Students set record fuel-cell-powered, radio-controlled airplane flight
November 15th, 2008 - 2:18 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Nov 15 (ANI): Researchers have achieved the longest fuel-cell-powered flight of a radio-controlled aerial vehicle.
Students at the University of Michigan and engineers at Ann Arbor-based fuel-cell manufacturer Adaptive Materials Inc. made the achievement.
Their plane, named Endurance, flew for 10 hours, 15 minutes and four seconds in a flight that lasted from sunrise to sunset on October 30, 2008, at Field of Dreams Park in Milan, Michigan.
The previous world record, held by a California-based company, lasted just over nine hours.
While the student team, known as SolarBubbles, built the airframe, which has an eight-foot wingspan, Adaptive Materials funded the project and built the aerial vehicles propane-powered solid oxide fuel cell.
The Adaptive Materials fuel cell for the aerial vehicle was a hybrid battery system.
Its great to be at the forefront of radio-controlled vehicles, said Nick Rooney, a senior aerospace engineering undergraduate who is the leader of SolarBubbles. Im really excited about this and proud of all the people who have worked on it, he added.
Adaptive Materials has worked extensively in the air vehicle space and will work with SolarBubbles to achieve a 20-hour test flight.
According to Michelle Crumm, chief business officer at Adaptive Materials, Its critical for unmanned aerial vehicles to have extended flight times to provide the functionality needed for military missions.
The flight time achieved with the SolarBubbles team surpassed any of Adaptive Materials previous work with aerial vehicles and shows that were just scratching the surface for whats possible with a lightweight, reliable fuel cell, he added.
Endurance had enough fuel to fly for five more hours, but it had to land at dusk because it wasnt made to fly at night.
The plane flew almost 99 miles over the course of the day as students took turns flying it in a holding pattern.
The 10-plus hour Endurance flight represented the highly successful culmination of a long progression of design, build and test cycles, said Ella Atkins, an associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and one of the teams advisers.
In addition to this fuel cell project, the students are working to build a solar-powered unmanned aircraft with a wingspan smaller than 15 feet that can fly for more than 36 hours. (ANI)
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Tags: adaptive materials, aerial vehicle, aerospace engineering, airplane flight, battery system, chief business officer, crumm, dreams park, field of dreams, foot wingspan, milan michigan, military missions, oxide fuel, radio controlled airplane, radio controlled vehicles, scratching the surface, solid oxide fuel cell, sunrise to sunset, unmanned aerial vehicles, vehicle space