Tag Archives: electric

More Variations on the Theme of a Tug

I have posted previously about the tugs that get used at airports to push back the jets when they are departing. The big tugs with a tow bar are common in the US. You also get the ones that pick up the nose gear and push from there. While sitting at Heathrow waiting for a flight, I watched their latest approach. These are remotely controlled devices.

They also grab the whole nose-wheel and have a capture device that wraps around the tyres to hold tight. By the looks of them, they are electrically powered so will be recharged when docked somewhere presumably. The operator walks alongside them as they move across the ramp and when moving the planes. It doesn’t seem that fast compared to a normal tug and clearly it still has an operator. However, it looks like a cheaper unit to buy and operate along with lower emissions compared to a large tug. I assume that is why they make sense. Here is some video of them dispatching a jet.

Crewe Seems to be Home to Old Locos

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It has been a long time since I was last at Crewe, and I recently found myself back up there on a delightfully sunny day. In days gone by, Crewe would always be a location that had a variety of unusual rolling stock parked up and, apparently, that hasn’t changed. The interesting change is that, in the old days, a lot of the oddities looked like they had seen better days. This time everything looked in great condition.

There was an HST set that seemed to be marked up for excursions to Scotland. It was painted in a scheme like the old Blue Pullman sets. I don’t know the service details, but it looked like it was set up nicely. There were some old locos too. A Class 90 was gleaming in a great paint finish but the one that really caught my eye, even if it was a bit poorly located for getting a photo, was the Class 89.

This is a unique loco. Built in the 80s, it was never selected for production. I remember seeing it when I lived in Huntingdon when it would be used on the east coast main line. I understand it had been stored for a long time but now it seems like it has been well restored, and I am told that it will be running in service before too long. I have no idea how difficult it is maintaining a one off electric loco but I wish them well.

End of Eviation

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A few years ago, I posted quite a bit about Eviation and their development of the Alice electric aircraft. They had a bunch of issues while I was watching them including a time that they took the plane off the runway into the grass. Eventually they took the aircraft across to Moses Lake for its long delayed first flight. That proved to be the only flight as they talked of an updated design being developed. Recently, they announced that most of the staff were being released and that the programme was being paused. I’m not surprised but it is disappointing. Here is a sunset image of the one airframe which seemed appropriate.

Amazon’s Rivian Delivery Trucks

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Amazon became an investor in Rivian, the electric vehicle manufacturer. Part of this investment resulted in Rivian creating a new delivery vehicle for Amazon that is electric. I first became aware of it when watching a Doug DeMuro video but it wasn’t long before they started showing up around here. We do have Amazon’s headquarters here so it shouldn’t be a surprise. I have seen them on the roads a lot but have not been able to get a shot of one because I was driving. Then one showed up at work, so I took a few pictures from my window before it headed off. It took me back to the unusual FedEx delivery vehicles I saw when we lived in Chicago but, of which, I have seen nothing since.

Well This is Saving the Planet!

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In the outer area of Exotics@RTC I saw this EV Hummer. The move towards electric vehicles is a positive step to reducing our emissions and trying to address the climate change challenges we have but there was something about this behemoth that made me feel that we are missing the point. Sure, an EV Hummer is less polluting than the original Hummer, but this thing is huge and is surely not a good idea. Finding a way to have the most inefficient EV you can is kind of missing the point.

Tufting The Wing

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I didn’t notice this at the time but, while working my way through some shots of the Alice taxi trials, I realized that the port wing is tufted. Tufting is a simple but effective way to see how the flow is behaving on a surface. It does need to be recorded, though, so I then looked for the camera and saw the blister up on the side of the fuselage that must contain the camera. I don’t know whether they have been paying attention to the flow visualization while doing taxi trials or not. They have had flaps down as well as up but, without the nose off the ground, maybe there has not been anything significant to see. They sure aren’t saying and have other things to address after some of the testing issues.

More Alice Taxi Trials

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The testing of the Eviation Alice continues. My first post on this was when they tried to do some high speed taxi trials but didn’t manage to get the plane going. However, they have been making more progress since. I managed to get up there when they were planning some more taxi trials. I was hoping for some more fast work which they delivered. Not fast enough to get the nose wheel off yet but progress all the same.

A few photographers were out to see what occurred. The test team did not seem too happy about the level of interest. I think they would prefer to get early testing work done without the world watching. They did have their own multimedia team, of course. Various cameras were doing the official recording and some drone work was done as they carried out the trials. A NOTAM for the UAV was in place for several days. I went with stills and video and put some stuff together for GAR and here is some of what I got. Let’s hope to get more as they progress.

Eviation Alice Readying To Fly

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North of Seattle is Arlington and the airport at Arlington is home to Eviation, a company developing an electric powered aircraft called Alice. They undertook some low speed taxi trials during December but plans for high speed taxi and flight were thwarted by consistently bad weather. A recent nice day on a Sunday looked like the first opportunity to do some testing again and a NOTAM was published meaning we knew something was up.

I met my buddy, Bob, up at Arlington and Alice was already out on the field when we got there. The time for the testing was at the end of the day so they were preparing for when the runway was theirs to use. Sadly, the aircraft was not playing ball. As is the way with flight test, things were not necessarily doing what they were supposed to. They did run one of the motors up to speed but the other failed to perform and resulted in the first shutting down too. Not ideal for an aircraft. No doubt they will resolve such things in due course. By the time they had spent some time troubleshooting, the sun was setting and there was going to be no taxi trial.

I chose the side of the field that was backlit since it was closer to where the testing would take place. Some great shots from the other side with the setting sun on the mountains behind were made by others. However, I was in the right spot when they dragged the plane back to the hangar. Things were getting pretty dark and I was very pleased to have brought the 70-200 f/2.8 with me since it did a great job with the lack of light. The raw images looked very subdued but they really came out well when I processed them.

I put together a piece for GAR on what we had seen. You can see that piece here if you want to check it out. It seems to have generated a lot of traffic which suggests there is a lot of interest in some of these electric aircraft projects. Whether they will be successful or not, we shall see. In the meantime, the weather got bad again but we shall hopefully have a break in it soon and a chance to see them taxiing the plane and then flying it.

Electric Karman Ghia

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The Karman Ghia is a car that is rightfully considered a classic. People spend large sums of money on keeping them in working order and as close to or better than the condition in which they left the factory. One I saw at Exotics@RTC had taken things a different way. It had been converted into an electric vehicle.

The owner had everything open to inspect with the batteries and control electronics fitted in to the available space within the car. I would imagine that a car as light as a Karman Ghia would, when given the power and instant torque of an electric drivetrain, go like stink! It was certainly attracting a lot of attention. Getting a photo of it without people all around it proved impossible. After a while of waiting, I concluded that the attention was really part of the story so accepted that it should have a lot of people in the photo.

Electric Surfboard Off Bellingham

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After our hike around Whatcom Falls Park, we headed down to Boulevard Park between Fairhaven and Bellingham to have our lunch. We sat by the water watching the activities out on the water. While we sat eating our sandwiches, someone came zipping along the shore on an electric surfboard with a hydrofoil. They were certainly pretty quick and headed off in to the distance. It was a while before they came back the other way which leads me to believe these things must have a pretty decent battery capacity. To any surfers reading this, have you given one of these things a go?