NASA X-57 Experimental Electric Airplane

NASA is working on an electric airplane that can carry up to 9 passengers and cruise at 175 miles per hour. The heart of the innovative design is a unique wing with 14 propellers driven by electric motors. 12 of the propellers are used during takeoff and landing while 2 larger ones move the plane forward during normal flight.

The airplane has been assigned the designation X-57 by the Air Force but is known internally as “Maxwell” in honor of James Clerk Maxwell, the 19th century Scottish physicist who did groundbreaking work in electromagnetism.

NASA Aeronautics researchers will use Maxwell to demonstrate that electric propulsion can make planes quieter, more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

As part of a four year flight demonstrator plan, NASA’s Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology Operations Research (SCEPTOR) project will build the X-57 by modifying an Italian-designed Tecnam P2006T twin-engine light aircraft.

An advantage of modifying an existing aircraft is that engineers will be able to compare the performance of the proposed experimental airplane with the original configuration, says Sean Clarke, SCEPTOR co-principal investigator at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.

Tests have shown that distributing power among the multiple motors creates more than double the lift at lower speeds than traditional systems. NASA hopes to demonstrate that such a system will result in as much as a five times reduction in the energy required for a private plane to cruise at 175 mph.

Energy efficiency at cruise altitude using X-57 technology could benefit travelers by reducing flight times and fuel usage. It could reduce overall operational costs for small aircraft by as much as 40%. Typically, to get the best fuel efficiency an airplane has to fly slower than it is capable of. Electric propulsion essentially eliminates the penalty for cruising at higher speeds.

It also eliminates one source of pollution from the skies. Internal combustion engines for general aviation still run on leaded gasoline.

Source: Green Car Congress  Image credit: NASA

Integrated Propellers Could Power Electric Airplanes

In the same week when the Solar Impulse 2 — an electric airplane powered by the sun — began its quest to circumnavigate the world, NASA announced it has developed a new design that integrates many slow turning electric motors into the wings of light aircraft. The result is that electric airplanes may actually fly someday, although they will only be 1 or 2 passenger planes to begin with.

Integrated propellers provide a 60 percent boost in wing efficiency and a significant reduction in drag. The NASA project envisions 32 electric motors — 16 on each wing — turning small propellers. Each motor can be placed precisely on the wing for maximum efficiency and reduced drag, reports Jalopnik.

The pilot would have many options during flight never before possible. Each motor could be operated independently at different speeds to optimize performance, depending on the phase of flight. In cruise mode, some motors could be shut down and their propellers folded to reduce drag even further. Computers could determine the optimum speed for each motor from takeoff through landing. Having so many motors available would provide critical redundancy and emergency backup in case of failure.

With the government penchant for cool sounding acronyms, NASA is calling the project Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech). NASA has mounted the wing on a specially modified truck at Edwards Air Force Base, where it can operate on a dry lake bed at speeds up to 70 mph. The truck has its own acronym, of course. It is known as the Hybrid-Electric Integrated Systems Testbed (HEIST). Researchers are focusing primarily on the takeoff and landing phases of flight.

After the initial research is complete, NASA plans to mount its experimental wings on an Italian-built Tecnam P2006T. Using an existing airframe will allow engineers to compare the performance of the flight demonstrator with that of the original P2006T. Because the technology is easily scalable, it could then be applied to small passenger planes and eventually be tried on commercial aircraft.

Will we be flying to the Bahamas on vacation aboard electric airplanes any time soon? Probably not. But when you consider that commercial airliners spew enormous amounts of CO2 emission behind them everywhere they go, the NASA research could prove to be enormously important for the environment.

Images: NASA