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NASA Software Innovation Models Aircraft Ice Accumulation

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Writer

Aircrafts must be prepared to deal with any atmospheric condition in order to fly safely and efficiently, but with a wide range of aircraft models, shapes and purposes, it can be difficult to predict exactly how nature will affect each vehicle. Trial-and-error methods of designing and building an aircraft, testing it against controlled conditions, and then re-designing and re-building, are time-consuming and costly—the more engineers can predict about an aircraft’s performance ahead of time, the more resources they can save by building a more effective model the first time.

NASA’s Glenn Research Center seeks to boost engineers’ prediction power when it comes to understanding how ice will accumulate on the surface of an aircraft during flight. LEWICE3D, a 3D simulation software that earned Glenn Research Center an RD 100 Award last year, takes into account several factors in the movement of freezing water droplets in order to model the shapes of ice accretion on a variety of differently-shaped surfaces. The software is free to the general public with a NASA Software Usage Agreement, and is already being used in a variety of aviation settings.

“The current version of LEWICE3D (3.63) has on the order of 30 customers. These customers span industrial organizations, government, and academia,” said Mark Potapczuk, research aerospace engineer at the Icing Branch of Glenn Research Center, in an exclusive interview with RD Magazine. “LEWICE3D originated as an extension of LEWICE, a two-dimensional icing tool. As such it is classically used for the icing analysis of the wing of

Article source: https://www.rdmag.com/article/2019/04/nasa-software-innovation-models-aircraft-ice-accumulation

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Dream takes flight: McKelvey says flying homemade plane ‘best feeling you could imagine’

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Writer

When Rush McKelvey was building and flying radio-controlled model airplanes as a boy, he dreamed of building and flying a real one.

At 33, McKelvey earned his private pilot’s license and set out making his dream come true. In 2011, he finished building his real aircraft, a Vans RV-8 aerobatic plane.

He began work on the full-sized plane, constructed of aircraft aluminum and epoxy resin panels, in 2008.

“I’ve got a little over 900 hours in it,” McKelvey said. “It’s a huge undertaking. You break it down into sections and you complete one task at a time. And when you look around one day, there are no more parts to put together, then you are done, and that day finally came.”

McKelvey said the completion of the project was bittersweet.

“It was sad, really sad, because the building process is what you get conditioned to,” he said. “You can’t just say you want to build an airplane and it happens. … I was sad when I finished it. I wasn’t really too enthused because it was finished. There was nothing left to do.”

The RV-8 came in a kit, similar to a plastic model plane, but had more than 10,000 parts to be assembled after being trucked in from Oregon.

“I worked for two years in my basement at home until it was time to put the wings on it and then I had to move it out,” McKelvey said.

He finished the build at Alexander City’s Thomas C.

Article source: https://www.alexcityoutlook.com/news/dream-takes-flight-mckelvey-says-flying-homemade-plane-best-feeling/article_d6494c01-c425-59f2-8c1c-227f23a2dd88.html

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Kitty Hawk, Flying Cars, and the Challenges of ‘Going 3D’

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Writer

On the day I make the long, traffic-clogged drive from Berkeley to Mountain View to meet Sebastian Thrun, Kitty Hawk’s CEO, it’s supposed to rain. Thrun meets me in the lobby, says hello, and notices my umbrella. He asks me if it’s raining. I tell him no, but that the forecast said it might. “Ah,” he says with a grin. “You are a pessimist.”

Slender, with a shaved head and wearing a suit just because he felt like it today, Thrun looks the part of a 21st-century Captain Nemo. At a time of backlash against Big Tech, he bounces along with untroubled enthusiasm, a blue-eyed riposte to Peter Thiel’s 2011 quip mocking Silicon Valley: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” By the time the German computer scientist was 36, he had tenure at Stanford University and was running its AI lab. In the mid-2000s he started working at Google, helping to create Street View and running Ground Truth, the massive effort that underpins Google Maps. Thrun launched the company’s self-driving car project as well as Google X, its “moon-shot factory.” So it’s no surprise that despite Thrun’s lack of aviation experience, his frequent patron, Google’s Larry Page, tapped him to run Kitty Hawk. (The company was founded in 2010 by Stanford aerodynamicist Ilan Kroo, who created an early version of what’s now the Cora aircraft. Page became the main funder, put Thrun in charge of the effort in 2016, and named it Kitty

Article source: https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-transportation-kitty-hawk-self-flying-cars/

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10 Models That Are About to Hit the Market

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Writer

The pace of new aircraft development continues to stimulate a great deal of interest in the next generation of business aircraft featuring improved performance, enhanced technology and cabin creature comforts that airplane buyers covet. While several new models — including the Gulfstream G500, Pilatus PC-24, HondaJet Elite, Generation 2 Cirrus Vision Jet, Daher TBM 940 and others — are seeing FAA certification translate into clear sales successes, a number of new airplanes still in the development pipeline are driving significant interest, some at levels we haven’t seen in years.

Most of the development activity is at the high end of the market as new business jets and turboprops dominate in a general aviation business climate that has seen more light piston airplanes disappear from production than enter center stage in the last couple of years. And after some headline-grabbing announcements, little has been divulged about piston-airplane certification programs that seemed to be moving briskly forward just a year or two ago. Diamond Aircraft hasn’t announced the timeline for the development of the new DA50, nor has Pipistrel offered details of its Panthera single.

The Flight Design C4 four-seater that many saw as a lower-priced alternative to a new Cessna Skyhawk is on hold.

Updated certification rules for Part 23 airplanes may have conspired to put the brakes on up-and-coming piston-airplane programs temporarily. So too may have the soft market for new personal airplanes at the low end of the market, which can’t compete against the ready supply of older used models from

Article source: https://www.flyingmag.com/new-airplanes-report-2019

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Lucien Thomas Lenhart Jr., 75

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Writer

Lucien Thomas Lenhart Jr., 75, of Middletown, Del., and formerly of Millsboro, Del., passed away in the care of Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., on April 24, 2019. He was born in 1944 in Milford, Del., to the late Lucien T. Lenhart Sr. and Ruth Lawson Lenhart.

Lenhart attended the Episcopal church, had a long career in the banking industry and worked as a computer programmer. He married Sandra Tung, and together they raised a son. Lenhart loved building and flying model airplanes, as well as fishing and reading — particularly history. He was very dedicated to family and served in the Delaware National Guard. Everyone knew Lenhart as a patient, easygoing man, and his family appreciated what a wonderful dad he was. He also loved a good meal.

Lenhart is survived by his wife, Sandra; his son, Lucien Thomas Lenhart III and his wife, Kristin, of West Layfayette, Ind.; his grandchildren, Benjamin, Samuel and Miles; his sister, Aleta Esham and her husband, William, of Millsboro; and his special friends and cousins, Donna Owens and Mona Wyatt.

Services were to be held May 7, 2019, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Millsboro, Del., officiated by the Rev. David Archibald. Interment was to follow in Millsboro Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family suggested memorial contributions to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Condolences may be sent online at www.watsonfh.com.

Article source: http://www.coastalpoint.com/45313/feature/lucien-thomas-lenhart-jr-75

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Jerrie Cobb Passed Astronaut Tests but NASA Kept Her Out of Space

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Writer

In 1960, Jerrie Cobb was rapidly becoming a celebrity. Already a veteran pilot at age 29, she aced a battery of tests given to women eager to join the men already jostling for trips to space.

To check her sense of balance, testers squirted water into her ears. In a contraption dubbed the Vomit Comet, she was spun head over heels and shaken side to side. She swallowed a rubber hose and endured nearly 10 hours of sensory deprivation in a water tank.

…

Article source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerrie-cobb-passed-astronaut-tests-but-nasa-kept-her-out-of-space-11557498600