AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - February 2019 - 81

PARSING OUT THE TALK

What's in our future and what isn't
ELECTRIC AVIATION
The hype: Point-to-point batterypowered urban transportation. Maybe
in our kids' lifetimes, but probably
not ours. Why not? Let us count the
ways. The energy density is barely
there for a light aircraft training flight,
much less vertical takeoff and landing. Regulatory hurdles are massive.
Urban infrastructure isn't yet ready
for a swarm of pilotless commuters,
and finally, when the passenger clicks
on her app and finds that $10 drive
across town is five minutes faster but
costs $50 in an aircraft, the car will
win almost every time.
The reality: Conventional hybrids.
Pipistrel has shown that electric flight
is commercially viable, albeit in a flight
school setting with short flights. Bye
Aerospace is trying to show that private pilots will love the capabilities of
electric as well, and chances are they
will make it to certification. Hybrid
electric shows even more promise,
with a gasoline engine assisting an
electric motor. This has been the
popular method in automobiles, and
today you can get everything from
a Toyota Prius to a Highlander in a
hybrid configuration.
AUTONOMOUS FLIGHT
The hype: No pilot on board.
Although there is talk of completely

autonomous commercial and general aviation, the pilotless airplane
is well over the horizon. Well, sort
of. Aurora Flight Sciences has
already taken a Diamond DA40
and made it an optionally piloted
aircraft. And the size of the aircraft
doesn't matter much. A pilotless
airliner is technically feasible. What
the public will accept and the
amount of testing that would need
to occur to make that happen is a
different matter.
The reality: Smart avionics.
No one is ready to engineer the
pilot out of the Skyhawk. Most of
us fly for recreation, and what fun
is sitting there watching the computer do the flying? But you only
have to look at what's happening
with autopilot and other avionics
development to know that if you
can dream it, some whiz kid can
make it happen. We already have
autopilot descents when a pressure
event is sensed, autopilot-based
stability control, approaches to
minimums, and more. The next step
is for all of it to be iPad-based.

UBER'S VERTICAL TAKEOFF and

landing concepts call for eventual
autonomous operation on an electric aircraft that can fly 25-mile
missions for three hours.

develop fast, efficient new designs-
most of which, by the way, don't
require leaded fuel or 100 octane.
In fact, we've seen Europe as a
hotbed of new designs for the past
decade or more. It's as if Wichita
went to sleep. Meanwhile, Tecnam,
Pipistrel, Flight Design, Diamond, and
other European brands have become
the Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper, and
Mooney of the twenty-first century.
The number of deliveries is small
compared to the American Big Four in
the 1970s, but the innovation is huge.
Tecnam, for example, has created a
complete product line of airplanes
from Light Sport aircraft-trainers
and travelers-to a fixed-gear cruiser
and a light workhorse of a twin, with
more in the works. Pipistrel too has an
interesting lineup of ultralights, powered gliders, Light Sports-including
the Alpha Electro electric LSA-and
the sleek Panthera, a high-performance single still in development and
designed for a variety of powerplants,
including electric and hybrid dieselelectric. Flight Design has designed
a light four-place airplane that may
benefit from the Part 23 rewrite's regulatory changes.
Several recent developments
have contributed to this new generation of airplanes: composite
manufacturing, lightweight avionics, and the Rotax engine. While
Fiberglas has been in use in gliders and Experimental airplanes
for decades, Cirrus Aircraft really
brought composite manufacturing
to the forefront for general aviation
in the early 2000s. Modern materials-especially carbon fiber-and
manufacturing techniques have further reduced weight and decreased
manufacturing time. Meanwhile,
modern avionics have allowed the
lightest of airplanes and especially
LSAs to come equipped with an
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AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - February 2019

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