I hate to break this to you
but airplanes use a lot of gas
and I'm saying gas, but they call it fuel when it's airplanes
but basically it's made from petroleum just like gasoline is.
A Boeing 747, for example,
uses about one gallon of fuel every second.
So say you're on a 10-hour long flight.
That's 36 000 gallons of fuel combusting under your butt
while you're sitting there wishing you weren't watching
Water for Elephants or whatever you're doing.
So, NASA, the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency Foundation, and Google
put their heads together and they were like "Yikes, guys, we gotta do something about this.
Surely there are some smart people in this great nation of ours that can improve this situation."
And you know what?
When NASA and Google holler, all those smart aerospace engineer-y types
they come running.
And you better believe there's a contest involved.
And here are the rules:
The aircraft has to be able to travel 200 miles.
The aircraft has to be able to do that in less than two hours.
And the aircraft has to use less than one gallon of fuel per occupant
or the equivalent in electricity.
Of the three finalists who competed in the 2011 Green Flight challenge,
the 1st and 2nd place contestants both used electricity
and they both only used the equivalent of half a gallon of fuel per occupant.
The winning aircraft, the Pipistrel Taurus G4 -
which by the way looks like an aircraft that a really creative
8-year-old would draw minus the guns -
won both the speed and the efficiency categories of the event.
Clocking a top speed of 107 miles per hour
and an efficiency of 403 miles per gallon per occupant
equivalent, of course, because remember it's electric.
That's four times more efficient than a Boeing 747
but not as fast and not as big, certainly, but way more efficient per passenger.
And it's not even using any gas! I mean fuel! Fuel, sorry.
And that is why NASA just gave them $1.35 million and said
"Hey. Go start making electric planes."
This is Hank Green and that was today's Sci Show dose.
We hope you learned something.