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08/02/2017 08:30 AMWhen Dale Walter-Robinson was 15 years old, he managed to wrangle a massive 1950 Buick into the woods behind his family’s Madison home, and started tinkering on his first car engine.
“When the leaves fell off the trees, my father saw it, and let me bring it to the house,” says Dale. “Working on machines has always been my passion.”
Fast some forward some 40 years to the present, when Dale, a long-time Guilford resident, co-owner of Guilford Riding School (GRS), and CEO of ElectronAir LLC, parked the fuselage of Cessna 152 in his shop and solved the problem of re-charging electric aircraft in flight.
On May 9, 2017, Dale was awarded a U.S. Patent for his green technology advancement known as an “Energy Cell Regenerative System for Electrically Powered Aircraft”.
The elegant system works by capturing propeller-blasted air rushing beneath the cowling in flight and converting it to electrical power to recharge on-board batteries, using a special alternator and centrifugal fan that’s rounded to reduce drag. Dale’s in-flight system continuously produces 2,000 watts, fed to a series of batteries. The system automatically switches away from fully-charged batteries to feed others, supplying a continuing source of power for the aircraft’s propulsion and on-board electrical systems. It’s a huge leap in the nascent world of electric aircraft, and Dale’s very excited about the possibilities his invention has to offer.
“The regenerative system patent claims are so broad that they protect against many embodiments that may appear in the future, and give a buyer tremendous latitude to develop their own proprietary system,” he says.
ElectronAir is already at work directing marketing of this intellectual property, seeking to reach interested aerospace firms or even the U.S. Government.
“The FAA won’t allow electric airplanes yet, really because of the range,” says Dale. “But Experimental is a category you can get away with, for testing. If I am able to commercialize with a private company or the government, they would build it out, and I would love to be consulted and involved in that.”
Dale’s work on perfecting his patented invention involved dozens of hours of testing and tinkering with the full-sized Cessna cowling in his shop on Clapboard Hill Road.
“I’ve run about a hundred ‘flights’—I have the plane strapped down real well,” says Dale.
He established the numbers and data needed to power the propeller, determine battery charging characteristics and measure the energy produced, then extrapolated to prove the system’s expected flight performance.
“It took three years. I had to be precise,” says Dale. “With the patent office, you have to solve a problem, and [it] has to be novel. It’s an engineering problem to be solved, and I believe this will solve the problem.”
Electric aircraft are quieter, with no gas or oil pollution and, Dale feels, safer in a “modest crash.”
“Without gas or oil, there would be no fire in a modest crash. The aircraft would just go ‘clunk,’” he says.
For every inventor, there’s an “aha moment,” and Dale is no different.
“I wanted to do something permanent to help technology or the environment,” says Dale. “I had built an electric car, from scratch, and got the idea when I started testing a generator/fan in the nose of the car, to charge the batteries. It went only 100 feet further. So I looked at the problem in a different way: What electric vehicle had some available kinetic energy to charge its own batteries? I had the idea—maybe a propeller-driven electric aircraft. And since the electric aircraft industry is just getting off the ground, my timing was good.”
Speaking of timing, Dale had to find time to work on his idea. A good deal of his day is already dedicated to his work as the administrator of GRS, the Guilford riding program he co-owns and operates with his wife, riding instructor Jill Walter-Robinson. He’s set up a routine that puts him in his shop, every day, from 4 to 8 p.m. for his inventive work.
“We’re really grateful for the shoreline’s support of the riding school,” says Dale, who is also happy to answer questions from curious visitors who happen by the shop.
“In good weather, I open the shop up and people can see what I’m up to when they’re driving by. I’m always glad to talk to people and explain things.”
When he first started working on his ElectronAir system, Dale’s efforts pretty much flew under the radar—until day he rolled in the Cessna 152 cowling.
“I did testing with a bench model, then got the Cessna from Craigslist and brought it home,” says Dale. “The Cessna airplane fuselage is the body of the airplane, and people were starting to wonder what I was doing.”
Now, he’s already working on his next invention, an electric tractor with a loader.
“I’ve been sketching one out, combining a Prius with a relic of tractor. That’s what I’m doing now—if you drive by, you’ll see a couple of tractors at the garage. I’m a better farmer than I am a pilot,” he says, laughing.
But if Dale’s vision for his system comes to pass, green-powered electric flight may really take off.
“If you can make electric aircraft better than what’s up there, everyone will start buying,” he says.
For more information, visit www.electronair.com or contact Dale Walter-Robinson at electronair@yahoo.com.