Experimenter

February 2013

Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.

Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/108002

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Electric fight pioneer Randall Fishman pilots his ElectraFlyer ULS motorglider. Wasn't it Han Solo of Star Wars who barked "Never tell me the odds"? Enter Randall Fishman, the lone-wolf pioneer who's led the charge to volts-only Volksplane-like airplanes for years now. He's that guy who came out of nowhere to zap everybody's socks off at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2007 with his ElectraFlyer trike—a Millennium Falconworthy outlier if ever there was one—powered solely by a battery-powered electric motor. No proof-of-concept, one-flight wonder was this trike, and it remains an affordable production electric aircraft. Still, Fishman never styled himself as an entrepreneur looking to create the next Quicksilver market Photography by James Lawrence buster. (Some 15,000 Quicks have been sold since the 1980s.) His talents lie in crafting technologically proven components into usable, affordable electric aircraft. Fishman just wants to get people flying…now…on electricity, not gas. In 2008, the wily tinkerer dropped our jaws again with his ElectraFlyer-C, a single-seat, modified Monnett Moni, all-metal kit motorglider with a 29-pound, 18-hp electric motor and 78 pounds of lithium polymer (LiPo) battery packs. The C cruised at 70 mph for an hour per charge, with a half-hour reserve. That singular accomplishment won him the prestigious Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award and admission to a select group of aviation innovators that includes Burt Rutan. EAA Experimenter 17

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