Aviation Futurist George Bye to Speak at DaVinci Institute June 10

George E. Bye, CEO and Founder of Bye Aerospace, Inc., will speak on the endurance capabilities and benefits of solar-electric powered aircraft as part of DaVinci Institute's Speaker Series on Tuesday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the DaVinci offices in Louisville, Colo.

Bye is a long-time advocate for electric and solar-electric propulsion for general aviation and optionally manned aircraft. His company, Bye Aerospace, recently launched Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. (AEAC) to bring a new 2-seat solar-electric training aircraft called "Sun Flyer" to the North American market, under license agreement from its technology partner, PC-Aero. In addition, Bye Aerospace collaborated on design and research for a unique solar-electric powered small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) called "Silent Falcon," currently beginning low rate initial production by Silent Falcon UAS Technologies. A special combination of technologies and design enable Silent Falcon to maintain station, with flight endurance of 8 to 12 hours. This same type of capability will be translated onto the Sun Flyer trainer.

"Aerospace projects like Sun Flyer and Silent Falcon are highly complex, requiring technologies from a number of different sectors," Bye said. A critical element is weight, and weight savings can be achieved by incorporating light-weight solar energy collectors and using advanced composite materials for the structures. The recent improvements in conversion efficiency for thin film solar photovoltaics (TFPV) has also directly improved flight capabilities. "Much like the race to the moon in the 1960's, history shows that aerospace transformation has helped the United States remain globally competitive," he said. "We believe that solar-electric propulsion is just one aspect of that transformation."

To register or learn more about the June 10 event, go to http://www.davinciinstitute.com/events/701/aviations-next-quantum-leap--solar-powered-aircraft-tuesday-june-10-2014.

ABOUT BYE AEROSPACE, INC. Bye Aerospace, founded in 2007 and headquartered near Denver, is applying clean energy solutions to innovative aircraft designs for the general aviation and defense markets. For more information, go to www.ByeAerospace.com.

ABOUT AEAC Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. was created to produce, under license, the 2-seat "Sun Flyer" aircraft and bring it to market. For more information, go to www.AEAC.aero.

ABOUT PC-AERO, GMBH PC-Aero GmbH specializes in the complete design, prototyping and certification of general aviation aircraft. The core competences of the company are general aerodynamic layout, flight mechanics and simulation, structure layout, load assumptions, structure calculations and fatigue test. For more information go to www.PC-Aero.de.

ABOUT SILENT FALCON UAS TECHNOLOGIES Silent Falcon UAS Technologies was established in 2010 to develop patent pending, state-of-the-art sUAS and sUAS sensors for the commercial, public safety and military ISR markets. The company is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information go to www.SilentFalconUAS.com.

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