{"id":9895,"date":"2015-05-05T10:41:21","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T17:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=9895"},"modified":"2015-05-05T10:41:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T17:41:21","slug":"good-news-bright-future-eas-ix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/good-news-bright-future-eas-ix\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News and a Bright Future from EAS IX"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sitting next to your editor for the first day of CAFE\u2019s ninth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, Paul Bertorelli from AVweb, took copious notes, made sound recordings, and during coffee and lunch breaks and in after-hours sessions, interviewed the accomplished faculty at the Symposium.\u00a0 His thorough and far-reaching reports appear in his last several days\u2019 postings to AVweb<\/a>.\u00a0 Having stressed mightily while attempting to take understandable notes from each speaker\u2019s talk, your editor can only be impressed by Paul\u2019s super reportorial abilities, and his communicating the scope and importance of what took place at EAS IX.<\/p>\n

\"Professional<\/a>

Professional film crew at EAS IX. Watch for the video!<\/p><\/div>\n

From your editor\u2019s perspective, several significant things took place this year.\u00a0 Senior leadership from Airbus and Siemens presented talks affirming their companies\u2019 commitment to making progress in electric aviation, with future plans to develop two and four-seat aircraft for European and American markets from Airbus, and to produce a range of light-weight, commercially-available motors from Siemens.<\/p>\n

Siemens has 343,000 employees worldwide and revenues of 101.2 billion euros, or $111 billion U. S. dollars.\u00a0 Airbus, During the 2014 Farnborough Air Show, won US$75.3 billion worth of business for a total of 496 aircraft, making it by far the largest Farnborough show for Airbus \u2013 both in terms of dollar value and also in the number aircraft.\u00a0 Airbus has around 63,000 employees.<\/p>\n

That these mega-corporations are willing to present in Santa Rosa, California to a Symposium organized by a non-profit organization makes CAFE intensely aware of the growing world-wide interest in electric aviation, and proud to be a part of that burgeoning momentum.<\/p>\n

\"Pipistrel's<\/a>

Pipistrel’s Taurus G4, winner of GFC I. We hope for many more Challenges and even greater progress.<\/p><\/div>\n

CAFE might be seen as the \u201cWoodstock of Aviation,\u201d over the last 35 years through its focus on \u201cgarage-band\u201d levels of technology that were simple and available to home craftsmen.\u00a0 These craftsmen took a scientific approach to improving the often mediocre aerodynamics of commercially available light aircraft, or designed and built their own aircraft in the pursuit of ultimate efficiency.\u00a0 CAFE organized races at Oshkosh, and perfected precise test methods for measuring true aircraft performance.\u00a0 The resulting performance and economy improvements drew leaders in General Aviation to collaborate with CAFE and culminated in 2011\u2019s Green Flight Challenge.\u00a0 That event featured the largest prize in aeronautical history, won by Pipistrel with their Taurus G4, closely followed by Stuttgart University\u2019s e-Genius.\u00a0 That event brought together the quietest airplane on record and the two most efficient. Both of which won prizes for their designers.<\/p>\n

GFC gave Dr. Seeley entr\u00e9e to influential people. \u00a0He presented his idea for the Sky Taxi, for instance, to John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (P-CAST).<\/p>\n

Following GFC I, NASA\u2019s Chief Technologist<\/a> said that event was, \u201cOne of NASA\u2019s smallest expenditures yet one of our biggest achievements last year.\u201d Indeed, the $1.47 million NASA gave in prizes netted $7.6 million in investments by competitors, and at least 20 STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduate theses. Even better, the competition was run by all-volunteer labor, including the entire CAFE Foundation board.<\/p>\n

This \u201cbang-for-the-buck\u201d set of results caused the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to call the GFC the \u201cposter child of technology prizes,\u201d and to authorize and encourage all federal agencies, \u201cTo use technology prizes to achieve breakthroughs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We may see a new \u201cAge of Aeronautical Enlightenment\u201d grow from these high-level acknowledgements, with those skilled in aerodynamics and electric power creating new and efficient vehicles spanning everything from ultralights to massive cargo haulers.\u00a0 The fact that many innovations are coming from Europe might provoke some friendly competitive interest from Boeing, Northrop, GE and Lockheed, the first three of whom had representatives at EAS IX.\u00a0 The world is waking up to electric aviation, with attendees from Norway, Italy, Germany, Spain, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Slovenia, India and France taking in the wealth of information presented this year.<\/p>\n

The CAFE Foundation and its devoted board members put on a good show this year, and look forward to going even bigger and better with future Symposiums and Challenges.\u00a0 Good things are on their way.<\/p>\n