It is about 50 years old and comes from a time when no one was talking about sustainability: the Cessna 337F Skymaster of the Dutch Electric Aviation Center (DEAC) in Teuge. Nevertheless, this type of aircraft, which came on the market as early as 1961, is the perfect guinea pig for research into making aviation more sustainable.
According to Menno van Luijn of the DEAC, the Cessna 337F Skymaster is so suitable because of the unique design of the device. It is a twin-engined aircraft, with propellers that do not hang from the wings, but in front of and behind the aircraft. “That means that if you want to test the rear engine, you still have a front engine to fly safely with,” says Van Luijn.
“If the rear engine fails, you can still safely park the device. No problem!” Motors hanging from the wings must be identical, according to Van Luijn. “If they’re not equal, you can’t fly straight.”
“Sound is the most important topic at the moment”
The Cessna is used for ground and airborne research. The idea was once to make the aircraft a hybrid: one motor electric and one on fossil fuel. Van Luijn: “Time has now caught up with us. That’s already possible and we know that too, but there are still a lot of wishes when it comes to sustainable aviation. Think of aerodynamics, fuel consumption, vibrations, but especially noise.”
According to Van Luijn, sound is the most important topic of the moment. “We do a lot of research on that.”
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