2008 General Aviation Technology Challenge

They were hinting about this earlier, and now it's official: a couple weeks ago the CAFE Foundation posted that they'd updated the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge for 2008. The competition has been renamed to the General Aviation Technology Challenge, and now includes a "Green Prize". From the site:

The new prizes will be:

• The Community Noise Prize ($150,000)
• The Green Prize ($50,000) (MPG)
• The Aviation Safety Prize ($50,000) (Handling, eCFI)
• The CAFE 400 Prize ($25,000) (Speed)
• The Quietest LSA Prize ($10,000)

The rules also show a few more prizes:

Individual "Showcase" Prizes: Winner of each of the following five prizes will receive US$ 3750.00:

1. Quietest Cabin Prize
2. Best Angle of Climb Prize
3. Shortest Takeoff Prize
4. Best Glide at 100 mph Prize

There are a lot more details about the 2008 competition here and here.

Personal Air Vehicle Green Prize

The CAFE Foundation, the organization that runs NASA's Personal Air Vehicle Centennial Challenge, plans to start a Green Prize part of the 2008 PAV Challenge. Their announcement is currently at the top of their main page:

CAFE creating "Green Prize"

The CAFE Foundation, respecting the ever increasing concerns about energy and global warming, is planning to launch the "Green Prize" as a main part of the 2008 PAV Challenge. The Green Prize will seek a corporate name sponsor and will reward outstanding fuel economy and use of renewable fuel. Watch here for more news about it soon.

Anyone who has followed the airline industry news in the last couple years is aware that fuel economy and carbon emissions are major economic and regulatory issues for that industry. It makes sense for the PAV community to tackle them right from the beginning.

By the way, you can check the status of this (and other) Centennial Challenges at NASA's site here. You can see that the prize categories for 2008 are similar to the ones this year (with the addition of the Moon Regolith Oxygen Extraction Challenge), and the same allied organizations are running the prizes next year. Dates for the 2008 prizes are all TBD, though, including the PAV Challenge. The prize purses are, as planned, larger, as unwon and new amounts are combined.

Radio Report on PAV Challenge and Personal Air Vehicles

A few days ago Space for All posted a link to a radio report by the Bay Area's KQED with a good overview of the NASA PAV Centennial Challenge. The report also has some links on the challenge, including the some of the photos and videos I've linked in earlier (but less convenient to access) posts. Here's a link they provide to their Quest Community Science Blog, with an overview and some interesting reader/listener comments on the PAV radio report.

Personal Air Vehicle Challenge Results

Space for All has a good collection of links on the PAV Challenge that completed a few days ago. You can check there for the main articles; here are a few more to supplement those:

Pipistrel Virus the Big Winner at PAV Challenge - EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) News

Pipistrel Big Winner at NASA Challenge - from Pipistrel

ZDNet Photo Gallery of PAV Challenge - each photo comes with a paragraph or 2 showing what's going on, so you get a good sense of what happened

Far from 'The Jetsons', air cars for commuters - from ZDNet, gives an overview of the challenge. As sometimes happens with first-year events like this, it sounds like there weren't a lot of attendees at this one, according to the article. I wouldn't expect a lot of spectators at the actual challenge since it ran from Aug 4-12. Hopefully at least the post-challenge display event was better attended, and by next year the word will be out and the CAFE Foundation will hone their promotional skills.

Videos:

Anders' Personal Air Vehicle, CAFE Foundation, RV-4

Vance Tuner's Personal Air Vehicle, PAV Challenge, CAFE Foundation

Rodger Musso's Personal Air Vehicle, PAV Challenge, CAFE Foundation

Video Update (August 27):

John Rehn's Personal Air Vehicle Challenge, CAFE Foundation

Here are some older, but fun, videos I ran across on the same site:

Flying Car 350Z - Westin's Personal Air Vehicle - a lighthearted, fictional account of Westin, who finds out about the cool PAV Challenge and decides to start with what is presumably his Dad's car as a starting point. According to the text this was a test video for a CAFE fundraiser.

RC Demo for the CAFE Foundation - a radio-controlled mini-PAV demo

Update (August 19): CAFE has posted a slide show of photos from the event, including lots of small planes and a large check. They've also posted a summary of the event and a breakdown of the scores in the various parts of the competition in a 2007 NASA PAV Challenge Results page.

PAV Challenge Article and Opinions on NASA Direction

From the CAFE Foundation News press coverage site comes an article from the local paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, on the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge. The article gives a lot of background on the challenge, including these details:


"The competitors this week feature modified aircraft already flying, including a Cessna and an Australian-made ultralight, with the potential in future years for more outlandish designs."


"Boeing has given the CAFE Foundation $50,000 to help with the aircraft challenge."


Finally, here's one that would fit right in with the recent Space Politics discussions:


"The fact that it hasn't happened yet may have more to do with politics than technology. NASA is devoting billions of dollars toward the goal of sending a manned flight to Mars, whereas the personal air vehicle division that Moore oversaw was disbanded in 2005. "It galls me that ... literally billions of dollars are going toward something that has no impact on people's lives, and honestly, never will," Moore said."

On the one hand, even the figure "billions" doesn't give a sense for how much is planned to be spent on the new human spaceflight program, which is expected to be over $100B. However, in defense of the program, the goal isn't (in spite of what some NASA employees think) to send a manned flight to Mars. The original goals were to fly out and retire the Shuttle, finish building the Space Station, transition to a new system to explore the Moon, and then go to Mars and beyond. All of these human missions were to be assisted by a series of robotic missions, for example to the Moon and Mars, as well as to other destinations like Europa. And all of this was to be done in the context of economic, security, and science benefits, with a major emphasis on using commercial space services. It was a lot more than a mission to Mars, and yet a lot more achievable because of the incremental achievable steps and the self-sustaining use of commerce. It would have been well worth the $100B.

... but most of that plan has fallen by the wayside, or has been postponed to the far future. The Mars robotic missions have actually been scaled back, the lunar robotic missions have been reduced to 1, the Europa mission is gone, and numerous other NASA exploration programs have been cancelled ... to fund the Shuttle, ISS, and the follow-on vehicle. Meanwhile, the follow-on vehicle is a government-designed and operated one, not a commercial one, and the main exploration program doesn't use commercial services. There is the Centennial Challenges space prize program that in some ways resembles use of commercial services, but it's tiny.

With all of that, Moore's assessment may very well be accurate. Hopefully I'll have to eat those words in 15 years ...

More on the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge

... but not very much about what's happening during the PAV Challenge itself this week.

The CAFE Foundation's PAV Challenge page announces:

"The 2007 PAV Challenge is Underway!

August 4, 2007

Pilots, Researchers and Volunteers are actively testing aircraft at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport this week as the PAV Challenge kicks off. Check back here for updates. We will be updating the PAV Video page with updates as well."

On the updates page, they state:

"Important updates on the PAV Challenge

The 2007 PAV Challenge is Underway!

August 4, 2007

Pilots, Researchers and Volunteers are actively testing aircraft at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport this week as the PAV Challenge kicks off. Check back here for updates. We will be updating the PAV Video page with updates as well."

Update (August 9) on this section: These videos (inside the "=" lines) have been removed, but they now appear on Youtube in the CAFE Foundation Channel. I've updated the links to point to the channel but you're probably better off checking the channel to see what the latest videos are. There's currently a third video on the channel titled "CJ Stephens Flight Handling Qualities of the RV-4.

============
Currently the PAV Video page has an older video with an interview about PAVs and the PAV Challenge. In case they update that page, here it is on YouTube: CAFE Foundation President Brien Seeley on Local Edition.

I also see that today the CAFE Foundation posted a video of flight testing during the Challenge called CJ Stephens Flight Handling Qualities of the Pipstrel Virus.

Hopefully we'll find more like this in the coming days.
============

CNet News has a recent article that gives some background on the challenge, some of this year's competitors, and what the CAFE Foundation hopes to see in coming years.

Fast Company.com has a post that's critical of the PAV concept, but some of the commenters are more in favor of it and offer counter arguments. Some of the arguments don't persuade me too much. The worry about terrorists crashing PAVs into buildings or teenagers crashing PAVs into just about everything doesn't seem too persuasive, since the point of PAVs is that they're tiny vehicles that would cause about as much damage as a car... and cars already exist. Also, PAVs should not simply be the same as existing small airplanes. For example, they should be flyable by address, which isn't comparable to today's small planes. There are certainly hurdles to be overcome in these areas, both technically, legally, and organizationally, but it doesn't seem insurmountable ... just difficult. In the space area, we're accustomed to difficult problems that take decades to whittle away.

The actual course of events may be more of an evolution of today's car and air commuting towards something with some characteristics of both. It may or may not end up like the PAV vision of the CAFE Foundation. It will depend not only on the technological evolution of the PAVs themselves (Will they meet the safety and security challenges? Will they be as fuel efficient, reliable, and comfortable as hoped?), but also on public perception (which the competition may help to change over the years), reaction to the first PAV accidents, business interactions and pressures (for example from the auto and plane industries), legal changes, insurance, infrastructure (for example, will repairs be comparable to auto repairs? Will landing spaces be short enough that they can be found close enough to destinations for walking?), economics (PAV development costs, consumer price, ownership costs), and fashions (will PAVs be considered cool? Will they get good movie/TV/celebrity press?). As all of this takes its course, it will be important to consider the arguments of skeptics like FastCompany.com.

In other words, it's just like the new entrepreneurial space business!

Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Challenge Approaching

Since the PAV Challenge is approaching (it will be held August 4-11), I thought it would be a good time to post some links related to this Centennial Challenge. Check the tag below for more related links.

Kitplanes.com had a recent overview of the challenge.

The competition will be held at the Sonoma County Airport, where the CAFE Foundation running the challenge has a test facility. The airport has a publication called the Red Baron Flyer; page 3 of the linked flyer is on the PAV Challenge. This particular Centennial Challenge will not be open to the public (I imagine because of safety concerns and/or the long time it will take to run the challenge tests), but the public can visit the airport on Sunday, August 12 (9 AM - 1 PM) to view the PAVs in the contest on display.

Page 4 of another flyer, this one from the Flying Wire document published by the chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association that includes the CAFE Foundation running the challenge, also has an update on the PAV Challenge.

The August issue of this flyer is full of information about the PAV Challenge. It has some hints about how you can see the PAV Challenge in spite of the restriction mentioned above:

"If you wish to see the upcoming PAV Challenge from the airport side of the fence, you will
have to work for the privilege. Only CAFE staff and volunteers will be allowed inside the gates
due to security reasons".

After the challenge, there will be a banquet and awards ceremony with "surprise keynote speakers" and prizes. Details are on page 3 of the August flyer issue.

Page 4 gives a detailed schedule of the PAV Challenge events:

Aug 3, 07 Friday All Day Possible PAV Arrivals CAFE Hangar
All Day CAFE Prep CAFE Hangar

Aug 4, 07 Saturday 0800 – 1400 PAV Arrivals CAFE Hangar
0900 – 1400 PAV Registration CAFE Hangar
0900 – 1700 Safety Inspection CAFE Hangar
1200 – 1700 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
1200 – 1300 Take Off Team Training CAFE Hangar
1300 – 1400 Noise Team Training CAFE Hangar
1400 – 1500 Speed Team Training CAFE Hangar
1500 – 1600 Handling Team Training CAFE Hangar
1600 – 1700 Efficiency Team Training CAFE Hangar
1700 – 1800 Pilot Briefing CAFE Hangar

Aug 5, 07 Sunday 0800 – 1000 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
0800 – 0830 Pilot Briefing CAFE Hangar
0800 – 1200 Take Off & Community Noise Contest CAFE Hangar
1400 – 1430 Media Briefing Media Center

Aug 6, 07 Monday 0800 – 1200 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
0800 – 0830 Pilot Briefing CAFE Hangar
0800 – 1200 Speed Calibration CAFE Hangar
1400 – 1430 Media Briefing Media Center

Aug 7, 07 Tuesday 0800 – 1000 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
0800 – 0830 Pilot Briefing CAFE Hangar
0800 – 1200 Speed and Cabin Noise Contest CAFE Hangar
1400 – 1430 Media Briefing Media Center

Aug 8, 07 Wednesday0800 – 1000 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
1000 – 1400 Handling Contest CAFE Hangar
1400 – 1430 Media Briefing Media Center
1800 – 1930 EAA Feed EAA 124 Hangar

Aug 9, 07 Thursday All Day No events CAFE Hangar

Aug 10, 07 Friday 1300 – 1700 Aircraft Weight-In CAFE Hangar

Aug 11, 07 Saturday 0600 – 0800 Aircraft Prep CAFE Hangar
0800 – 0830 Pilot Briefing CAFE Hangar
0800 – 1300 CAFE Efficiency Contest CAFE Hangar
0800 – 1600 PAV Simulators Media Center
1900 – 2230 Awards Banquet Charlie's Grill

Aug 12, 07 Sunday All Day Departures
0900 – 1300 Aircraft Exhibit SJC

Pages 3 and 4 of the May newsletter have a fictional story about the winners of the contest, followed by an update from that month.

Personal Air Vehicle Centennial Challenge News

The CAFE Foundation has a number of news articles on the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge, to be held August 4-12 . Here's another place to find news on the Challenge: their PAV Challenge Updates. Check both sites because the general news has some articles on the PAV Challenge that I don't see on the PAV Challenge Updates site.

I don't see a way to link to particular articles. I suspect the PAV Challenge articles I'm referring to will work their way off the page, or too far down for most readers, so I'll include copies here for later readers:

LSA Owners: Last Chance To Win NASA's $250,000 Cash Prize

July 5 , 2007

The CAFE Foundation has just learned that 3 of the teams officially entered for the 2007 $250,000 NASA PAV Challenge have withdrawn from the flight competition for LSAs. This opens 3 slots for other teams to enter the August 2007 event. Teams wishing to enter must contact the CAFE Foundation immediately in order to complete their application for the event. Please see the full contest rules for more information.


Boeing Phantom Works to support CAFE Foundation’s PAV Flight Testing

June 30, 2007

Boeing Phantom Works, Boeing’s advanced research and development organization, is providing financial support for the non-profit CAFE Foundation flight research program for small, environmentally-progressive Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs). CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency, est. 1981) was chosen by NASA as the official flight test agency to conduct the annual NASA Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Centennial Challenge, a $2M flight competition that rewards innovations in fuel efficiency, noise reduction, ease of use, speed and short runway capabilities.

Boeing support will help enable CAFE to create and use an advanced suite of new flight test hardware and software to measure the performance of competing PAVs. NASA’s vision is for PAVs to complement the NextGen air transportation system by offering consumer-attractive, on-demand air travel for short range trips. Future PAVs may include conventional takeoff vehicles driveable on highways, vertical takeoff vehicles and solar/electric powered emission-free aircraft.


Related news:

The CAFE Foundation held the "Electric Aircraft Symposium" in San Francisco on May 23. One of the presentations was called "Electric PAVs: Contenders in NASA's PAV Challenge?".

AVWeb has a post related to the 3 open PAV Challenge slots.

Cnet has an article about a potential PAV Challenge team.

Personal Air Vehicle Centennial Challenge

The next Centennial Challenge competition will be the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge, which is coming in August. There is a lot to this Challenge, and it's all there - challenge rules, updates to the rules, rationale for the challenge, and more - on the CAFE Foundation site I linked, so for now I'll leave it at that. Expect more as the challenge date approaches!

For those who aren't already familiar with the Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) concept, or with the PAV Challenge, probably the best way to ease yourself into it is by taking a few minutes and watching this entertaining video on the challenge made for the 2006 Oshkosh Air Show (which I wanted to go to but missed).