Elliot Seguin flying Dale Kramer's amazing electric and amphibious Lazair ultralight

(11 pix)

Elliot Seguin works at Scaled Composites, has experience racing at Reno with his Wasabi Air Racing Cassutt, and he loves to fly... this extensive pilot report is posted here on Airpigz with his permisssion. The electric Lazair is a recent update to the design by Dale Kramer, the original designer of this very popular late 70's ultralight aircraft.

For more details on the electric Lazair project, check out this 
extensive forum thread by Dale Kramer (KiloOne) at RCgroups.com

PILOT REPORT:

 We had an amazing opportunity recently to fly arguably the most operational electric airplane out there. Dale Kramer is a master builder of all kinds of interesting projects. His shop was extensive and impressive.  He designed the Lazair in the 70’s during the boom in the ultra-light industry.  Over the next several years the factory he set up sold 1200 of the airplane to enthusiasts from all over the world. Dale became interested in other types of flying (heavy lift airships, competition soaring) and separated himself from the Lazair.

 But recently the electric aircraft boom has inspired Dale to dust off his Lazair. The resulting set of experiments resulted in a new chapter for the design and perhaps for general aviation. Dale’s final iteration included hanging two Joby electric motors from the Lazair’s nacelles replacing the two JPX two strokes he had flown behind for years.  When he put this new configuration on floats he had the first electric seaplane, a terribly practical electric airplane, and one heck of a beach toy.

 I called Dale after seeing the airplane at Oshkosh. I was hoping to learn more about the switch to electric and where he thought electrics could go. When he responded with an invitation to visit his home in western NY and “find out for myself” it was just a matter of buying the tickets. In the three days we spent with Dale and Carmen on Keuka Lake the Electric Lazair was flown almost twelve hours total by six different pilots in many different atmospheric and water conditions. We walked away with a much better understanding of this new way to propel aircraft and with big smiles on our faces.

 Could electric power plants change full size aviation the way they did r/c? The shift to electric from glow power in RC aircraft has drastically improved accessibility, ease of maintenance, and in general relieved the boundaries of entry to that sport. Before electrics even the most experienced RC pilot might spend ten minutes getting his glow engine to start on his model, and he would most certainly smell like glow fuel when he was done.  With modern electric models an operator no longer has to spend all that time and energy dealing with the powerplant. I wondered if that would be the case with electric man carrying airplanes.