14 DAY TRIAL // Aircraft usually take the form of airplanes and helicopters nowadays, with quadcopters gaining a big momentum on the miniature market. But triplanes are about to make a comeback, and it's all thanks to environmental concerns.
Fossil fuels have been used extensively by man, with different degrees of care and foresight, leading to a very disparate state for the planet.
We've got natural, beautiful areas almost untouched by human influence, and at the other end of the spectrum, there are cities so thick with smog that the sky is invisible even during the day and people have to wear breath masks.
Environmentalists have been lobbying for cleaner energy for a long time, but irony ended up forcing man's hand instead.
It's not environmental awareness that caused the rise of electric cars, and now, bio-fueled aircraft. It was the rising prices of petrol due to fossil fuel supplies dwindling worldwide.
FaradAir reveals the BEHA triplane
BEHA stands for Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft. It is a triplane which gets energy from solar panels and a wind turbine.
Triplanes were discontinued after World War One, but their format proved to be very useful as opposed to the normal design of an electric plane.
Rather than using huge, glider-like wings (which restrict the operation and prevent landing on a normal field), triplanes have three sets of wings (obviously).
Said wings are covered with solar panels, as is every other flight surface facing upwards. The rest of the required energy is provided by a wind turbine that will charge the battery both in-flight and on the ground.
All in all, it's a very worthy project from the people at FaradAir, though it will fall to the world at large to decide whether the project can move forward or not.
Neil Cloughley, Managing Director, sees great promise in the plane, especially since clean energy use is just part of the advantages. He also explains that the BEHA negates night flight restrictions not just through no pollution concerns, but also being nearly silent.
Nevertheless, the BEHA will have to go successfully through the Kickstarter campaign if anything is to become of it.
Availability and pricing
If the crowdfunding campaign succeeds, the eco-friendly Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft will soar in 2020. The price, unfortunately, is pretty steep at one million dollars / seven hundred thousand euro or so.
