Piasecki Plane has introduced it is placing a HyPoint turbo air-cooled gasoline cell and an electrical powertrain into an ultralight helicopter from EDM Aerotec, hoping to attain the world's first manned hydrogen-powered helicopter flight – with its personal full plane beneath growth in parallel.
John Piasecki, firm CEO, addressed final week's H2 Aero convention, run by the Vertical Flight Society, to stipulate his firm's plans, in addition to discussing the clear aviation house generally. John's father Frank is understood to at the present time as the daddy of the fashionable tandem helicopter, so that you'd anticipate Piasecki junior to be taking an formidable method on the daybreak of the electrical aviation age – and this actually appears to be the case.
The corporate was by no means fascinated about creating short-range VTOLs for city air taxi situations. As an alternative, it has centered from the start on fulfilling present helicopter mission profiles, requiring vary figures over 230 miles (370 km) plus reserve, whereas considerably lowering or eliminating emissions – and it factored value into each step of the evaluations.
And it was value, much more than restrictive vary, that knocked batteries out of the equation for Piasecki.
"Vertical raise is a difficult working atmosphere," he advised the room at H2 Aero. "It calls for excessive discharge and recharge charges – excessive C charges. And even assuming a sure stage of vitality density grew to become out there in future batteries, most battery applied sciences' cycle life drops by an order of magnitude beneath excessive C charges. That has a basic impression on the economics, and if you cannot present a compelling financial case for the adoption of your plane, you set your program in danger."
So batteries had been out. Hybrid powertrains seemed higher, Piasecki calculating they'd the potential to ship a 25-percent discount in working prices. However they might solely cut back emissions by about 60 % relative to a turbine-powered helicopter (80 % if sustainable aviation fuels had been used), and even the prevailing hydrogen gasoline cell know-how is sufficient to fulfill the goal mission profiles, with zero emissions and a formidable 50-percent drop in working prices.
Piasecki has thus partnered with HyPoint, whose turbo air-cooled gasoline cells promise extraordinarily low weight and very excessive energy – as a lot as thrice higher power-to-weight than different applied sciences, and sufficient energy that HyPoint says many plane will not even must run buffer batteries.
"The gasoline cell know-how that is out there right this moment is simply the place to begin," stated Piasecki. "We have labored with HyPoint to establish targets for enchancment in particular energy and vitality density, which we'll validate via checks. That development functionality is why we really feel like there's a lot alternative right here to be explored."
Piasecki is within the technique of designing a whole five-seat, multiple-fitout-capable helicopter round HyPoint's powertrain, presently designating it the PA-890.
"One of many key issues we're studying," says Piasecki, "is that the gasoline cell cannot be designed in isolation. It actually must be designed as an built-in a part of the air car with the intention to maximize the efficiencies which can be achievable. You want cross-functionality, to make use of the airframe itself to handle the thermal atmosphere."
The PA-890 is presently being designed round HyPoint's SPM 20 gasoline cell models, every producing 20 kW of peak energy. These are stacked right into a core energy unit peaking at 560 kW working down the center of the fuselage, over a pair of 700-bar pressurized H2 gasoline tanks, every holding as much as 42.5 lb (19.3 kg) of hydrogen. A filtered air inlet will feed the gasoline cells with oxygen, whereas fan-forced cooling air channels assist handle temperature. An anode tail-gas oxidizer, says Piasecki, "recuperates energy again into the system for increased effectivity."
This might be a slowed-rotor, winged helicopter design, with a big high rotor, and variable incidence wings that may fold again towards the edges of the plane in VTOL and hover phases of flight, or open proper out to unload the highest rotor and permit it to decelerate for quieter, extra environment friendly ahead flight at velocity. An electrical tail rotor offers anti-torque and yaw management at a hover or in gradual flight, nevertheless it's additionally designed to swivel again and turn into a ahead propulsion unit as soon as the PA-890 is flying on the wing.
Earlier than it begins prototyping its personal design, the Piasecki crew plans to "take a look at the hell out of" the gasoline cell powertrain utilizing a small, low cost, off-the-shelf compound helicopter. The corporate has settled on the CoAX 2, from Aerotec, an inexpensive sufficient machine at round US$180,000. It is an ultralight class heli, so it will use a a lot smaller 80-kW powertrain. Piasecki will take away the prevailing powertrain and match 4 SPM 20 gasoline cells, a single H2 tank, cooling methods and electrical motors for the 2 contra-rotating high rotors.
"We expect – nicely, we hope – that it will be the primary manned, hydrogen-powered helicopter flight," says Piasecki. "We'll be working these checks alongside ground-based energy system and propulsion system testing for the full-scale 560-kW gasoline cell system. And finally that'll inform our growth and qualify the hydrogen system for full-scale flight within the PA-890."
Piasecki did not define a timeframe for growth and flight testing, though one slide means that the corporate expects to have a full-scale powertrain prepared for floor testing earlier than the top of this yr.
The last word aim, in fact, is to get to a totally licensed manufacturing plane, and the corporate has been centered on that aim for a while.
"We now have common conferences with the FAA, going over what our plans are for certification," stated Piasecki. "This'll be an academic course of, for us in addition to for the regulators. We have developed preliminary particular situations; we'll be certifying the PA-890 beneath Half 27. They have been very co-operative, the FAA is making an attempt to lean ahead. It is uncommon to say that a couple of regulatory company, however they're seeing the potential right here and so they wish to discover a means ahead. However we'll nonetheless must work our tails off to outline the necessities, take a look at to them and set up a compliance foundation."
Sources: Piasecki Plane, Vertical Flight Society through FutureFlight
Particular due to VFS Govt Director Mike Hirschberg for his help on this story.
Post a Comment