Aviation Electronica

But Dec. 17, 1903, isn’t the date the world shrank. The transformation actually happened years earlier.

Aug. 16, 1858. The date the first transoceanic cable was ready for use after being painstakingly lowered to the seafloor between Great Britain and North America. With the laying of this thick copper-and-iron cable, communications that took a month to cross the ocean by ship could now be sent back and forth in a single day.

Today, with my smartphone, I have instant access to just about any information I desire. I can play a game of chess with an opponent in Bangladesh or share a selfie with friends on Facebook in Finland or Fiji. If you ask the average person how this is possible, they’ll probably tell you “satellites.” But in reality, the data required to play a game of chess with someone halfway around the world is sent and received through underwater fiber-optic cables that wrap around the globe, delivering staggering amounts of digital information at the speed of light to billions of people simultaneously.

Electricity is what shrank the world. And some very smart people are convinced it will be electricity as a source of power for our airplanes that secures the future of aviation for generations to come.

If you were in Palm Springs, California, in October for Flying Aviation Expo you might have heard me say something similar during my keynote talk, "Aviation Electronica." I also expressed skepticism that our future really depends on advances in battery technology, electric motors and solar cells affixed to lightweight composite wings. Not necessarily because I doubt it will happen, but because, well, I'm a skeptic. By my nature I challenge every assertion and question every assumption — especially the wilder claims by wide-eyed dreamers in aviation.

But when the world’s second-largest airplane maker confidently proclaims it is going to build and sell electric-powered light airplanes, you can’t help but take notice. Jean Botti, chief technology officer for Airbus Group, graciously participated in my talk via video presentation, welcoming expo attendees to Palm Springs and telling them of his company’s ambitious plans to bring plug-in and hybrid-electric light airplanes to the GA market within a few short years.

"The aerospace industry is still a young one," he told the audience, "and Airbus remains committed to being at the forefront of innovation. There are strong incentives for Airbus Group and other manufacturers to not only develop innovative, eco-friendly propulsion and lightweight material solutions, but we also need to bring them to market quickly as more stringent emissions regulations come into effect. With its E-Fan project, Airbus Group is expanding its role as an innovative leader in bringing technological advances to market."

Even if you’re a bit skeptical of electric airplanes, you have to admit that the prospect of an Airbus E-Fan four-seater in our immediate future is exciting. It calls to mind the electric atmosphere (pardon the pun) that existed in the years after the Wright brothers’ early flights at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie.

Several companies and entrepreneurs are making serious preparations right now to build and fly electric airplanes. Some already have. Pipistrel in Slovenia has introduced the Alpha Electro two-seater, the world's first serial-production electric airplane. Diamond Aircraft recently shared exclusive details with Flying of a hybrid-electric fly-by-wire tiltrotor concept it is working on with a major industrial partner. It's mind-blowing stuff.

Toward the end of my talk I brought up to the stage George Bye, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and pioneer in the field of electric aircraft design. He is the founder and CEO of Aero Electric Aircraft Corporation (AEAC), which is now preparing to fly the second prototype electric Sun Flyer from the company’s base in Denver.

Bye stirred up the crowd — in a good way — with his discussion of the Sun Flyer, which he says will benefit from battery technology that can store twice the energy, compared with batteries of just a few years ago, and will fly with electric motors that are “the size of a stack of pancakes” while also being lighter and more powerful than those of the previous generation.

The Sun Flyer will also incorporate solar cells that work whenever the sun is shining and a regenerative propeller to charge the batteries when power is reduced to idle in a glide. The combination of batteries, solar power and the regenerative propeller will keep the Sun Flyer aloft for as long as three hours with reserves, he says. The price of the airplane, which has already received orders from a number of flight-training organizations, including one right in the backyard of Airbus in France, is targeted to be in the range of $240,000.

When Bye opened the discussion to questions, hands immediately went up. The crowd was clearly energized by the concept and, in particular, Bye’s assertion that the flight-hour cost to operate the Sun Flyer would be just $1. The audience continued asking questions until our time ran out, and then several people made their way to the stage to ask more questions of both Bye and me. It was a fun experience for them and for us.

I’ll continue to harbor a healthy skepticism about electric airplanes and their eventual place in general aviation, but I’ll also be keeping a watchful eye on what the folks at Airbus, Pipistrel, Diamond, AEAC and others are up to.

The show, by the way, was terrific. In 2014, when we hosted the first Flying Aviation Expo in Palm Springs, our goal was for the event to perform well enough that we'd be able to do it again. Well, we held the second Aviation Expo in October, and not only did the show meet our expectations, but it's also well on its way to becoming one of the most important events on the annual aviation show calendar, right up there with Oshkosh and Sun 'n Fun.

What I love about Aviation Expo — and what attendees told us they love too — is that it finally gives the West Coast a big show. And it fits perfectly with Sun ’n Fun in the East in the spring, Oshkosh in the middle of the country in the summer, and now Aviation Expo in the West in the fall. And as Jeff Herold, founder of sunglasses and watchmaker Scheyden, pointed out, Aviation Expo has far better restaurants and hotel choices than those other shows. A major supporter and sponsor of Aviation Expo, Scheyden doubled its exhibit size this year and reported that it doubled its show sales as well. Herold said Scheyden will be back next year with an even bigger exhibit.

The attendees I spoke with told me they thoroughly enjoyed the show, especially the educational seminars and tech talks, and, of course, the incredible “Parade of Planes” through the streets of Palm Springs, which was led by a local high-school -marching band and included some show-stopping airplanes. Among them were a Quest Kodiak on floats, Pilatus PC-12, Eclipse 550, Daher TBM 900 and Epic LT, interspersed with models from Cirrus, Cessna, Mooney, Piper, Diamond, Aviat, Tecnam, Searey, Lancair, CubCrafters and many more.

If you couldn’t make it to the show this year, all I can suggest is that you do yourself a favor and plan on being there next October. For pilots on the West Coast, it is quite simply a must-attend event.

Be sure to check out Flying's December issue for more.