Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington, DC March 27, 1997

(Phone: 202/358-1726)

Fred Brown
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
(Phone: 805/258-3449)

RELEASE: 97-56

STATE OF THE ART SOLAR-POWERED AIRCRAFT TO BE DEVELOPED

Aeronautical engineers in Southern California are developing

an aircraft -- called Centurion -- which they believe will push
solar-powered aircraft concepts literally to new heights.

Engineers for AeroVironment, Inc., Simi Valley, CA, are

designing the aircraft to fly at 100,000 feet altitude. The
company is developing this concept as a member of NASA's
Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST)
program, which is sponsored by NASA's Dryden Flight Research
Center, Edwards, CA.

Like its predecessor, the AeroVironment-developed Pathfinder,

the Centurion will be an ultralight flying wing with multiple
electric motors along its wingspan, powered by solar cells spread
across the wing's upper surface. Centurion's wingspan, however,
will be more than twice that of Pathfinder.

According to John Del Frate, Dryden's ERAST deputy project

manager, recent flight tests of a quarter-scale battery-powered
model of the craft at El Mirage Dry Lake in Southern California's
high desert have answered questions about the Centurion's
aerodynamics and stability.

"We saw it fly, and it flew quite well," said Del Frate. "It
has given us confidence that we can go ahead with the design of
the full-scale vehicle."

"We'll take the data from these flights and incorporate them
into the design of the full-scale proof-of-concept vehicle," added
Bill Parks, Centurion's chief designer and operations manager for
the subscale flight tests.

"We're essentially scaling the aircraft up, designing new

airfoils that are more efficient for high altitudes and optimizing
the systems," said Rik Meininger, AeroVironment's Centurion
project manager.

Both cost and efficiency considerations have driven building

and flying a subscale model, then a full-scale prototype before
developing the final solar-powered Centurion.

"We find that we can make configuration changes very quickly

and very cost effectively, then immediately test it and come back
and change if necessary," he said. "It allows us, in a very short
period of time, to get a lot of test data, and also do the risky
things that normally you wouldn't want to do with a full-scale
aircraft. By the time we get to the final aircraft stage, we
should only be doing minor changes and fine-tuning for
optimization," Meininger said.

The final solar-powered Centurion will be designed to reach

an ultra-high altitude of 100,000 feet for a relatively short
duration -- about two hours -- while carrying a small 200-pound
payload of scientific sensors. The full-scale Centurion will span
between 210 and 240 feet.

The subscale Centurion spans 62.5 feet but has only a two-
foot chord. The straight wing is in five "spanwise" sections that
are supported on the ground by four underwing pods. The model
weighs in at a feathery 25 pounds, giving the kite-like craft a
wing loading of only two-tenths of a pound per square foot and a
design airspeed of about 11 knots (12.5 miles per hour).

Centurion officials had a chance to assess the lightweight

craft's stability during a planned flight in adverse conditions.
Although turbulence tossed the model around like a cork, causing
the wing to flex significantly, remote test pilot Wyatt Sadler was
able to maintain safe altitude by adding differential power.
After a short duration flight, he brought the craft to a safe
landing. The model flew more than an hour and 40 minutes on 13
flights.

The Centurion is one of several unpiloted aircraft being

developed by an alliance between NASA and several small
aeronautical development companies and universities under NASA's
ERAST program. The goal of the ERAST program is to develop
aeronautical technologies that will lead to development of a new
family of high-flying remotely piloted aircraft for scientific
missions.

-end-

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos are available on the Internet under NASA

Dryden Research Aircraft Photo Archive, Dryden News and Feature
Photos, at URL:

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/PhotoServer