The "CanJam" manipulator allows a user to steer satellites using a wheel with three degrees of freedom, tilting forward and backward, swiveling left and right, and pivoting side to side.

Gyroscope-aided bikes and cars may one day rule the road but before the technology reaches the ground, a University at Buffalo research team will test similar equipment in outer space.

The Canfield joint actuation manipulator, nicknamed "CanJam" by the researchers, was selected by NASA to join the first commercial research flight on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.

The tennis-ball sized device was designed by Manoranjan Majji, lead researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

"CanJam" can automatically control a satellite using a Canfield joint, a spherical joint that can point anywhere on a hemisphere, and an automated program that stabilizes the device when disturbed and a wheel.

The manipulator allows a user to steer satellites using a wheel with three degrees of freedom, tilting forward and backward, swiveling left and right and pivoting side to side.

Unlike traditional joints, the device also contains three motors as a failsafe in the chance one motor fails.

Traditional technologies used by NASA and other agencies occasionally don't produce the necessary torque to rotate aircrafts, also known as singularities, which make it difficult to build attitude control systems.

Due to its design, the "CanJam" system doesn't create singularities, simplifying attitude control, says Majji.

If the NASA test flight is successful, the Canfield joint actuation manipulator designed by Manoranjan Majji could be useful in directing the flight of satellites or helicopters by replacing the wheel with propellers. 

Credit: Douglas Levere

The UB project was chosen along with 11 other experiments through NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, which works with commercial companies, universities and government organizations to test innovative space technologies. NASA funded research and development of the designs.

"Projects like this enable us to build the next generation of agile space systems and aircraft," says Majji.

"In addition to aerospace systems, this technology has spill-over effects into the automobile industry. The future generation of cars and bikes are going to have control moment gyroscopes, and we're at the core of fundamental research that enables that sort of technology."

Majji's CanJam design was inspired by use of the Canfield joint in space thrusters. In his device, gyroscopic forces generated when the joint shifts create reaction torques that cause inverted satellite movement.

In the NASA flight test, once the spacecraft reaches microgravity, the device will point to a designated direction and a linear actuator will repeatedly push the manipulator out of place, destabilizing it.

The device will then automatically stabilise itself, correcting the pointing errors. Flight computers will record the accuracy of the manipulator after disturbances.

If successful, the manipulator could be useful for directing the flight of satellites or helicopters by replacing the wheel with propellers. Eventually, the technology will find its way onto cars and bikes, says Majji.

Research conducted through Majji's lab also focuses on designing aerospace vehicle sensors and actuators, and developing autopilot and tracking programs for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Volocopter VC200: Vertical take-off and landing manned aircraft

The flying machine looks something like a helicopter but it is quite different and is intended to be a future answer to the greening of noisy, vibration-heavy helicopters as we have known them.

A two-seater prototype of the Volocopter, by the company e-volo, made its maiden voyage earlier this month in Karlsruhe, Germany.

The team used a prototype of the two-person VC200.

Based on this model, it will be prepared for series production. Billed by its makers as "the world's first green helicopter," the emission-free Volocopter is a vertical take-off and landing manned aircraft, with features that set it apart from conventional aircraft.

For one, the machine, instead of being kitted out with one combustion engine, carries eighteen electrically driven rotors to propel it. Through the propellers, the Volocopter can take off and land vertically just as does a helicopter.

The team responsible for the machine said the 18 rotors present a considerable advantage, apart from the simple construction not requiring complex mechanics.

The advantage is said to be in the redundancy of drives. This enables the safe landing of the Volocopter even if some drives fail.

During the first flights of the prototype in November, the team made note that the device had a lower noise level than conventional helicopters, confirmation of no noticeable vibrations in flight, and an efficient spring strut landing gear.

Speaking about vibrations, e-volo's Stephan Wolf said that vibrations in the structure of a plane have been problems for normal helicopters, and that vibrations together with the high noise level have led to passenger discomfort but their "green" version resolves such issues.

Wolf and Alexander Zosel, CEO, stated that "not even the HD video cameras secured to the exterior carbon ring of the rotor plane captured the least vibrations."

The VC200 two-seater Volocopter plans involve the following characteristics: a cruising speed of at least 54 kn (100 km/h); a flight altitude of up to 6500 ft; maximum take-off weight of 450 kg; and more than one hour of flight time.

At present, a battery flight time of 20 minutes is possible, according to the company site, but in the near future this will be extended to one hour or more.

E volo was the winner of the 2012 Lindbergh Prize for Innovation. "We believe that the development of the Volocopter holds significant promise to radically change short distance transportation," said Erik Lindbergh.

"It has a long development path ahead, but if this innovative design reaches the commercial market it will dramatically change the way we move about the planet."



As for safety, the team notes that an integral part of the safety of the Volocopter is the redundancy of its components, such that the Volocopter is safe to fly even if several drive units fail.

Even if the range extender fails, a safe landing is ensured by additional batteries.

The Volocopters are fitted with a parachute that lets the entire aircraft sink to the ground in the case of an emergency.

Alert after eruption of Alaskan volcano Mount Pavlof

Mount Pavlof, one of Alaska's most restless volcanoes has shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air in an eruption that is visible for miles.

An air traffic controller in the region said small planes have flown around the ash plumes.

The ash would have to rise to tens of thousands of feet to threaten larger planes.

The eruption began on Monday, and photographs show lava spraying out from the summit of the volcano, located 625 miles from Anchorage.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory said clouds of ash, steam and gas have occasionally reached the 20,000-foot level and have been visible from the nearby communities of Cold Bay and Sand Point.

Onsite seismic instruments have detected an increase in the force of tremors from the 8,262-foot volcano.

Typically, Pavlof eruptions are gas-rich fountains of lava that can shoot up to a few thousand feet, but its ash clouds are usually less dense than the plumes of more explosive volcanoes that pose a greater hazard to aircraft, scientists say.

This image shows a pyroclastic flow (superheated fluid mix of gas, lava and melted snow) racing down the slopes of Alaska's Pavlof volcano after it erupted May 13, 2013. 

CREDIT: NASA Earth Observatory

Pavlof is a 5,675-foot peak and among the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory.

The Aleutian Islands are about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska

The volcano last erupted in 2007 and during the 29-day eruption, Pavlof emitted mud flows and erupting lava, as well as ash clouds up to 18,000 feet.

In early May, Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption.

Satellite imagery shows the volcano has continued to discharge steam, gas and heat in the past week.

New analysis of earlier images showed a small lava flow going over the south east rim of the summit crater, the observatory said.

Cleveland's most recent significant eruption began in February 2001 and sent ash clouds up to 39,000 feet above sea level. It also produced a rocky lava flow and hot debris that reached the sea.

The Aleutian Islands have long been  a source of volcanic activity as the Nasa image below shows.

Cleveland Volcano, Aleutian Islands

Image credit: NASA

At 3:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on May 23, 2006, Flight Engineer Jeff Williams from International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 13 contacted the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) to report that the Cleveland Volcano had produced a plume of ash.

Shortly after the activity began, he took this photograph.

This picture shows the ash plume moving west-southwest from the volcano’s summit. A bank of fog (upper right) is a common feature around the Aleutian Islands.

The event proved to be short-lived; two hours later, the plume had completely detached from the volcano.

The AVO reported that the ash cloud height could have been as high as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level.

Cleveland Volcano, situated on the western half of Chuginadak Island, is one of the most active of the volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, which extend west-southwest from the Alaska mainland.

It is a stratovolcano, composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, compacted volcanic ash, and volcanic rocks.

SABRE Engine: Skylon spaceplane's revolutionary engine passes key milestone

Illustration of the Skylon spaceplane powered by SABRE engines. 

Credit: REL/Adrian Mann

A revolutionary new air-breathing rocket engine designed to propel a spacecraft to orbit in a single stage has passed a critical milestone.

The engine could also revolutionise air travel, reducing journey times around the planet to under 4 hours.

The engine, called SABRE, is a hybrid of a jet engine and a rocket engine. An aircraft fitted with the engines could fly to other side of the planet in under 4 hours travelling at Mach 5.5. more than five times the speed of sound, whilst a spaceplane such as Skylon could be propelled into orbit in a single stage.

The engines breathe in air as they pass through the atmosphere, meaning the spaceship could launch without a fully laden fuel load.

However, the challenge of the design has been how to cool the huge amount of air it continuously breathes in without the engine freezing up.

The testing has proved that SABRE's pre-cooler heat exchangers can cool air from over 1,000⁰C to minus 150⁰C in less than 1/100th of a second without the engine frosting up.

The UK company which invented the new propulsion technology, Reaction Engines Limited (REL) described the successful testing as "the biggest breakthrough in aerospace propulsion technology since the invention of the jet engine".

REL has also devised a spaceplane called Skylon that would be fitted with the SABRE engines. Skylon would take off and land on runways, and would not require any part of the craft to be jettisoned during its journey to orbit.

This would make it a completely reusable spacecraft which could reduce the time and cost of launching payload into space.

REL believe the cost of launching satellites could be cut by 90% if the SABRE powered Skylon entered service.



The UK Space Agency asked experts from the European Space Agency (ESA) to validate the pre-cooler heat exchanger test results

ESA experts who reviewed the testing concluded "The pre-cooler test objectives have all been successfully met and ESA are satisfied that the tests demonstrate the technology required for the SABRE engine development."

The SABRE engine has the potential to revolutionise our lives in the 21st century in the way the jet engine did in the 20th Century. This is the proudest moment of my life. Alan Bond, REL

Illustration of the SABRE engine with the location of the pre-cooler heat exchanger highlighted in blue. Credit: REL/Adrian Mann

SUGAR Volt: Boeing's Hybrid Electric Aircraft - YouTube

NASA asked a Boeing-led team to explore the possibilities of a hybrid electric aircraft. Marty Bradley, Boeing Research and Technology, explains how the SUGAR Volt concept is defining the future of flight.

Robotic Bird Airplane Perching on a Human Hand - YouTube

The work by Aditya Paranjape, Joseph Kim, and Soon-Jo Chung at the Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Narration by Jenny Roderick at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

By the virtue of their size and speed, birds are uniquely capable of efficient flight while flapping their wings and while gliding.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have duplicated the control functions that allow birds to successfully perform a soft landing—in this case, perching on a human hand.

“We believe we have the first demonstration of autonomous/robotic flight of a bird-like micro aerial vehicle (MAV) perching on a human hand,” stated Soon-Jo Chung, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Illinois.

Because the wings of ornithopters—birds or aircraft with flapping wings—are inherently capable of being reoriented, this capability can be used for controlling and maneuvering the aircraft in a gliding phase, thereby eliminating the need for additional traditional actuators. Gliding is an effective way to conserve energy while soaring, descending, and landing.

“The driving philosophy behind the work is that the maneuverability and control efficiency of avian flight can be replicated by applying their actuation and control principles to advanced MAVs designed on the size scale of small birds,” explained Aditya Paranjape, a postdoctoral scholar working on this project.

The result is based on his PhD thesis and a series of journal papers with Chung.

“We have developed an articulated-wing-based concept for an agile robotic aircraft inspired by birds,” Paranjape added. “Of all manoeuvers executed by flapping wing aircraft in a gliding phase, a perched landing is arguably the most challenging.”

Perching is routinely used by birds to land on objects such as tree branches, power wires, or building ledges. According to the researchers, there are two factors that make perching challenging to engineer: 1) the maneuver’s duration is very short, on the same order as the aircraft dynamics, and 2) a high level of position accuracy is required for a successful perched landing.

“Our aerial robot concept lacks a vertical tail for improved agility, similar to birds, which renders it dynamically unstable and exacerbates both of these factors,” Paranjape said. “We choose a perching maneuver to demonstrate the capabilities of our articulated-winged aircraft concept, novel guidance algorithms, and control design.

In particular, the ability to perform perched landings on a human hand endows our robot with the ability to operate around humans.”

A typical perching maneuver consists of two phases—a gliding phase to bring the bird to a suitable position with respect to the landing spot, and a rapid pitch up (usually to a post-stall angle of attack) accompanied by an instantaneous climb and rapid deceleration.

The researchers noted that the success of the maneuver can be severely impeded by the lateral-directional motion (yaw and roll), particularly when the perched landing has to be accomplished on a small surface such as an electric pole or a human palm.

In the absence of a vertical tail, wing articulation is a promising capability which can be used for both longitudinal and lateral-directional control.

Chung, who joined the Illinois’ faculty in 2009, brought with him a vision for developing aircraft that mimic the autonomy and agility of bats.

“There’s a lot to learn from bio systems,” Chung said. “Bats can fly with damaged wings. They are so agile and highly maneuverable; they can make rapid 180-degree turns autonomously and they can fly indoors without colliding with obstacles. These qualities are desirable for small aircraft that could be used in surveillance, particularly in urban settings where obstacles hamper movement and satellite control is blocked.”

The MAV project was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.


The technical details of this work can be found in the following papers.
A. Paranjape, J. Kim, and S.-J. Chung, "Closed-Loop Perching of Aerial Robots with Articulated Flapping Wings," IEEE Transactions on Robotics, under review, 2012. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sjchung/www/Paranjape12_perching_submitted.pdf

A. A. Paranjape, S.-J. Chung, H. H. Hilton, and A. Chakravarthy, "Dynamics and Performance of a Tailless MAV with Flexible Articulated Wings," AIAA Journal, vol. 50, no. 5, May 2012, pp. 1177-1188. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sjchung/www/AIAAJflexnew.pdf

A. A. Paranjape, S.-J. Chung, and M. S. Selig, "Flight Mechanics of a Tailless Articulated Wing Aircraft," Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, vol. 6, 026005, 2011. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sjchung/www/dihedral_final.pdf

Jet engine icing research tackles dangerous flight problem

Credit: NASA

Technicians install water sprayers in the jet engine icing test chamber at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center. The sprayers will produce tiny ice crystals that can clog or damage engines.

On a stormy July evening in 2004, more than five miles above the South China Sea, the engines powering a large passenger jet en route to Taiwan suddenly failed.

A simultaneous engine shutdown on a large, modern aircraft is almost unheard of.

After a harrowing 75 seconds, the pilots managed to restart them, and the jet landed at the Taipei airport without further problems. But the incident set off alarms in the aviation community.

Minutes before its engines quit, the jet had been skirting thunderstorms spawned by a distant typhoon.

Investigators first thought the storms' powerful updrafts had pulled rain high into the atmosphere, temporarily smothering the engines when they sucked in gouts of water instead of air.

The jet's pilots had seen and heard droplets hitting the windshield, bolstering the rain theory but the jet's radar sweeps were clear, with no echoes from rain and the temperature at the altitude where the trouble began was a frigid minus-44 degrees, far too cold for liquid water.

Researchers eventually concluded the engines must have been choked by tiny ice crystals as small as flour grains, a dangerous, unexpected phenomenon that aviation officials urgently want to learn more about so they can lessen its risk.

Much of that work will take place at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, where engineers are readying a unique test chamber capable of mimicking the odd weather conditions that threatened the Taipei-bound jet, and have caused more than 150 other in-flight incidents.

"These things are happening pretty frequently, like one incident every month or so," said Glenn project manager Ron Colantonio. "NASA is working with the aviation community to understand what's causing the problem and how to mitigate it."

Glenn officials recently unveiled the silvery, boxcar-sized engine icing tunnel during a visit by NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

Glenn engineers previously had used the tunnel for other types of jet engine tests. With $15 million in Recovery Act and NASA money, they've retrofitted it with water sprayers that will produce the minute ice crystals believed to be causing the engine problems.

Sensors will track the performance of jet engines mounted on a frame in the icy air stream.

Aviation safety experts have long recognized the danger from ice buildup on wings and other external aircraft surfaces.

The hazard is caused by super-cooled liquid water freezing on contact, disrupting smooth airflow and hampering lift.

For decades engineers in Glenn's Icing Branch have led international efforts to develop better ice forecasting methods, icing sensors, anti-icing aircraft designs, and improved pilot training.

Read more on this article here: 

Sukhoi T-4 in the Russian Air Force Museum in Monino

Sukhoi T-4 in the Russian Air Force Museum in Monino

US KC-135 Stratotanker: Royal Danish Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft

A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 100th Air Refueling Wing prepares to fuel a flight of Royal Danish Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft in the US European Command area of responsibility.

NASA Unveils Future Aircraft Designs

NASA has unveiled concepts of future, eco-friendly aircraft.

The stunningly innovative designs, which NASA calls "greener flying machines for the year 2025", are being developed by three firms under contract to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project.

The target is to create designs that consume 50 percent less fuel than aircraft unveiled in 1998, with 50 percent less harmful emissions, and to shrink the size of geographic areas hit by high levels of airport noise by 83 percent, a NASA statement said.

"The real challenge is we want to accomplish all these things simultaneously. It's never been done before. We looked at some very difficult metrics and tried to push all those metrics down at the same time," said Fay Collier, ERA project manager.

The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, California, Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, California, and Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, California, have been engaged in the research and development of the new designs. The expert teams spent the whole of 2011 devising ways to develop the supermodels that meet all the desired goals.

"We'll be digesting the three studies and we'll be looking into what to do next," Collier added.

Going by initial indications, the preliminary designs all met the pollution goal of reducing landing and takeoff emissions of nitrogen oxides by a half over engines that are currently in use. But meeting the two other goals can be really challenging.

"All of the teams have done really great work during this conceptual design study. Their results make me excited about how interesting and different the airplanes on the airport ramp could look in 20 years.

Another great result of the study is that they have really helped us focus where to invest our research dollars over the next few years," Mark Mangelsdorf, ERA Project chief engineer, said.

UK F35-C Lightning II Jet unable to land on UK Carriers

The Joint Combat Aircraft (previously Future Joint Combat Aircraft) was originally intended to replace Sea Harrier in the Fleet Air Arm, and Harriers in the RAF. It selected the Joint Strike Fighter F35 as preferred solution in 2001, but for a long time never never really decided between STOVL and CV variants. The JCA programme has been heavily influenced by events connected to the Joint Harrier Force and, even more, it has been shaped partially by the Future Offensive Air System (Tornado replacement programme targeted at delivering a Deep Penetration Strike aicraft) programme of the RAF.

NASA ARES: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey Aircraft proposed for MARS

The Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) was a proposal by NASA's Langley Research Center to build a powered aircraft that would fly on Mars.

The ARES team sought to be selected and funded as a NASA Mars Scout Mission for a 2011 or 2013 launch window. However, the MAVEN mission was chosen instead.




ARES would have travelled to Mars compactly folded into a protective aeroshell; upon entry in the thin atmosphere, the capsule would have deployed a parachute to decelerate, followed by ARES release at altitude.

Among other things, the aircraft would have investigated the atmosphere and weak magnetic field.

Propulsion
Propulsion remained undetermined. The two main criteria used to evaluate the propulsion system were flight range and implementation risk.

Possible propulsion technologies were electrical motors, internal combustion and rocket systems. The aircraft was intended to fly for about one hour.

See also
Mars Scout Program

SUMPAC: Human-powered flight recreated for 50th anniversary

A flight has taken place at a Hampshire airfield to mark the 50th anniversary of the UK's first human-powered flight to attempt to gain the Kremer Prize.

On 9 November, 1961, gliding instructor Derek Piggott took off from Lasham Airfield in a pedal-powered aircraft.

Flying Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft, (SUMPAC) he covered a distance of 64m (210ft) and climbed to a height of 1.8m (6ft).

With the SUMPAC now a museum exhibit, the commemorative flight took place in human-powered aircraft, Airglow.

Organised by members of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Human Powered Flight Group, pilot Robin Kraike made the flight early on Saturday.

Mr Kraike who flew the plane for about 1 mile (1.6km) said: "It's like doing a 800 metre sprint."

"It's a very busy place in the cockpit - you have to divide your body into two halves, the top part doing the delicate part of flying the plane and the bottom half you're going like the clappers to deliver the power."

Now aged 88, SUMPAC's former test pilot, Derek Piggott MBE, watched the commemorative flight from the airfield.

He recalled meeting the students who designed and built the original single-seat nylon covered craft which spanned 24.4m (80ft) 50 years ago.

The SUMPAC was powered using pedals and chains to drive a 2.4m (8ft) propeller

He said: "It all started with the students coming across to Lasham trying to find somewhere to fly their aeroplane. I was interested immediately, so we organised it."

He built up his fitness to power the pedal aircraft by running around the airfield.

"I wasn't a cyclist, so I was very lucky to get all the flying in it, we were going to train an Olympic cyclist to fly it but we never managed to teach him to fly."

Following a crash in 1963, the fragile SUMPAC was retired from flying and placed on display at Southampton's Solent Sky Museum.

NASA New Super Guppy plane

A NASA T-38 and the Super Guppy at the "Wings over Houston" airshow


The NASA Super Guppy at the "Wings over Houston" airshow

Southampton engineers fly the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft

Engineers at the University of Southampton have designed and flown the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft, which could revolutionise the economics of aircraft design.

The SULSA (Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft) plane is an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) whose entire structure has been printed, including wings, integral control surfaces and access hatches.

It was printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine, which fabricates plastic or metal objects, building up the item layer by layer.

No fasteners were used and all equipment was attached using ‘snap fit’ techniques so that the entire aircraft can be put together without tools in minutes.

The electric-powered aircraft, with a 2-metres wingspan, has a top speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, but when in cruise mode is almost silent. The aircraft is also equipped with a miniature autopilot developed by Dr Matt Bennett, one of the members of the team.

Laser sintering allows the designer to create shapes and structures that would normally involve costly traditional manufacturing techniques. This technology allows a highly-tailored aircraft to be developed from concept to first flight in days.

Using conventional materials and manufacturing techniques, such as composites, this would normally take months. Furthermore, because no tooling is required for manufacture, radical changes to the shape and scale of the aircraft can be made with no extra cost.

This project has been led by Professors Andy Keane and Jim Scanlan from the University’s Computational Engineering and Design Research group.

Professor Scanlon says: “The flexibility of the laser sintering process allows the design team to re-visit historical techniques and ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive using conventional manufacturing. One of these ideas involves the use of a Geodetic structure.

This type of structure was initially developed by Barnes Wallis and famously used on the Vickers Wellington bomber which first flew in 1936. This form of structure is very stiff and lightweight, but very complex.

If it was manufactured conventionally it would require a large number of individually tailored parts that would have to be bonded or fastened at great expense.”

Professor Keane adds: “Another design benefit that laser sintering provides is the use of an elliptical wing planform. Aerodynamicists have, for decades, known that elliptical wings offer drag benefits.

The Spitfire wing was recognised as an extremely efficient design but it was notoriously difficult and expensive to manufacture. Again laser sintering removes the manufacturing constraint associated with shape complexity and in the SULSA aircraft there is no cost penalty in using an elliptical shape.”

SULSA is part of the EPSRC-funded DECODE project, which is employing the use of leading edge manufacturing techniques, such as laser sintering, to demonstrate their use in the design of UAVs.

Solar Powered aircraft Solar Impulse at Paris Air show

French Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet examines the solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse.

Read more about this amazing aircraft here at the Solar Impulse blog.

Twin-engined "Cri-Cri" at Paris Air Show 2011

Pilot Hugues Duval sits in his twin-engined "Cri-Cri", one of the smallest aerobatic aircraft in the world, in front of a Boeing 747-8FA.

Duval holds the world speed record for an electrically powered aircraft after reaching a top speed of 262 km/h.

Read the spec on this mini aerobatic aircraft here

You can also read more about this amazing aircraft on the Cri-Cri blog

Variable-wing prototype points to the future of UAVs

The role of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has expanded rapidly in both military and civilian circles over the past decade and although most designs to date are miniature versions of conventional aircraft, we can expect to see much more radical examples emerge in the near future.


In developing this next-generation of UAVs scientist are looking to go beyond the limitations of fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft and to do it, they are turning to nature's ultimate flying machines - birds.

We've already seen seen flapping-wing micro-aircraft, robotic seagulls and even a design based on a pterodactyl. Engineers at UC San Diego are furthering this approach with research into variable-wing techniques that could result in a bird-like UAV capable of spot landing.

The ultimate goal of the UC researchers is to create a UAV that can both cruise efficiently like a fixed wing aircraft and land on a perch. To achieve this they are studying the wing morphing and flapping techniques used by birds.

"One of the key behaviors observed in the birds was their use of wing sweep for pitch control in both forward flight and stalled landing approaches," she UC graduate student Kim Wright. "Birds can move their wings in a myriad of ways, providing a level of aerodynamic control that is unmatched by UAVs."

A team led by Wight and mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Tom Bewley analyzed in the movement of birds like barn owls and hawks in slow motion to investigate how wing morphing and flapping can be used for spot landing.

The result is a a small remote controlled UAV made primarily from balsa wood, fiberglass and foam like a standard RC hobby plane. Carbon fiber was used for the wings and variable wing sweep was achieved by introducing carbon fiber tubing for the shoulder joint structure.

The researchers have tested the plane using computer modeling and report that this has validated the concept of using wing sweep for pitch control of the aircraft. The next step is to combine wing twist, flapping or other wing morphing approaches to achieve autonomous perching.

"Combining these aspects into a fully actuated, intelligent UAV would be the ultimate goal,' said Wright. "A small UAV that could maneuver and land like a bird would be a valuable tool for surveillance and search and rescue. This project has brought the aerospace community a small step closer to that goal."

NASA - A First Look at Aircraft Flight in 2025

In late 2010, NASA awarded contracts to three teams — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, The Boeing Company — to study advanced concept designs for aircraft that could take to the skies in the year 2025.

At the time of the award, the team gave NASA a sneak peek of the particular design they plan to pursue.

Each design looks very different, but all final designs have to meet NASA's goals for less noise, cleaner exhaust and lower fuel consumption.

Each aircraft has to be able to do all of those things at the same time, which requires a complex dance of tradeoffs between all of the new advanced technologies that will be on these vehicles.

The proposed aircraft will also have to operate safely in a more modernized air traffic management system.

And each design has to fly up to 85 percent of the speed of sound; cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles; and carry between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds of payload, either passengers or cargo.

For the rest of this year, each team will be exploring, testing, simulating, keeping and discarding innovations and technologies to make their design a winner.

How different will the final designs look from these initial glimpses?

Space shuttle's rudder could cut aircraft noise

Airliners could be made quieter as they come in to land if designers took a crinkly leaf out of the space shuttle's book, Airbus suggests.

In a US patent filed last week, Airbus notes that the space shuttle's rudder – the hinged steering surface on the rear of the tail fin – splits to present two large surfaces to the airstream, helping to brake the craft as it glides back to Earth

Airbus engineer Klaus Bender in Hamburg, Germany, says such a "spreading rudder" could slow airliners down too, reducing the need to deploy the noisy, flat air brakes on top of the wing, which howl like the reed in a clarinet.

Airbus is not cheekily trying to patent the space shuttle's rudder. Its claimed innovation is a way to make the spread rudder work without making more of a racket than the air brakes.

Serrated edge
The idea is to carve serrations into the rudder's trailing edge to help break up the noise-producing vortex that would otherwise be generated there.

As well as increasing braking drag in a novel, low-noise way, the idea avoids the loos of lift that occurs when ordinary air brakes are deployed. With more lift from the wings, less engine power is needed as the aircraft approaches the runway, further reducing the noise.

But does the physics hold up? "It seems plausible," says Trevor Cox, an acoustics engineer at the University of Salford in the UK. When a serrated edge moves through a fluid it produces eddy currents which are more disorganised than those produced by a straight edge. That reduces the pressure difference, "and that in turn creates less noise", Cox says.

The concept of serrated edges is also being studied for wind turbine blades, in the hope that they will produce less noise to annoy nearby residents, Cox says