Pochari Technologies’ HyperLoad™ AED™ aerial electric-diesel aviation Technology is a highly innovative aviation concept primarily intended for cargo transportation and economy aviation. Pochari Technologies’ believes in the potential of the the diesel engine for aviation propulsion. Modern common rail diesel technology provides reliable and highly efficient power for a wide variety of uses. Aviation is an ideal candidate. Unfortunately, the high installed weight of the diesel powerplant has hindered its success in aviation. Pochari Technologies’ believes it has found a novel solution to this problem By utilizing a highly innovative mid air electric power transmission configuration. The idea behind this technology is to essentially “outsource” the weight of the propulsion system and necessary fuel to a secondary unmanned “charging” aircraft that trails behind the primary aircraft. The AED™ concept is comprised of two major components, the primary and “charger” aircraft. The charger aircraft is a diesel powered ducted fan aircraft providing all of the power for the primary aircraft’s propulsion needs. The charger aircraft is designed solely to provide electrical power to the primary aircraft, it is unmanned, carries no passengers and therefore can carry considerably more fuel providing the greater range potential. The primary aircraft flies in front of the charger aircraft, delegating the mating responsibility to the charger aircraft. This configuration allows rotorcraft to safely connect to the charger aircraft without the obvious safety hazard of the exposed rotors coming in contact with the trailing electrical cable. The primary aircraft can be a conventional fixed wing aircraft, rotorcraft or a tiltrotor. The primary aircraft is equipped with a hybrid electric propulsion system. During takeoff and landing propulsion is provided by on-board conventional turbine engine. Once the aircraft has taken off it connects to the charger aircraft’s electric power supply. The primary aircraft then shuts off its turbine engine and receives direct electrical power to its onboard electric engines for the entirety of the fight. The increased range is a result of the 50% reduction in fuel consumption as a result of the significantly more efficient combustion cycle of diesel engine and the capability to carry more fuel onboard the charger aircraft due to not needing to carry passengers or any load. The reason the more efficient diesel engine is not more commonly used in aviation is because of it’s significantly lower installed power density. This lower power density can be tolerated when used in the AED™ configuration since the charger carries the additional weight of the powerplant, freeing the primary aircraft to carry more passengers or cargo. The primary aircraft needs only to carry enough fuel for take-off, landing and the minimum 45 minutes of flight time for IFR aircraft.
We used a 15,000lb MGTOW twin engine fixed wing propeller aircraft for comparison. This aircraft would likely consume around 800 lbs of fuel per hour. The cruise speed of this hypothetical aircraft is around 350 MPH. For a 2000 miles flight this would result in over 4500 lbs of fuel. Using Pochari Technologies’ AED™ the fuel load would just need to cover the takeoff portion and landing portion of the flight, which represents a small fraction of the total flight time. In addition, sufficient fuel would be needed to safely land in the case of a failure of the electrical connection between the feeder and charger. Overall the weight savings results in a 350% increase in available payload for a 2000 miles flight. The range increase is over 83%. Allowing for a medium size propeller aircraft to potentially fly over the major oceans without sacrificing payload typically required when flying “ferry flights”. In addition the major increases in payload and range, Pochari Technologies’ AED allows for a considerable reduction in direct operating costs as a result of the much less expensive diesel engines being used for primary propulsion as well lower fuel consumption. Conventional aviation turbines are notoriously expensive to operate due to high acquisition and overhaul and due to high fuel consumption. Diesel engines are simple to manufactuer, potentially just as reliable, and a fraction of the cost to purchase and maintain. In addition there exists a much larger supply of maintenance technicians than for turbines engines.
The charger aircraft will utilize high power density generators, powered by twin diesel engines, sending the electrical current via a 50 foot cable directly to the primary aircraft. The cable connection is designed to immediately disconnect in case of an emergency. When not in use the cable is coiled and stored in the primary aircraft. The additional weight of the cable and connection is not significant. The connecting cable trails behind the exposed rotors or propeller eliminating the risk of impact between the cable and propeller. The charger aircraft has no exposed propeller as propulsion is provided via a ducted fan.
Pochari Technologies’ envisions a scenario where the secondary charger aircraft is not owned by the primary aircraft operator, instead, the charger aircraft is rented by the hour during the duration of the flight, this eliminates the need to purchase an additional aircraft. This hourly rental cost would be lower than paying directly for the operating costs of conventional turbine engines. In addition since the charger aircraft is unmanned, certification requirements are less onerous. Using a conventional turbine powered aircraft the range is limited to around 2000 miles and the net payload left after fuel is quite small, as little as 10% of the aircraft’s gross weight. Pochari Technologies’ HyperLoad™ AED™ concept would be incredibly useful for small cargo airlines. By increasing the cargo volume carried during each flight, the revenue potential would be significantly higher, allowing operators to increase profit margins and return on equity. Passenger airlines would also benefit, especially low-cost mass market operators since price sensitivity is very high. This technology could unleash the opportunity for small aircraft to be used for economy flights. Economy aviation primarily uses large “narrowbody” style aircraft that are very expensive to purchase leading to extremely high barriers to entry, making it impossible for small players to enter the market. Although large aircraft can be more efficient in many cases small aircraft can be competitive especially when considering the much lower acquisition and financing cost. Small aircraft have not been competitive for mass market economy aviation primarily due to insufficient revenue generating potential. With HyperLoad™ AED™ technology the revenue potential is greatly increased, thus making smaller aircraft more competitive.
Beyond simple economic factors Pochari Technologies’ AED™ will result in a major reduction in C02 emissions thanks to the much more efficient ad underappreciated diesel cycle engine. Although diesel engines have garnered a bad reputation for their high fine particulate output this issue can be easily mitigated with filtration systems. What cannot be easily mitigated in combustion engines is C02 output, the only realistic way to reduce C02 output is to reduce the amount of fuel being combusted. This is where the diesel cycle shines. The major environmental advantage to the diesel cycle engines is lower specific fuel consumption. Typically small to medium sized turbine engines used in small propeller aircraft will have specific fuel consumption levels of around .55-.6lbs/hp/hr. Compared to .3-.35 for state of the art common rail diesel’s. This is a 76% difference in fuel consumption. Meaning more useful work is produced with less fuel, meaning less oil crude oil extraction, less refining and less net C02 output compared with conventional gas turbines.
Advanced Energy Systems 