Does it sound like it's possible to fly an airplane 200 miles without using any fossil fuels?
Not only is it possible, but a Penn State-based team just won a national competition – and $1.35 million — for doing just that.
Last week the CAFE Foundation, which is dedicated to research on personal aircraft, tested three airplanes powered by alternative fuel. The planes had two hours to fly 200 miles, and they weren't allowed to use more energy than is produced by one gallon of gasoline for each person in the plane. Jack Langelaan, who led the Pennsylvania team, compared that energy usage to a Toyota Prius carrying four people down the highway.
Pipistrel, a Slovenian company, made the airplane Langelaan's team used in the competition in California. The four-person aircraft has one cockpit in each wing. “Because they're measuring passenger miles per gallon, it helps to have four people on board,” says Langelaan, who teaches aerospace engineering at Penn State. The team's airplane weighed about 3,300 pounds, of which 1,100 pounds was batteries. Plus, the batteries were charged up with geothermal power.
“We’ve just shown that we can fly more than 200 miles at more than 100 miles per hour,” he says.
While the prize money sounds impressive, Langelaan says the project has cost about $1.5 million so far. He plans to keep researching electrically-powered aircraft and hopes to continue working with Pipistrel.
Source: Jack Langelaan, Penn State University
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen