Eric Raymond (born October 27, 1956 in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

) is an American Certified Flight Instructor,

Glider (sailplane) A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailpla ...

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

, hang gliding pilot and designer of solar-powered airplanes.

Biography

Eric Raymond was born in the US state of Washington. After completing his public education, he studied

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

at Rochester Institute of Technology and

aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He is living now in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Aeronautic career

Raymond starting flying

model airplanes A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models. Aircraft manufactur ...

as a child, designing and building his own model airplanes. In his teenage years he started flying

sailplane A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplan ...

s, but switched to hang gliding. He won the 1979 US Hang Gliding Championship. He also set world hang gliding records and in 1983 and 1984 became world aerobatic champion. Working for

Paul MacCready Paul B. MacCready Jr. (September 25, 1925 – August 28, 2007) was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the first Kremer prize. He devoted his life to dev ...

unmanned aircraft An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

, he met

Günther Rochelt Günther, Guenther, Ginther, Gunther, and the variants Günter, Guenter, Guenther, Ginter, and Gunter, are Germanic names derived from ''Gunthere, Gunthari'', composed of '' *gunþiz'' "battle" (Old Norse ''gunnr'') and ''heri, hari'' "army". Gund ...

, and had occasion to pilot Rochelt's Musculair II human-powered aircraft. From this experience, and with help from Rochelt, Raymond determined to design a solar-powered aircraft. He founded Solar Flight and began construction of his design in 1986. Sunseeker I was test flown in 1989 as a glider. In early 1990 solar-powered flights were made with two brush motors driving a

variable-pitch propeller Variable-pitch propeller can refer to: *Variable-pitch propeller (marine) *Variable-pitch propeller (aeronautics) In aeronautics, a variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller (airscrew) with blades that can be rotated around their long a ...

and then with a

brushless motor A brushless DC electric motor (BLDC motor or BL motor), also known as an electronically commutated motor (ECM or EC motor) or synchronous DC motor, is a synchronous motor using a direct current (DC) electric power supply. It uses an electronic ...

driving a folding propeller. In 1990 Raymond flew Sunseeker I across the US, and in 2009 he flew Sunseeker II all over

southern Europe Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...

. From 2006 to 2009 he worked for

Bertrand Piccard Bertrand Piccard FRSGS (born 1 March 1958) is a Swiss explorer, psychiatrist and environmentalist. Along with Brian Jones, he was the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe, in a balloon named Breitling Orbiter 3. He was t ...

, building the

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s for the Solar Impulse airplane. In 2009 Solar Flight began construction of a new solar powered airplane, the

Sunseeker Duo The Sunseeker Duo is a twin seat all-electric solar-recharged powered aircraft. Designed by Eric Scott Raymond, the plane can take off and achieve enough height for the motor to be switched off and follow thermals like a glider (sailplane), all ...

. Raymond has received considerable press coverage for his efforts advancing both solar-powered and

electric aircraft An electric aircraft is an aircraft powered by electricity. Electric aircraft are seen as a way to reduce the environmental effects of aviation, providing zero emissions and quieter flights. Electricity may be supplied by a variety of methods, ...

, notably in 2011 as a team leader of the e-Genius team in the CAFE Foundation Green Flight Challenge. On March 30, 2014, two Solar Flight test pilots flew the Sunseeker Duo from

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, thus becoming the first solely-solar-powered aircraft to fly while carrying two people. The Duo has 1,510 solar cells on its 72-ft span wing and on its empennage surfaces, driving a tail-mounted 25KW electric motor.

Aviation Week & Space Technology ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviati ...

, ''Solar Impulse Flies Aircraft For Round-the-World Attempt'', June 9, 2014, p. 14

References

External links

solar-flight.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raymond, Eric Scott 1956 births Living people