Aviation – Page 2 – Leonardo Times

Printed titanium parts to reduce costs on the Dreamliner

13Apr

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, Manufacturing, News

Printed titanium parts to reduce costs on the Dreamliner

Norsk Titanium AS, a Norwegian 3D printing company, has been hired by Boeing Co. to 3D print structural titanium parts for its Dreamliner. Titanium parts alone cost about $17 million out of the total $265 million cost of the plane. This is due to the 787’s carbon fiber fuselage and wings and result in a higher titanium requirement. This is obviously a sizeable portion of the costs and Boeing has been looking for ways to reduce these costs. Norsk Titanium Vice President, Chip Yates, claims that by 3D printing these, as opposed to manufacturing them the traditional way (with forging and machining), they will be able to cut down the costs of each 787 Dreamliner by around $2-3 million. Considering that Boeing produces around 144 Dreamliners each year on average, this will lead to a sizeable...

5Apr

By scriptcieNo Comments

Aviation, Propulsion, Space engineering, Space flight

The Airbus Zephyr

Authors: Rens van der Zwaard & Max Aalberse, MSc Students Aerospace Engineering, TU Delft Article published in Leonardo Times Magazine, Edition of January 2017. The Zephyr 8 is a compromise between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and satellites. It has the ability to fly autonomously in the stratosphere, above all weather and air traffic, the advantage being that it can perform its functions without having to take unexpected weather changes into account. Its endurance at this altitude is in the order of weeks. Therefore, the Zephyr can do the job of a satellite while flying sufficiently close to the surface to make high-resolution images and is inexpensive to use, relative to developing and launching a satellite. Another advantage is that the Zephyr can always stay focused on th...

25Mar

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, News, Operations

Maiden flight 787-10 scheduled

Boeing has announced the date of the 787-10 Dreamliner maiden flight to be March 31st. Its public roll-out on February 17th took place at its exclusive building site in North Charleston, South Carolina. The event was celebrated by thousands of employees along with U.S. President Donald Trump and the Governor of South Carolina. https://twitter.com/BoeingAirplanes/status/844595295367385090 As of February 2017 over 1200 orders have been placed for the entire 787 family, of which 149 for the 787-10 variant. Its prime customers include Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airways, both having ordered 30 aircraft. First delivery is planned for 2018. Boeing shall be broadcasting the first flight of the newest member of the 787 family, subject to weather and other factors, live online here.

19Mar

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, News, Operations

Endless runways: The future?

If you think that everything you can think of has already been invented, you are wrong. Recently BBC News posted a film [1] presenting the idea of circular runways. The Endless Runway is a project run by the NLR in the Netherlands. The principle of The Endless Runway is that aircraft take-off and land on a circular runway. The circular runway will allow aircraft to take-off in any direction and land in any direction, making it possible for the aircraft to always land and take-off in the most desirable direction with respect to the wind: headwind. The possibility for aircraft to land and take-off without experiencing crosswind at all times is not the only advantage to the concept of circular runways. In low wind conditions, it would be possible to shorten the landing and take-off intervals....

29Sep

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, Time Flies

The 6 Day War

Operation Focus (Mivtza Moked) Intro In 1967, Israel was faced with a serious geopolitical existential threat of war on 3 fronts by its neighbors. Israel decided to go for pre-emptive airstrikes and won the war in just six days. How did the IAF achieve this success? The Six-Day War was fought by Israel and its neighboring states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan with the backing of almost all Arab countries. The June 1967 war in particular was not only a watershed in the history of the Middle East, it was also one of the rare occurrences in the recent history of a pre-emptive war, a type of war which breaks out primarily if the attacker feels that it will itself be the target of a military attack in the short term. Political Background The root cause of Arab-Israeli conflict has been the c...

19Aug

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation

Swiss Air Force: An Inside Look

To be able to fly a military aircraft, aspirants have to go through a tough selection process. Eventually only a fraction of the applicants will be able to call themselves pilots. One of these people is Sebastian Blanke, Lieutenant of the Swiss Army, currently an aspirant to becoming a pilot. He shares his experiences exclusively with Leonardo Times. As a child, many people have the dream of becoming a pilot. I wasn’t any different. Huge, complex, and fast technical systems like airplanes always fascinated me. As I grew older, the dream grew with me. Finally, at the age of seventeen, I decided to pursue my dream and try to become a pilot of the Swiss Air Force (SAF). The very first step on the journey to the cockpit is SPHAIR. It is the platform of the SAF, which offers every Swiss cit...

11Aug

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, Propulsion

The Current State of Electric Aircraft

As the Solar Impulse arrives in Abu Dhabi, it is interesting to examine the electric aircraft on a conceptual level, as well as its current progress. Without judging the Solar Impulse team’s achievements, it is fair to say their main drivers were most certainly adventure and innovation. The latter being a pillar of aerospace engineering. It is the reason why aircraft continue to become more efficient year after year, and allow more and more people to reach distant places throughout the world. Electric aircraft are one of the newest domains upon which innovation is focused. Few can predict how far they will go. This article presents the Solar Impulse along with a history of electric aircraft, their uses and the challenges to come. Solar Impulse The Solar Impulse adventure wa...

Airfoil Design for a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

27Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aerodynamics and wind energy, Aviation

Airfoil Design for a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

With the depletion of fossil fuels, increasing emissions, and the inevitability of global warming, the interest in renewable energy grows. Conventional solutions, like horizontal axis wind turbines, are reaching the limits of their capabilities. Therefore, there is renewed interest in other models, such as the Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT). While there are multiple variations on the VAWT, the most viable one is the Darrieus turbine, patented in 1932 (Darrieus, 1931). This turbine operates on the principle of aerodynamic forces acting on vertically placed blades, spinning around an offset center. When enough torque is generated, power is produced. The advantages of this configuration are that it is easily scalable, will not suffer from gravitational loads and ha...

24Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, Operations

The Bombardier CSeries – A Review

There is a new aircraft on the block: the CS100. The CS100 and its sister aircraft, the CS300, are part of the CSeries aircraft family by Bombardier. These narrow bodies were designed to compete with the biggest best sellers: the A320 and B737 series. In the aerospace industry this is possibly one of the hardest challenges. Only one company has ever managed to do it: Airbus. It was back when Boeing had total hegemony over the market and did not take Airbus seriously. What a huge mistake that was- Airbus managed to sell its aircraft and thirty years later, it is now selling more narrow bodies than Boeing on a yearly basis. Airbus having the experience and Boeing having been duped already once, both companies are not about to let Bombardier off the hook so easily. The CSeries ...

Supersonic Commercial Travel: the Past, the Present, and the Future

7Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Aviation, Operations, Specials, Time Flies

Supersonic Commercial Travel: the Past, the Present, and the Future

The Concorde is a widely recognized plane, perhaps even more than the Boeing 747. To this day, it remains the only supersonic plane that operated commercial flights, despite a disastrous attempt from Tupolev to imitate the Anglo-French plane. Since its last flight in 2003, no commercial passenger has flown past the speed of sound. This could all be changing in the coming years as more and more private companies are investing in supersonic private jets, along with NASA’s recent announcement. Gone are the days where any passenger could travel from Paris or London to New York in a little over three hours. These days, any traveler will have to take anywhere between five and a half and over nine hours. Whether you blame it on FAA noise regulations or the economy, the final outcome re...