Aerospace

PS

Superconducting aircraft motors

Power density and power-toweight ratio have always been very near the top of the list of essential attributes for aircraft propulsion systems, particularly in those elements that work at the sharp end of converting stored chemical energy into thrust (writes Peter Donaldson). Rockets aside, the gas turbine engine has yet to be beaten in this respect. In the electrified...

Deep Insight

Hydrogen

Nick Flaherty highlights some of the inroads developers are making into rolling out a range of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Many of the engineering challenges with converting hydrogen to electricity to drive a motor in a vehicle have been addressed over the past decade through the development...

Focus on...

Axial flux motors

Axial flux motors have many EV design advantages over their radial flux counterparts, as Nick Flaherty explains. A new type of motor is gaining traction in the e-mobility sector – the axial flux type. For many years they have been used in stationary applications such as elevators and agricultural machinery, but over the past decade a number of developers have been working on improving...

Grid

Testing facility for e-motors

New testing laboratory for E-mobility drives The Von Roll institute in Breitenbach, Switzerland, recently expanded the capabilities of its already comprehensive test facilities with the addition of a new lab, dedicated to the testing of e-motors specifically for...

Grid

eVTOLs distribution deal

VerdeGo Aero, a US company with the goal of producing an eight-rotor eVTOL air taxi – and headed up by Erik Lindbergh, great-grandson of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh – is developing a distributed power system that could be marketed to other eVTOL aircraft developers (writes Lawrence Butcher). The company’s design, referred to as...

Dossier

Pipistrel Alpha Electro

Lawrence Butcher explains how this electric two-seater, airworthy certified aircraft was developed and how it acts as a pointer to the future. Electric aircraft are by no means a new invention: the first recorded electric powered flight was in 1973, by...