{"id":4522,"date":"2011-10-01T17:16:28","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T00:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=4522"},"modified":"2011-10-14T18:35:52","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T01:35:52","slug":"green-flight-challenge-days-three-and-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/green-flight-challenge-days-three-and-five\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Flight Challenge – Days Three and Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if in answer to the most fervent prayers by CAFE Foundation organizers, Tuesday, September 27 dawned as a bright, windless morning, perfect for the planned 200 -mile aerial trek that each of four teams would undertake in the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google.<\/p>\n

Each would fly a large,\u00a0tightly-followed out-and-return loop around the Sonoma Valley, reaching the radio tower array on the peaks north of Geyserville, then returning for one of three passes (the fourth being the descent to land) over the CAFE Foundation hangar at the west end of the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. \u00a0Each would have to reach at least 4,000 feet at the end of a 17-mile climb and would need to track within one mile on either side of the Challenge course’s centerline.\u00a0 Pilots would need to stay on the outside edge of turnpoints, but shave their margin to within one-half mile on each pylon-type turn.<\/p>\n

To help monitor that precise flying, Steve Smith, CAFE board member and data and timing chief, was assisted by James Murray and Jonathan Barraclough, both electronics experts from NASA Ames Flight Research Center. Each airplane carried a netbook connected to an onboard datalogger which recorded the flight profile for downloading to the CAFE totalizers that would assess energy use and compare different planes in term of total kilowatt-hours of energy consumed.<\/p>\n

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James Murray (left), Jonathan Barraclough (center), and Steve Williams, CAFE board member calibrate test instruments essential to accurate Challenge results<\/p><\/div>\n

To verify takeoff weights, removeable components (such as pilots and their gear) were weighed Tuesday morning prior to takeoff, since there could have been changes between the Monday takeoff and climb competition and the morning of the Green Flight Challenge. This approach avoided the long and somewhat cumbersome weighing of the entire airplane. Since wingspans for all competitors exceeded the width of the CAFE hangar’s doors, some disassembly was required for each weighing, and as noted before, Pipistrel had a complex\u00a0array of metal platforms to help mount their twin fuselage craft on the scales.<\/p>\n

Tuesday morning, each competitor was towed to a hold position just short of runway 19. Because the Eco-Eagle was not competing, it was sent out first, with the assumption that faster craft would overtake it. Phoenix departed second, with Pipistrel and e-Genius following in order. Launches were about every 10 minutes, with each airplane towed to the hold point by a golf cart, tip-runners attending to keeping things straight and damage free. Pipistrel’s right cockpit, viewed from the pilots’ perspective, did not have a retaining mechanism, so two crew members walking at a stately pace before the airplane, carried it with some pomp and set it in place when it came time to launch.<\/p>\n

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Canopy bearers head the march to the start line<\/p><\/div>\n

The media, driven to the junction of the taxiway and runway 19, happily crowded each airplane as its pilot or pilots awaited their run. As the background airport traffic cleared the area, a pilot would start his engine or motor, taxi to the top of the runway’s number “9”, then respond to the big green flag dropped on the count of three by Mike Fenn, CAFE board member and hangar boss for the contest.<\/p>\n