NASA Offers $1.5 Million For 200MPG Aircraft 146
coondoggie writes to mention that NASA's Green Flight Challenge is offering up to $1.5 million for an aircraft that can hit 200 passenger miles per gallon while maintaining 100 mph on a 200 mile flight. "The Challenge is intended to bring about the development and convergence of new technologies and innovations that can improve the community acceptance, efficiency, door-to-door speed, utility, environmental-friendliness, affordability and safety of future air vehicles, CAFÉ stated. Such technologies and innovations include, but are not limited to, bio-fueled propulsion, breakthroughs in batteries, motors, fuel-cells and ultra-capacitors that enable electric-powered flight, advanced high lift technologies for very short takeoff and landing distances, ultra-quiet propellers, enhanced structural efficiency by advances in material science and nano-technology and safety features such as vehicle parachutes and air-bags."
Re:$1.5M? Peanuts. (Score:5, Informative)
Diesel (Score:2, Informative)
Such technologies and innovations include, but are not limited to, bio-fueled propulsion...
Take a Diamond aircraft and put old Wesson oil in it and Wammo! $1.5 million?! [diamond-air.at]
Their aircraft seam perfect for using bio-fuels. Sure, you'll have to tweak it a bit. No problem.
Misunderstanding? (Score:1, Informative)
Not 200 Miles Per Gallon. 200 passenger miles per gallon.
Re:Misunderstanding? (Score:3, Informative)
You're allowed to spend a gallon per passenger for every 200 miles traveled. So if you have 10 passengers you can spend 10 gallons to go 200 miles.
10(passengers)*200(miles)/10(gallons)=200 Passenger Miles/Gallon.
10(passengers)*400(miles)/20(gallons)=200 Passenger Miles/Gallon.
And so on.
Trains lack flexibility (Score:3, Informative)
because aircraft can change their point to point routes only limited by rules put on their flight. To replicate that with trains would be pretty much outside the realm of feasibility.
Lets propose we could actually build such a network, it would most likely be a hub and spoke arrangement. This means that what is a direct route for a plane would be a minimum of two stops for a train. The reason flight is so popular is because of its preservation of time which to many is the most important resource they have.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
I was seeing sports cars advertised at 100 MPG at 100 MPH back in 1995. There were several listed in the Brands Hatch F1 program, as I recall. (Anyone who still has a copy like to verify that?)
The current record for fuel economy at regular road speeds in a car is something like 6000 MPG. The current record for fuel economy in any petrol-driven engine without assistance from alternative sources is 9998 MPG.
Aircraft have an advantage in that they have no ground friction to deal with. Also, prop planes have been developed to be efficient for decades - the DeHavilland Mosquito had a range of 4,000 miles on 500 lbs of fuel in 1941, and some of the more modern composite-fibre aircraft and modern engines have fuel efficiencies vastly superior to that.
"Passenger miles" the catch. (Score:5, Informative)
Moving four passengers the 200 miles at 100 MPH on four gallons of gas would pull it off. That would be a 'raw' MPG of 50 MPG. Or, in airplane parliance, that two hour trip would consume at an average rate of 2 gph (Gallons per Hour, the normal measurement used in the aviation industry.) A two-place airplane would need to consume half as much fuel to qualify.
A Cessna 172, with four passengers, consumes somewhere between 7-10 gallons per hour. So this would be a serious improvement. There are some 'light sport' aircraft that draw near 4 GPH, but those are two-place.
Either way, still way better than requiring a raw 200 miles per gallon.
Re:A-380 halfway there (Score:4, Informative)
The requirements in the rules [cafefoundation.org], Appendix B, are:
Vehicle height: less than or equal to 13 feet
Vehicle length: less than or equal to 23 feet from main landing gear to tip of tail
Landing gear footprint must fit onto CAFE Scales (See CFTC floor plan, below)
Gross weight: less than or equal to 6500 pounds on main landing gear and less than or equal to 2000 lb on nose or tail wheel
Wingspan (as projected onto a level surface), if less than or equal to 44 feet, must be capable of being shortened to less than or equal to 44 feet by wing-folding or tip removal that can be easily accomplished in 20 minutes or less by no more than 4 adult persons of average size and strength. This is necessary to fit typical tie-downs, hangar rows and the width of the CAFE Flight Test Center's hangar. Any small additional projected span of winglets, tip tanks or other wing tip device, as vertically projected onto a level surface, will be included as wingspan.
--sabre86
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, that was my point. Lift offsets gravity. But lift causes drag, which requires thrust to offset. Thrust is produced by the engines, which requires... energy!
Hence my comment, "they have to use additional energy to offset that little force called gravity".
Re:Newton (Score:2, Informative)
No they aren't null and void. These planes exist and are on the market today. They are commonly referred to as "gliders".
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, aircraft don't really have any advantages. Once you get over 100 mph, the air friction becomes the primary problem. What makes the airplane (sometimes) more efficient than the car is quantity. The average bus gets about 180 passenger miles per gallon, while most planes manage about 50
(from a cursory Google summary of various sources.)
http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/the-denialism-s [terrapass.com]
http://www.grist.org/article/coach-buses-provide-long-distance-low-emission-convenience [grist.org]
http://www.ridemcts.com/about_mcts/index.asp [ridemcts.com]
http://askville.amazon.com/miles-gallon-jet-fuel-boeing-737-carrying-250-passengers-500-mph-30000-feet-cost-gal/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=10537954 [amazon.com]
Re:They had one of these in the 80s (Score:3, Informative)
Motorgliders have been around longer than that, but they are just as much "sporting goods" as a pure sailplane is. The auxiliary engine doesn't give you the freedom to travel long distances at will. It does two things: it saves you the $30-$60 it costs to get airborne behind a towplane, and it means that if you run out of thermals you can make it to an airport instead of landing in a farm field and calling someone to bring the trailer. If the weather isn't soarable, you aren't taking any trips.
rj