when it has 20,000 pounds of stuff on board. Combine that with it's hovercraft landing gear, that gives it the same mobility of a hovercraft on the ground and this thing can land just about anywhere, even theoretically in mine fields.
Logically, the LEMV implications go far beyond military applications. When scaled up these can carry 50, 200 or even 1000 tons of bulk cargo. This gives them a capacity similar to small sea going freighters, except they can go much faster 100kts+, where ships travail at around 25 to 35kts, and they can also travel over land and they go in straight lines from point A to point B without interference by terrain, which ultimately decreases costs. Overall this makes them very attractive to cargo movers, because your getting something that can preform a lot of the same missions a helicopter/airplane can but for an operating price that's comparable to sea freight and trucking.
Currently the military has purchased 3 LEMV's for deployment sometime this year or the next (hopefully the country won't fall apart before then.) However the company that's making them, Hybrid Air Vehicles, just signed a deal worth a possible 3.8 billion with Discovery Air to supply up to 45 50ton capacity vehicles to handle missions in Alaska and Canada. You may have heard of the Ice Road Truckers, Iron clad men with balls of steal, that drive trucks over ice in the winter to deliver supplies to isolated areas? Well, their job security might just have been shot by these things because the LEMV can deliver supplies to these areas without the hazard of falling into the ice and they can do it all year round. These truckers might wanna consider switching to blimp pilot in the not too distant future, although that might not just be true for them but possibly the majority of long rang truckers out there who might very well be finding themselves competing with airships in the coming decade.
Truly these Hybrid Airships have overcome much or the problems with the classic airships of yesteryear. Making them not just nifty, but practical.
Everyday, I check Google to see what's new in the world of Aviation, in particular I wan't to know everything that happened in the world of airships. It's been one of my dreams since I was little to someday fly an airship. Yet, here we are a few mouths away from the completion of the first LEMV and the media is silent about this revolutionary new technology that could change the world.
Thus, I decided to start this blog to keep all my Airship news up to date, and relevant. Seeing as the media has descended into something that hardly even resembles news anymore, I see myself as a voice of rationality in the technology sector. Someone who can see the oncoming revoultion in flight; and connect the dots between the technologies that will come together to create it.
I hope this blog will be as useful for you as it should be for me. I have have a lot of stuff to cover and not much time to cover it. The problem being that with technology, it isn't used unless it's known about: just look up "pure energy systems" in Google to give yourself an idea of underutilized technologies.
We are at a point now where we can make a choice of what kind of world we want to live in. If we don't understand the technology that can get us there, then we will be relient on others to take us there; a path doomed for tyranny. The other side of this coin is that we, as a people, can set out on a path that leads to prosperity for all. But only if we know how to get there.
Airships and a revolution that get most if not all people flying, is defiantly part of the equation. For freedom is in the air and liberty is the destiny of all sentient life. We will be the generation that reaches the stars, but only if we strive for it.
