The Pipistrel Taurus G4 Also Ready For Electric Flight Challenge At AirVenture

After a very challenging two years of planning, design and development, Pipistrel has publicly released preliminary information on their new aircraft, which will be competing in the upcoming 2011 CAFE/NASA Green Flight Challenge with a $1.65 million prize on the line.  The aircraft will also participate in the EAA AirVenture Electric Flight Challenge, carrying a $60,000 prize.

The Pipistrel Taurus G4 has rolled out of the Pipistrel factory in Slovenia for the first time a few weeks ago. After two years of extensive development and research the 'CAFE Racer' as it has become known, posed for the camera and then rolled off almost silently under electric power for the first taxi testing and start of the flight testing program.

Pipistrel's involvement and success in the last two CAFE/NASA challenges have taken a 180° turn with the design of this new and very special aircraft which has no similarity with the Virus SW which was successful in the previous two challenges. This aircraft is completely new. Pipistrel says it's the first four-place electric aircraft to be flown in the world, just as Taurus Electro was similarly the first two-place electric aircraft to be flown some four years earlier.

This unique design has come about by grafting two Pipistrel Taurus aircraft together with a center section which is some 15 feet wide, and includes a center pylon housing the electric engine and batteries. In some way, the design bears some similarity to the twin Mustang fighter, and even WhiteKnightTwo.

The aircraft is powered by a 145 kW brushless electric motor which is centrally positioned between both fuselages and drives a 6 foot diameter custom two-blade propeller. The total wingspan is 75 feet, making the aircraft wingspan not much smaller than a DC3. The undercarriage is retractable and the aircraft has extremely good gliding capabilities. Pipistrel note, however, the G4 is not designed as a glider, but as a very efficient airplane utilizing electric propulsion.

The goal for the development of this aircraft is to enter and hopefully be successful in completing the 2011 CAFE/NASA green flight challenge which is held between July 11 and July 17, 2011 at the Santa Rosa airport in northern California and then also competing in the EAA AirVenture Electric Flight Challenge held at this year's Oshkosh event just a few weeks later. Pipistrel's Tine Tomazic has described the aircraft as a "technology demonstrator." Tine is one of the main development engineers on this project and he is also the test pilot who has put the aircraft through the test flight program. Tine has also lead the design team for the electrical design and control systems in this new aircraft, but he is still very reserved at disclosing the full performance figures and flight capabilities of this exciting new machine before it debuts in the 2011 CAFE/NASA Green Flight Challenge.

Tine says this is "the most powerful electric aircraft currently developed, it has the most battery capacity on-board and it is also the first four-place aircraft to be flown under electric power." The empty weight of the aircraft is 2,348 lbs with 1,036 lbs of this being batteries, the maximum takeoff weight is 3,300 lbs, giving the aircraft payload of 959 lbs ... making it a real four-seat aircraft.

Tine said the CAFE Racer is purely a proof of concept aircraft which Pipistrel is using as a testbed for many of the same technologies which will be introduced into the recently announced Panthera aircraft, which is available with a normal gasoline engine, as well as hybrid and fully electric mills. After the completion of these competitions, it is expected the aircraft will be sold to someone who wants a very unique aircraft for personal use, or to a company wanting to further investigate future propulsion technologies on an already proven airframe with the ability to quickly replace or substitute the propulsion system.

The Pipistrel Taurus G4 will arrive in the USA in the first week of June for registration, certification and ongoing testing before the start of the CAFE Challenge in July.

FMI: www.pipistrel.si