E-power

BROOMFIELD — Gas-powered airplanes will be a thing of the past, if Smashburger restaurant chain co-founder Richard Schaden has his way.

Schaden’s green goal is to create airplanes and rocket ships that run on something other than fossil fuels and produce exhaust other than carbon dioxide. To do that, Schaden’s company Beyond Aviation in Broomfield has built a Cessna 172 personal airplane that uses an electric motor. Beyond Aviation is a subsidiary of Beyond the Edge, a separate company wholly owned by Schaden, who also operates the subsidiary Escape Dynamics LLC in Broomfield.

Escape Dynamics has a digital prototype design for a rocket that would be directed in space from a microwave system on the ground, using research done by scientists at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, Schaden said.

In March, Schaden flew the prototype electric airplane for about 30 minutes around Centennial Airport in unincorporated Arapahoe County. Another test flight was scheduled for Thursday, July 5. Because the airplane is considered experimental, Schaden received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly it at Centennial Airport, rather than at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, which is near Beyond Aviation’s offices.

“Our whole idea started with clean travel on the surface of the Earth, both inside the atmosphere and outside of the atmosphere,” Schaden said. “I was looking for a way to fly through the atmosphere without fossil fuels, so the electric airplane was the original thing.”

To get his plane to the test-flight phase, Schaden had to design an electrical system that weighs less than 800 pounds, the weight of a typical gas engine found in that type of aircraft.

The former airplane company attorney and aerospace engineer collaborated with Cessna on engineering the first plane. Now, it’s time to work on streamlining the plane so it can fly farther. Ultimately, Schaden wants to sell commercial planes that can fly typical U.S. routes using electric motors.

Building and selling electric airplanes is, “a great project, and it’s obviously quite transformational,´ said George Bye, the owner of Bye Aerospace in Englewood who formerly was involved with Beyond Aviation. “It’s a significant undertaking, and it takes many years. But that’s what they’re doing.”

Beyond Aviation is 100 percent funded by Schaden, he said, but gave no financial details. Schaden also co-founded the Denver-based Quizno’s sandwich chain with his son as well as the USA Pro Cycling Challenge.

In Europe, researchers also have managed to build and fly an experimental plane that runs on solar power. To date, however, it appears no one has flown an electric plane other than Schaden.

Charles Johnson, former president of Cessna, is collaborating with Schaden on the project.

“You get the leadership and the insight and the market that Charlie has, and the research and vision that Richard brings,” Bye said.

Electric power ultimately is more efficient and less expensive than conventional power, Johnson said. With the test flight’s success, he said, FAA certification is expected to take up to five years.

“We’re looking to be environmentally friendly, since that’s the wave of the future,” Johnson said. “We are the first people to be doing this with a conventional airplane.”

As for rocket ships, workers at Escape Dynamics are creating a propulsion system of beamed energy on the ground that will direct a heat exchanger and engine in a rocket, said Dmitriy Tselaikhovich, a co-founder and president of the company. Creating a rocket that runs on a propulsion system located elsewhere makes the rocket’s potential payload capability much greater, Tselaikhovich said.

Typically, rocket payloads were about 2 percent of the overall weight of the rocket. Escape Dynamics’ first goal is to build a rocket that can include a payload of 20 percent, Tselaikhovich said.

In addition, current rocket manufacturing and launching costs come to about $10,000 per kilogram of payload material to be launched into space, Tselaikhovich said. Escape Dynamics’ goal is to drop that cost below $1,000 per kilogram of payload.

“We’re changing the economics of space launch,” he said. “It’s a dramatic shift from chemical combustion to external power with safety and cost … .”

Changing the price structure of rockets and space programs will mean that small- and medium-size companies of the future will be able to get more involved with space projects, Tselaikhovich said.

“We want to bring on board new methods and business ideas that are very innovative and more efficient.”

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