Bye Aerospace is the small, international Denver, Colorado-based company we featured in our February 2021 edition. It relies on AI from Siemens as it continues to develop the motor for its electric eFlyer 2.
According to Bye’s chief engineer, the company employs elements of the Siemens Software Suite that the Bye engineering team uses to execute AI-assisted design optimization. This can vary from the modeling of an individual part and goal seeking, for example, to identify a minimum weight to a completely modeled system, like propulsion, which can be AI-optimized to any number of modeling parameters.
As part of Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio, Bye Aerospace uses Siemens’ NX CAD Software for 3D design, Fibersim for designing the structural integrity of the frame of the plane, Teamcenter software for product management, Simcenter 3D for analysis, testing, and certification, and Capital™ for wire harnessing to complete the end-to-end process.
NX software uses technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to optimize the design process. AI is used to monitor the actions of the user to determine the right NX commands to suggest and to make interface modifications. The addition of ML and AI to NX increases speed, power and efficiency and project intelligence. This helps companies such as Bye Aerospace, which has a small engineering team, increase its ability to innovate, while shrinking their product development cycle.
The ENGINeUS 100 Electric Motor from Safran, pictured left, will be the motor used in Bye Aerospace’s eFlyer 2 aircraft.
George Bye, a former US Air Force pilot and Desert Storm veteran, launched Bye Aerospace over a decade ago with very sophisticated aerospace technologies for its new designs incorporating electric motor and composite airframe.
Today, Bye Aerospace is selling its two-seat eFlyer 2 trainer aircraft and other models in the US and around the world. The eFlyer design is entirely new, from nose to tail. At a 2021 base price of $489,000, eFlyer 2 can cruise up to 135 knots up to 14,000 feet with an estimated flight endurance of up to 3 hours which is suitable for the pilot training mission.
At the time of our Feb 2021 edition, Mr. Bye stated, “Our technology is generally more reliable as opposed to older, conventional aircraft. For example, our electric motor has only one moving part as opposed to more than 900 moving parts in an internal combustion engine, so we expect the servicing requirements for our all-electric aircraft to be much less expensive.”
Additional eFlyer models under development include the four-seat eFlyer 4 and the eFlyer 8 with eight seats (1 or 2 pilots, up to 6 business-class passengers) in business class comfort in the widest cabin in the turboprop class, and up to 12 seats in a high-density configuration.
For more information about the company, visit its website at www.byeaerospace.com.
