Page 56 - AAA SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016 Online Magazine

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Electric Flight Takes Off By Ulrich Kreutzer

sieMens ReseaRCheRs haVe “This first flight is a milestone in the history of Aerobatic Aircraft: Ideal for Testing
developed a new type of electric motor that, electric aviation drives,” says Frank Anton from Electric Motors
with a weight of just 50 kilograms, delivers a Corporate Technology (CT), Siemens’ central Why is Siemens interested in an aerobatic
continuous output of about 260 kilowatts – five research and development department. Anton aircraft? This kind of aircraft is especially
times more than comparable drive systems. and his team got the first electric airplane with well suited for testing electric drive systems.
This record-setting propulsion system an output of one fourth of a megawatt airborne, That’s because it is robust enough to take the
successfully completed its first public flight and they did so in accordance with the flight power train to its limits in flight by making
on July 4 at Schwarze Heide Airport near conditions of the European Aviation Safety sharp accelerations on all three axes. In
Dinslaken, Germany, where it – almost silently Agency and a permit-to- flight from Germany’s coming years, the plane will be ideal for
– powered an Extra 330LE aerobatic airplane. Federal Aviation Office. analyzing and refining how its components
This advance means that hybrid-electric work together.
aircraft with four or more seats will now Milestone in Aviation History The aircraft features the SP260D electric
be possible. In addition, the company will The plane first lifted off on 24 June 2016, from motor and an inverter from Siemens, plus
be contributing this technology to the an airfield in north-central Germany near the battery blocks from Pipistrel, a Slovenian
cooperative project that Siemens and town of Hünxe and landed safely after ten company. The propeller was made by MT
Airbus agreed to in April 2016 for driving the minutes of flight. Since then it has undergone Propeller, a Bavarian company.
development of electrically powered flight. several test flights, meaning that Siemens Siemens developed the SP260D motor
Electric drives are scalable, and Siemens and now has an air-worthy electric motor in the in cooperation with its partner Grob Aircraft.
Airbus will be using the record-setting motor medium-power class. The project is also very The project was subsidized by the German
as a basis for developing regional airliners special for Extra, the aircraft builder. “We’re Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and
powered by hybrid-electric propulsion proud that one of our aerobatic aircraft has Energy as part of the German Aviation
systems. Siemens is determined to establish flown for the first time on an electric motor,” Research Program.
hybrid-electric propulsion systems for said company founder and managing director In order for these drive components to
aircraft as a future area of business. Walter Extra. be installed, the aircraft had to meet several
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