Somehow I got around the pay wall.
Dick Smith hopes electric air race will mark 1919 centenary
Nigel Daw loves the Vickers Vimy registered G-EAOU and its epic story of what remains arguably the most audacious feat of aviation performed by Australians.
“It’s probably one of Australia’s greatest aviation gems,” he says of the nearly century-old British World War I heavy bomber, lovingly preserved in a pristine *humidity-controlled structure at Adelaide airport.
In 1919, the open-cockpit Vimy, a massive biplane made out of wood and fabric and held together with wires, completed what at the time was considered a near-impossible journey. Lured by a £10,000 prize offered by Australian prime minister Billy Hughes, Australian military aviators Ross and Keith Smith, who were brothers, together with mechanics Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett, took off from Hounslow near London on November 12, 1919.
It was the Great Air Race — six teams accepted Hughes’s challenge to become the first to fly from the UK to Darwin, with the proviso it had to be done within 30 days. Only the Vimy and one other competing crew made it to Australia; some of the others died trying.
The crew led by Ross Smith *arrived in Darwin 28 days after setting off, on an adventure-packed expedition through the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. They became instant national heroes, with the Smith brothers knighted and the mechanics awarded honorary commissions.
The Smiths were from South Australia, and so G-EAOU — whimsically suggested to stand for God ’Elp All Of Us — was donated to that state and is on display a short walk from the Adelaide terminal building.
Daw, a banker turned aviation historian who acts as head libra*rian for the South Australian Aviation Museum, is a human archive of everything about the epic Vimy flight. He has visited the school in Scotland where the Smith brothers spent some of their early years, and as a keen 21-year-old aviation fan he watched part of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the journey, a Britain-to-Australia air race sponsored by BP in 1969.
Now Daw is excited about the prospect of a centenary commemoration of the 1919 race, proposed by businessman and aviator Dick Smith — who is potentially prepared to put up $1 million.
Like the 1919 race, the contest Smith has in mind would stretch the edges of long-distance aviation, but in a novel 21st-century fashion. That’s because under Smith’s plan, the 2019 air race would be restricted to a very special type of aircraft: one that has zero greenhouse emissions in flight.
What that means in practice is aircraft with battery-powered electric motors — a proven concept, but one that is still in its *infancy when it comes to range.
Daw considers Smith’s concept to be brilliant, capturing the innovative, adventurous, challenging spirit of the 1919 race. “That would be fabulous, to do it that way — we need to keep pushing the boundaries,” he says.
In fact just about everyone, with the apparent exception of the federal government, adores Smith’s idea. It’s seen as a way of commemorating the great Australian aviation achievement of 1919, pushing the envelope for electric-powered flight, and encouraging such innovation to take hold in Australia.
“We’re excited to hear that the centenary of the great 1919 air race could be commemorated in this way,” Adelaide airport’s executive general manager, corporate, Brenton Cox tells Inquirer.
“It’s fantastic to think that we can continue to push the boundaries of aviation — in this case through more sustainable power sources — just as our early aviators did nearly 100 years ago.”
Another fan of the electric plane commemorative air race idea is John Storey, emeritus professor of physics at the University of NSW, one of the country’s leading experts in battery and solar technology.
“Full marks to Dick for having come up with this, because I think this is a brilliant idea whose time has come,” Storey says.
Electric-powered aircraft have been around for some time. In 1973, electric flight pioneer Fred Militky retrofitted a motor glider with an electric engine, and it flew for 14 minutes — becoming the first manned electric aircraft to fly under its own power.
The range restrictions on electric aircraft remained severe for decades, however, because they relied on old-fashioned liquid-filled accumulator batteries, which were bulky and heavy. The aircraft could get off the ground at full power, but the batteries ran out before they could get very far.
The key to flight is the power-to-weight ratio of whatever provides the propulsion, and a revolution in battery technology over the past decade has brought the sort of challenge proposed by Smith within the realms of the possible.
“The amount of energy a battery can hold — the so-called energy density — has moved ahead in leaps and bounds,” Storey says. “Being able to get enough batteries into enough energy without making the aircraft weigh like an elephant is the heart of it.”
The new generation of batteries, of which “the absolute king” is lithium-ion, Storey says, offers an energy density about five times that of traditional batteries of even a couple of decades ago. Superior electric motor design, improved aerodynamics and lighter aircraft construction materials have also contributed to making electric flight more practical.
A variety of manned experimental electric planes have taken to the skies over the past decade. But in a big practical advance, the massive European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is soon to begin the first commercial production of such a plane. In 2014 Airbus launched a very elegant, carbon composite airframe, all-electric prototype, the single-seat E-Fan 1.0, powered by twin ducted fans.
In July last year, designer and test pilot Didier Esteyne flew the E-Fan across the English Channel from Lydd on the English south coast to Calais, completing the 74km flight in 37 minutes.
Airbus hailed it as a modern version of Frenchman Louis Bleriot’s first powered flight across the Channel in 1909.
Esteyne’s flight tested the limit of the E-Fan 1.0’s range, which Airbus puts at slightly more than 80km. The electric aircraft Airbus plans to take into full-scale commercial production in the next three years will be a significant advance on the prototype. The E-Fan 2.0 will be a two seat, side-by-side trainer. “Our target is to provide flying organisations in need of an as silent as possible a training tool with the most reliable, cost-effective, comfortable and modern looking aircraft,” Pierre Duval, Airbus’s head of sales and marketing for the project, tells Inquirer.
The environmental attraction of electric aircraft is obvious — no carbon emissions in flight. Of course, they would have to be plugged into the electricity power grid to charge up, and so their ultimate carbon footprint would *depend on the mix of that particular grid — whether it is fossil fuels such as coal and gas, or renewables such as solar, hydro, and wind.
But Airbus sees the attraction of, and market for, the E-Fan 2.0 as immediate and practical: quiet and emissions-free electric aircraft could fly where piston-powered trainers cannot because of noise or emissions restrictions.
Apart from flying academies, Duval says, “local leisure-flying over populated or preserved areas as well as local commuting over congested cities are also listed as targets”. Airbus has visions in the future of developing an electric powered regional airliner that could, for example, get around curfew restrictions.
As for the prospects of meeting Smith’s challenge for a Britain-to-Australia race, the E-Fan 2.0 would get closer to requirements, with Duval saying it is expected to have twice the range of the 1.0, perhaps about 200km.
“It may be possible, for a specific attempt, although it is not currently in our plans, to add to E-Fan 2.0 an additional pack of batteries up to the equivalent weight of a crew member — let’s say some 80kg, which would be more than 50 per cent of standard batteries’ weight — in the co-pilot seat,” Duval says.
That would bring the range to about 300km, which still does not, as Duval observes, “seem compatible with the challenge of flying from London to Sydney, as some legs over the sea would be well more than 500km.” Those supporting Smith’s concept for the race say this is exactly the point of it: to provide the challenge to engineers and designers to work even harder to extend the range of their aircraft by 2019.
As for Smith, he wants the federal government to come on board, not necessarily with money but with vocal support. “This would only work, like the original race, if you had the Prime Minister behind it,” Smith tells Inquirer. So far, he has been unimpressed with the government’s response. In a letter last month, Industry, Innovation and Science Minister Greg Hunt wrote to Smith, saying: “My department is unable to support the proposed race from England to Australia which is designed to spur innovation in electric powered aeroplanes.”
Malcolm Turnbull flick-passed an inquiry from Inquirer to Transport Minister Darren Chester, whose spokeswoman says: “The minister’s office has received correspondence from Mr Smith in relation to the proposed air race and the minister would be happy to have further discussions regarding the support he requires, if any, from the government.”
Smith tells Inquirer he’s been having discussions with ministers for 20 years and they very rarely actually do anything about aviation, particularly if they are, like Chester, from the Nationals. “That reflects the whole government at the moment, there is no innovation, no nothing,” Smith says. “It’s reflective of the complete lack of leadership now.”
Labor’s transport spokesman Anthony Albanese, by contrast, is all for the 2019 commemorative electric air race. “It’s a good idea and the centenary is worthy of celebration,” Albanese says. “These types of events engage public attention and the competition for victory tends to accelerate innovation in alternative technologies. I would like to see the commonwealth get behind this idea.”
Smith says he was inclined to withdraw his offer of $1m towards the air race after the responses from Hunt, Chester and Turnbull, but he may go ahead with it if Labor comes to power, given Albanese’s response.
“Labor have always been stronger on innovation,” he says.