Electric Lazair

[ThinkingManNeil]

Dale Kramer, designer of the classic Ultraflight Lazair ultralight aircraft of the 1980's, has adopted one of his machines to electrical propulsion using lithium-polymer batteries and off-the-shelf R/C model aircraft components:

Video

I'd love to see the Lazair brought back into production as it was a classic and very safe design, and the increased reliability and simplicity of electrical propulsion over low-powered 2-stroke gas engines would only make it more so

N.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Did you check out the amphibious model?!

In that video, you get to hear how quiet the aircraft is. I think sitting in it, it sounds like a blender... but from just a few meters away it's very silent. Amazing.

What range does this thing get?

Dick

 

[ThinkingManNeil]

Did you check out the amphibious model?!

In that video, you get to hear how quiet the aircraft is. I think sitting in it, it sounds like a blender... but from just a few meters away it's very silent. Amazing.

What range does this thing get?

Dick

I'd be happy with a wheeled version myself, with interchangeable skis, perhaps, for some winter flying. As for flying around in something that sounds like an electric shaver on steroids I'd take that over the accursed shrieking of a two-stroke any day and I bet it's dead silent from the ground when the plane's a thousand feet up.

As for range I'm trying to find that out myself but I think that as with electric R/C model planes it's more a matter of endurance in minutes than range in miles; I'd be surprised that in it's initial configuration that the endurance went beyond twenty minutes per flight, but that'd be OK for a nice "end-of-the day" hop on a perfect summer's day.

Sadly the Lazair fell victim to skyrocketing product liability insurance costs that plagued, and felled, many ultralight and kitplane manufacturers back in the 1990's. The Lazair was one of the safest ultralights ever designed and went through a series of improvements during it's production life that made it a highly desirable aircraft to own and it still is. Early marks had an "overhead" joystick that acted as a control mixer combining the movements of the ailerons and inverted v-shaped "ruddervators" similar to the aileron/rudder combination of the old Ercoupes. With the Series II aircraft a change to full 3-axis control with a floor-mounted joystick and the addition of rudder pedals made the controls more conventional and popular. It always kinda reminded me of a modern, high-tech version of the Santos-Dumont "Demoiselle".

I'd like to think that the Electric Lazair might signal Dale's return to manufacturing and production again, but I kinda doubt it; I think this was a "one-off" concept and technology demonstrator for a competition. It'd be nice if he even went only so far as to produce electric conversion kits for existing Lazairs as powerplant selection and availability has always been an issue for these little planes. Keep in mind the original Rotax 185 2-strokes developed only about 9 horsepower and had been originally designed to power water pumps, but Rotax was never really keen on it's use for the Lazair. Folks have tried other units with mixed results (one chap recently experimented with go-kart racing engines produced by Honda), so a clean, reliable, simple engine like these electrics might be promising.

N.