Volume 5, Number 3 May/June 1997
Aerospace Technology Development
IMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA,
aeronautical engineers are developing the Centurion—an aircraft they believe will push
solar-powered aircraft concepts to new heights. AeroVironment Inc. engineers are designing
Centurion to fly at a targeted altitude of 100,000 feet. The company is developing this concept
as a member of NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program,
sponsored by the Dryden Flight Research Center.
Similar to its predecessor, the AeroVironment-developed Pathfinder, the Centurion will be an ultralight flying wing with multiple electric motors along its wing span. It is powered by solar cells spread across the wing's upper surface. The Centurion's wing span, however, will be more than twice that of the Pathfinder.
| The early morning sunlight highlights a battery-powered, quarter-scale model of the Centurion solar-electric flying wing during flight tests over California's high desert. |  |
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John Del Frate, Dryden's ERAST deputy project manager, said recent flight tests of a quarter-scale battery-powered model have answered questions about the Centurion's aerodynamics and stability. "We saw it fly, and it flew quite well," said Del Frate. "It has given us confidence that we can go ahead with the design of the full-scale vehicle. Technology in almost every aspect of the vehicle design will be used to maximize overall vehicle performance."
"We'll take the data from these flights and incorporate them into the design of the full-scale proof-of-concept vehicle," said Bill Parks, the Centurion's chief designer and operations manager for subscale flight tests. "We're essentially scaling the aircraft up, designing new airfoils that are more efficient for high altitudes and optimizing the systems," said Rik Meininger, AeroVironment's Centurion project manager.
Cost and efficiency considerations have driven building and flying a subscale model, then a full-scale prototype, before developing the final solar-powered Centurion. "We find that we can make configuration changes very quickly and very cost-effectively, then immediately test it and come back and change if necessary," Meininger said. "It allows us, in a very short period of time, to get a lot of test data, and also do the risky things that normally you wouldn't want to do with a full-scale aircraft. By the time we get to the final aircraft stage, we should only be doing minor changes and fine-tuning for optimization."
The Centurion will be designed to reach 100,000 feet altitude for about two hours while carrying a 200-pound payload of scientific sensors. It will span 210 to 240 feet.
The Centurion is one of several unpiloted aircraft being developed under NASA's ERAST program. The goal of ERAST is to develop aeronautical technologies that will lead to the development of a new family of high-flying remotely piloted aircraft for scientific missions. The development of the technology necessary to make the Centurion successful and the lessons learned from the flight testing will be used directly to improve the performance of this class of vehicles. Although specific science missions have not yet been identified, it is expected that atmospheric sampling capability will be desirable.
For more information about the Centurion, contact Fred Brown at Dryden Flight Research Center.
Call 805/258-2663,
E-mail: fred.brown@dfrc.nasa.gov
Please mention you read about it in Innovation.
