Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pw4OE7gM2M
The plane you see taking off is made with Carbon Fiber, from a kit based on the design of the Piper Cub, the famous bush plane, and perhaps smallest of what would be considered a traditional airplane. They usually weigh about 900 pounds. This one weights 300 less because of the difference in weight between carbon fiber and steel or aluminum. The plane landing likely is Carbon Fiber too. A friend of mine once took third place in this competition landing in about 130 feet with a plane, a Maule, that was handicapped for being slightly larger, but I can tell you that people were shocked when this thing took off in 17 feet in 2007, since even a normal cub souped up like a top fuel racer would still need 50 feet to take off.. not 17. In fact, the voice you hear muttering "Wow.. nice landing.. nice..." at the end is likely a buddy of mine, which I put together a few years ago. He was pretty astounded by what he saw there in 2007, as was the whole Alaska flying community. This carbon fiber thing was something big.
http://www.cubcrafters.com/carboncubex
Fast forward 6 years to 2013, and it's been a tough few months for a low Carbon future in Aviation, specifically, for the Boeing Dreamliner, the biggest innovation in Commercial Aviation since the Concord, the airliner equivalent of that Cub, and the most fuel efficient Commercial Aircraft ever produced, 20% more efficient than any current competitors.
Why it's been tough is the growing pains of new technology, specifically, a 40 pound battery that used to be an 80 pound battery, that Boeing didn't want to compromise on when they decided to go all the way in making a big jump in technology:
Legends of Flight Pt. 1
You see, with about 25 planes produced and flying commercially, they had, well, a bad thing, two bad things by the standards of aviation, happen.. two different batteries caught on fire, one in Boston, the other in Japan. Made by a Japanese contractor, the batteries are Lithium Ion derivatives and although these are now the batteries in the Chevy Volt, the new Generation of Prius, the Tesla and even the Leaf and about any hybrid that might be trying seriously to compete, since Lithium's are almost half the weight of the old best technology, the Lead Acid or Nickel Metal Hydride or some other heavy metal based battery, which are more damaging even at extraction from some Siberian mine. If you watched the above video, legends of flight, you realize now that for competitive and ecological reasons, Boeing tried to make as many jumps as possible in technology, not only in using Carbon Fiber to dramatically reduce the weight of the plane, but in other things like computerized flight controls, shadeless windows that dim electronically and also save a few pounds on the long haul from Tokyo to Timbuktu because you don't have to haul around the plastic shades and make a place to slide it to and fro, many other ideas, and last but not least, these batteries, which were the first major Lithium aircraft batteries to be certified for commercial use to serve the plane when the engines are off and even out the power flow. What I mean by certification is that if you want to send any old contraption up in the sky, you can in the US just about, but you have to write the word EXPERIMENTAL on it, and the people whose lives you can potentially risk in it are limited to those you can convince without the exchange of specie.. if you are flying for money, the laws and regulations that the FAA use to regulate such practices require extensive testing for any part of a plane used in such a capacity, to make money carrying cargo or passengers or something similar, since you are an uneducated consumer by virtue of how complicated flight is, and somehow flying is considered a bit dangerous, since we all lost our wings when we got sent to this place. These batteries where quite tested, certified even, but didn't stand up to real world use, although much worse things could have happened then a ground fire and and some in air smoke, but it did point out a problem in these particular Lithiums, which had to be redesigned by their Japanese Manufacturer, no doubt with a few Boeing Engineers breathing down their neck, to stay a bit cooler and to have thicker jackets between the cells, but the reason this happened in the first place was the aforementioned and displayed ambition, to make a plane radically more efficient and therefore less carbon emitting. They could have held back and rested on the Carbon Fiber improvement and still gone with a heavy metal battery, but they pushed the envelope, Right Stuff Style, because just shipping 40 extra pounds of battery, since an older chemistry would weigh about 80 pounds to perform the same work, from continent to continent over and over again, daily if not more, the way these aircraft are designed to do, would have a lifetime cost equivalent to quite a few SUV driving gas Bar B Q-ing Americans every year.
Unfortunately, it was a risk, the whole thing was a risk, and risks are risks because there is a chance of negative consequences. Boeing took on a lot, and it didn't all come out perfectly, perhaps the price of what I am no doubt painting as a worthy ambition:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258626/Boston-airport-explosion-Smoke-pictured-billowing-Boeing-Co-787-Dreamliner.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK7M0FhyCAw
those with perspective on the airline industry and aviation know that although no accident is to be taken lightly, this is not a hard problem to solve, just like the wing attachment problems they solved with the Titanium brackets during development depicted in Legends of Flight. Once the plane is safely on the ground,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5QBuJla5do
aviation goes from being the realm of hero's like Jack Stryker )roger, Roger!), to the realm of Engineers and FAA inspectors.. just kind of a big lab problem at Kansas State.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/travel/dreamliner-fix-behind-the-scenes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaqQuBac2ag
What I am imprssed by here, what I consdider to be a small piece of Environmental and corporate courage, is that Boeing could have gone back to an older proven battery technology, just said to heck with lithium's in aviation, and put the death knell into that idea for the public for years to come, but they stuck with it, held to their original vision with Lithium Bateries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKgfJlyfKo
Trying not to notice for a second that they to have the first flight in Etheopia (this blog isn't about lingering notions of colonialism and racism!), the 50 already delivered planes are all up flying again with the 'new' new batteries in place.
Now let's put aside for a second that an MIT Professor Ian Waitz who studies flight and the environment pretty much says we are F@#$ed no matter what because there are some 30K commercial airlines in operation all over the world, emitting maybe 1.5% of World Fossil Fuel Carbon Emission's.
http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/Aviation
What do MIT Science Professors and Deans of the School of Engineering know about, umm.. science..
Prof Ian Waitz lecture on Environmental Impacts of Aviation
His pessimistic, umm.. truthyness aside.. hope comes from small acts that become big trends, since no one seems to want to bring modern civilization to a screeching halt to keep carbon levels from hitting the anticipated catastrophic 500 ppm, and these acts lead to a better future we dream of.. no matter how drop in the bucket it may look now, so the 800 Dreamliner airplanes ordered that are 20% more efficient, now, let alone whatever innovations might occur in their lifetime and be implemented to make them even more efficient, are progress even though that may be 80% more carbon than we need still.
But Boeing isn't alone in this business, they have one major competitor in the Jet Liner world, and they caught on quick, perhaps helped by Boeing's 3 years of delay while they ironed out countless other issues before the battery. That competitor is Airbus, and even though the last aircraft they designed looks like the antithesis of efficiency, like a 70's Cadillac to the Dreamliners Prius (the thing is massive, it is literally a double decker!), it was in fact the previous most efficient aircraft, the A-380, since it capitalized off ideas of maximizing passengers per flight with it's design, since the greatest proportion of fuel used is at takeoff, if you put a lot of people in the air, the longer the flight, the relatively more efficient it eventually becomes.
http://www.airbus.com/innovation/eco-efficiency/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380
But Airbus isn't resting there... the French hate to be bested! Their next aircraft will be carbon fiber as well, and they already have 617 orders! Voilà!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB
Deliveries to begin in 2014, if all goes well, and well, they don't always, but we are going to keep on trying.
By the way, since I have a bit of American Pride in me, I do want to point out the original voice in the wilderness was, according the the Boeing Museum in Seattle, none other than Bill Lear and Lear Jet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan
if you read the story, Lear was working on it before his sad demise to Leukemia, and tried to get his wife to finish it for him. It would have been the first production composite aircraft, some 30 years before the Dreamliner. She tried but it never quite got to production. It would have saved a hell of a lot of Carbon before many even knew that was necessary. This kind of cute story and precedent might be why one of the prototypes is so prominently displayed in the Boeing museum as they stake their future on the same gamble. and Lear's company is making the same gamble again as well:
http://www.flyingmag.com/mid-size-jets/learjets-composite-airframe-bet
if you read that story, you will see that Beechcraft had a disastrous foray that might have been part of what scared people off for so long, but that's history now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKB9m_Z6XqA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKZ6UfJoEhM
most of us have likely never watched a private jet commercial, and some of us don't want to, as Warren Buffet's describing corporate jet's as financially Indefensible also applies to their environmental impact, but we take progress and hope where we can get it, and since I couldn't find any video of the Lear 85 taking off to make the snappy wrap up that Carbon Fiber efficiency is taking off, since the thing doesn't seem to be done yet, I am stuck with these somewhat awkward videos. They will be the first production Carbon Fiber Corporate Jet that I have heard of, unless Honda get's theirs out first.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49269623
So to make a satisfying final jump to prove that carbon fiber is taking off, I will display a few random things from the ground, water and sky.. You see, carbon fiber, like almost any new Technology, is expensive, so at first it becomes a bit mock-able because it's just in these flashy expensive realms of the rich, but this demand will lead to innovation, mass production and new efficiencies, as happened with the computer and the automobile, and over time, our transportation needs will be met by lighter and lighter and more efficient systems. Battery Technology will start to catch up as well, and eventually some of the transport modes that used to be driven by internal combustion will move to electric only, or who knows what...
feast your eyes:
https://hondajet.honda.com/news/Index.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18pvhne0C8E
http://www.gizmag.com/lamborghini-reveals-sesto-elemento-concept/16522/
http://www.ezequielfarca.com/enproducto.php?id=149
http://www.yuneec.com/
There is one Yuneek Flying in the US, out in Monterrey, California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuneec_International_E430
The movement is coalescing:
http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2013/May/9/Electric-airplanes-EAS-guides-the-way
Viva la Revolucion!
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