AircraftNews.Com

Radical Sky Tain

Stage lengths of between 185km (100nm) and 1,850km create a competitive problem for conventional air transport. For a typical 1-2h flight, would-be airline customers must pass through a non-flying gauntlet, from commuting to and from remote airports to facing clogged lines for security, check-in and baggage claim. It is often easier and cheaper to drive.

This basic conundrum has produced a series of radical solutions by aviation entrepreneurs, ranging from exotic business models, such as air taxis, to exotic aircraft designs, such as vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) airliners. For various reasons, including lack of infrastructure and technical complexity, none is yet to topple the imperfect primacy of the fixed-wing turboprop or jet.

Now Abe Karem, a widely respected aerodynamicist and innovator, has entered the mix. As founder of Karem Aircraft, he has quietly launched a new programme called the TR53 AeroTrain, a 120-seat, optimum speed tiltrotor (OSTR) dedicated to solving the 185-1,850km air transport problem. Read more…

Morphing concept

The Australian Deparment of Defence is hiring specialists to investigate multifunctional aircraft structure.

Multifunctional aircraft structures include products such as conformal antennas, frequency selective surfaces, morphing structures and structural batteries. They may be manufactured from conventional aircraft materials, such as fibre composites, and emerging materials, such as meta- and nano-materials.

The successful candidatres would work at the defence Laboratories in Fishermans bend Victoria. It is interting to note that Defence is hiring premabably to keep an eye on the ball.

From the DSTO web site

Airbus

A new study says that within three years jumbo jet–makers could be testing a new type of wing that reduces midair drag and cuts fuel costs by an estimated 20 percent. The wing would do this using small, built in jets that redirect air around the wing during flight.

“This has come as a bit of a surprise to all of us in the aerodynamics community,” Duncan Lockerby, an associate professor of fluid-solid mechanics at the University of Warwick in the U.K. and head of the research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and aircraft maker Airbus, said in a statement. “It was discovered, essentially, by waggling a piece of wing from side to side in a wind tunnel.”

Lockerby acknowledged that he and his team weren’t sure exactly how the small jets actually reduce drag, but they’re building prototypes they hope will be ready for testing as early as 2012 and will eventually reduce surface friction drag by up to 40 percent.

Part of this learn-as-they-go approach stems from the Advisory Council for Aeronautical Research in Europe’s (ACARE) goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions from passenger aircraft in half by 2020, Lockerby notes on Warwick’s Web site.

From http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=not-a-drag-high-tech-airplane-wings-2009-05-22

CD plastic may improve aircraft avionics

HOUSTON, May 20  — A U.S. physics professor says he is using U.S. Air Force grants to create highly conductive nanocomposites to improve aircraft and other electronics.

University of Houston Associate Professor Shay Curran says he has demonstrated the ultra-high electrical conductive properties in polycarbonates, such as used to make compact disks, mixed with a type of carbon nanotubes could improve the integrity of computers, iPhones and aircraft avionics.

“While its mechanical and optical properties are very good, polycarbonate is a non-conductive plastic,” Curran said. “That means its ability to carry an electrical charge is as good as a tree, which is pretty awful. Imagine that this remarkable plastic can now not only have good optical and mechanical properties, but also good electrical characteristics.

“By being able to tailor the amount of nanotubes we can add to the composite, we also can change it from the conductivity of silicon to a few orders below that achieved by metals,” he added.

The findings appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Physics.

For more follow:http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/05/20/CD-plastic-may-improve-aircraft-avionics/UPI-83661242843989/