By Tomas Kellner

People have been using ceramics for millennia, but the material’s practical applications have been mostly confined to the kitchen. “When you hit it, it fails catastrophically,” says Krishan Luthra, chief scientist for manufacturing and materials technologies at GE Global Research (GRC) in New York.

Luthra, however, thought that ceramics, which can withstand higher heat than even the most advanced alloys, could also be the perfect material for jet engines and other machines that burn fuel and must handle enormous temperatures. “I thought it would be the Holy Grail if we could get it inside machines, and get more power and savings out of our engines,” he says. “It could really make an impact.”

Above: The LEAP during testing at GE’s jet engine test facility in Peebles, Ohio. Image credit: CFM Top: A Dreamliner powered by two GEnx engines at the Paris Air Show. Future versions of the engines will include CMC parts. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Today, three decades after he set out on his search for tough and heat-resistant ceramics, his vision is paying off. Parts from ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), the material that Luthra’s team developed, are flying inside next-generation LEAP jet engines from CFM International, a joint company between GE and Frances Snecma (Safran). Although CFM is still testing the engines and they will not enter service until next year, the company has received orders for 9,550 LEAPs valued at $134 billion (list price). That number makes the LEAP the bestselling jet engine in GE’s history.

But CMC applications don’t stop with the LEAP. GE, which spent $1 billion on CMC research, is going to use the material inside powerful new engines for fighter jets and helicopters, the GE9X, the world’s largest jet engine with a fan that’s taller than a basketball hoop (see video above), and also the latest gas turbines and compressors. “At the GRC, we work with all the GE businesses to bring core technology to help them in their marketplaces,” says Luthra’s boss Mark Little, who runs GE Global Research. “We share very naturally from one to another. We call this the GE store.”

CMCs are made from special silicon carbide ceramic fibers locked inside a ceramic matrix and covered with a thermal barrier coating (see video above). Last year, GE Aviation opened the first CMCs factory and formed a joint venture with Italy’s coatings maker Turbocoating to prepare for large-scale production of CMC parts. Both plants are in North Carolina.

The LEAP, which recently powered the next-generation Airbus A320neo on a test flight (above), uses static turbine “shrouds” made from CMCs. But GE has already tested rotating parts made from the materials inside a jet engine turbine.

Top: A static CMC shroud for the LEAP. Image credit: CFM. Above: The GE9X could use rotating blades made from CMCs (above) It would be the first such application in a civilian aviation. Image credit. Adam Sentori/GE Reports

This is a big deal. Unlike alloys, CMCs don’t need to be air-cooled and weigh one-third the weight of metal. As a result, rotating parts made from them generate smaller centrifugal forces, opening the way for smaller and lighter jet engines. “Going from nickel alloys to rotating ceramics inside the engine is the really big jump,” says Jonathan Blank, who leads CMC and advanced polymer matrix composite research at GE Aviation. “CMCs allow for a revolutionary change in jet engine design.”

Luthra is happy with the results. “We took the long view and the high potential payoff justified the high risk,” he says.

By Tomas Kellner

Cardiologist Bijoy Khandheria has been fixing broken hearts for more than three decades, listening to their muffled gallop and watching their grainy forms emerge and disappear, like some deep-sea life forms, on monitors in his darkened office. “Traditionally, ultrasound has allowed us to see the heart but not in as much detail as we might like,” he says. “We used the signal to image the heart layer by layer, almost like a butcher using a knife, and then mentally splice the layers together to see the whole picture,” he says. “The process has always involved some guesses.”

But Dr. Khandheria and his colleagues at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wis., have recently started using brand new ultrasound software that, for the first time, allows the team to see the heart in “extreme 4D” – the three spatial dimensions plus time. “The images are exquisite,” Khandheria says. “It’s like opening the chest and seeing the heart beating.”

Top GIF:  A 3D view of the human heart’s mitral valve that opens and closes with each heartbeat. The mitral valve’s two leaflets ensure that blood flows in one direction.  Above: Blood flows out of the heart and into a large blood vessel called the aorta. The aortic valve opens so blood can flow out and closes to keep blood from returning. GIF credits: GE Healthcare

The two left chambers of the heart’s four chambers. Both chambers are separated by the mitral valve. GIF credit: GE Healthcare

Khandheria says the software, which was developed by GE Healthcare for use on its newest cardiovascular ultrasound machines, delivers images so clear that it allows him observe how blood swirls around clots in arteries. “I can use it to measure the severity of blood leakage around the valves and assess the damage,” he says. “It’s almost as if I took out the valve and started turning it with my hands. This is invaluable information for the surgeons when they are preparing for an operation.”

An ultrasound machine sends beams of high-frequency sound waves – their pitch is too high for the human ear - into the body and uses their echoes to detect the shapes of internal organs. The technology is similar to SONAR used by submarines.

Top: The bulge on the lower valve indicates a failing mitral valve. With 3D views of the heart, there are several options to repair such a failure without open heart surgery. Above: Mending a broken heart. Literally. Surgeons inserted thin wires into this heart to implant an artificial valve without open heart surgery. GIF credits: GE Healthcare

Traditionally, heart ultrasound has relied on hardware “beamforming.” But this method is slow compared to the agility of software beamforming and limited to the finite amount of data it was originally built to handle in creating an image of the body. As a result, it often produces less detailed images and requires lengthy hardware redesigns.

The new software, called cSound, can collect a practically infinite amount of data to create an image of the human body. Rather than getting rid of the data it can’t process, which is what hardware does, the software stores it in the machine’s memory. GE’s engineering team developed algorithms that then process and analyze all of the data stored in the memory and cherry pick the best signals on a pixel-by-pixel basis.

This is an artificial mitral valve with sutures on the ring. The mitral valve ensures that blood flows in one direction. GIF credit: GE Healthcare

The cSound software is so powerful that it can process an amount of data equivalent to playing an entire DVD in just one second, in real-time. Its inner workings were based on a combination of supercomputer data processing and the transmitters and receivers used in radar, seismology and WiFi communications. (Unlike CT or X-rays, ultrasound uses sound waves, rather than ionizing radiation.)

The team started developing cSound by looking at GE’s other 4D ultrasound system used for imaging a fetus during pregnancy. “It’s a similar algorithm, but there are some important differences,” says Erik Steen, the GE software engineer who helped develop the technology. “When you are doing 4D fetal imaging, you want to see the nice smooth surface of the skin. But cardiologists want to see differences in the heart tissue. So we built them color maps that can do that.”

The right and main chambers as viewed from the apex of the heart. The moving structure in the center is the mitral valve and can be identified by its fish mouth shape when open. GIF credit: GE Healthcare

The software is especially useful in scanning patients with lung disease or those who are obese or in a critical condition, all of whom are currently hard to image. According to clinical studies, the most widely ordered cardiovascular test, transthoracic echocardiograms, are today inconclusive 10-15 percent of the time, resulting in additional testing at up to almost three times the original cost and with an increased burden on the patient.

This can add up. 5.1 million people suffer from heart failure in the U.S., adding an estimated cost of $32 billion to the country’s healthcare bill each year.

But Dr. Khandheria is seeing results. He says that the diagnostic accuracy has improved because of the software and that the technology has benefited 98 percent of his patients. “It’s a breakthrough in ultrasound imaging,” he says.

This is an artificial mitral valve with sutures on the ring. “Ultrasound is on the verge of delivering huge change in medical care because it allows doctors to see inside the human body like never before by touching a probe that’s smaller than the size of your hand to the patient’s body,” says Al Lojewski, general manager, cardiovascular ultrasound at GE Healthcare. “Especially with this new software, it may mean reduced burden for the patient and exceptional images of the heart for the doctor on the spot.” GIF credit: GE Healthcare

By Tomas Kellner

Pathologists have traditionally used microscopes to study tissue samples and help doctors pick the right diagnosis and chart the course of recovery. For the patient, pathology can make a difference between radical surgery and a more benign treatament. But for the pathologist, it can also be a real pain in the neck.

“Every time I reach for a new slide, I have to take my eyes off the lens and check the forms for that case,” Ian Cree, professor of pathology at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust in the UK, told GE Reports. “You can get a sore neck from hours at the microscope.”

Now dozens of European pathologists are about to get some relief. Labco Quality Diagnostics, a provider of pathology lab services on the continent, started building a digital network that will link more than 50 specialists and allow them to compare tissue samples and get second opinions with just a few clicks on their keyboards.

“Despite their critical role in analyzing cancer and other diseases, many pathologists work in an analogue world of glass slides and paper files,” says Mamar Gelaye, CEO of the medical technology firm, Omnyx, LLC. “Cancer is heterogeneous and complex, yet pathologists today have more computational resources available at home than in clinical practice.”

That’s why Omnyx, which is a joint venture between GE Healthcare and UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), developed what is essentially a digital microscope. The machines, which can be configured to form large networks, allow pathologists to view and share digitized, high-resolution images of human tissues on their computer screens from any location with an Internet connection (see above).

That’s a big change on current practice, when doctors have to assess physical slides under a microscope, and put them inside an envelope and mail them for a second opinion. The process may result in delays, not to mention lost and damaged slides. “We are breaking away from the limitations of traditional methods of analyzing samples, aiming to offer faster, more skilled and more reliable diagnoses,” says Dr. José Antonio López Garca Asenjo, director of pathology diagnostics quality at Labco.

A digital image of skin melanoma showing measurements of Breslow’s depth and distance to margins.

Dr. Cree says that digital pathology “puts everything directly on the screen in front of you, including the paperwork. Everything is linked and I can even collaborate with my colleagues without stepping out into the corridor. It’s much quicker and better for everyone, including the patient,” he says.

But Omnyx isn’t finished. The company is now focusing on software that could help pathologists analyze the digitized samples. “This could have huge benefits for patients,” Gelaye says. “New algorithms could assist with tumor grading and many other quantitative and qualitative tasks currently done by eye.”

The Image Analysis Application (above) helps pathologists measure the Dako Hercep Test, a test commonly used to assess treatment options for breast cancer patients. Image credits: Omnyx

Disclaimer: Omnyx says that any descriptions of future functionality reflect current product direction, are for informational purposes only and do not constitute a commitment to provide specific functionality. Timing and availability are subject to change and applicable regulatory approvals.

By Tomas Kellner

Business Insider published on Tuesday its global list of 50 “groundbreaking scientists who are changing the world.“ The publication stated that "these scientists’ revolutionary research in human happiness, evolutionary biology, neutrino physics, biotechnology, archeology, and other fields is helping to advance our lives in more ways than we could ever imagine.”

The list includes Alan Stern, NASA’s principal investigator for the New Horizons spacecraft that just snuggled up to Pluto, molecular and cell biologist Jennifer Doudna from the University of California at Berkeley who discovered a powerful way to edit DNA, and also Brown University neuroscientist John Donoghue (below), whose BrainGate team is building brain-controlled prosthetics.

In 2011, the team’s technology allowed Cathy Hutchinson (top), who had suffered stoke that left her paralyzed from the neck down, to control a robotic arm with her thoughts, pick up a Thermos bottle, and the take the first sip of coffee on her own in 15 years.

BrainGate is also working with scientists at GE Global Research to design tiny microelectronic brain implants (see above) that can help them better understand the electrical signals generated by the brain’s neurons. Read more here about the research.

By Tomas Kellner

The first GE research lab opened in a barn behind a scientist’s home in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1900. Three people worked inside the wooden structur before it burned down a year later.

It was an inauspicious beginning for one of the largest corporate research institutions in the world. GE Global Research now employs 3,000 people and runs nine labs in the United States, Brazil, China, Germany, India and Israel.

Over the years, the labs have employed several Nobel laureates and developed breakthrough technologies like LEDs, brain MRI and new ceramic composite materials called CMCs for next-generation jet engines.

But they don’t keep the patents for themselves. The scientists share their insights with an army of 47,000 engineers working inside GE businesses: from healthcare to oil and gas and aviation. The real payoff comes when they can use the same technology, say, CMCs, to build a better jet engine as well as to improve on a gas turbine. Mark Little, who runs GE Global Research, calls this approach the “GE store”.

Top image: Parts made from ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), like this turbine blade, will have applications inside jet engines as well as gas turbines. Above: In 1900, the GE store fit inside a barn. GE Global Research now employs 3,000 people and runs labs around the world.

One of the best examples of this technology interchange is GE’s latest Evolution Series diesel-electric locomotive called Tier 4. (It is the first locomotive that meets the U.S. government’s strict Tier 4 pollution limits.)

The locomotive’s power, fuel and exhaust systems, turbochargers and other technology combine contributions from six different GE businesses. As a result, GE engineers were able to reduce NOx emissions by 76 percent and particulate matter emissions by 70 percent, compared to previous models. The train engine could also save customers $1.5 billion in expensive infrastructure changes they would otherwise have to make to meet the EPA new regulations.

But once you start looking under the hood of GE machines, you can find the GE store everywhere. The company’s fleet of mobile power plants, for example, uses technologies originally developed for jet engines. The wind business has been looking at superconducting magnets developed for magnetic resonance machines to maximize electricity output. GE CT technology can probe the the brain as well as aircraft parts and pipelines. 

“The business of research is not the business of Eureka moments,” Little says. “It’s the business of planning, strategic approaches to things, hard work, and patience.“

The GE store itself is an innovation that might spread. “In the university we talk a lot about collaboration, discovery through bringing together disciplines,” says Yale biologist and Nobel winner James E. Rothman, who as former chief scientist at GE Healthcare still visits GE labs in Schenectady. “I have never seen it work anywhere as well as at GRC… That sort of non-quantifiable knowledge has a way of leveraging across the whole of GE.” Take a look at our videos with scientist explaining the GE store and technology applications across different GE businesses.

By Mark Egan

GE is on target to divest banking assets valued at $100 billion this year, as it focuses on growing its industrial businesses, the company said today during its quarterly earnings announcement.

GE also said that the financial assets the company will retain, like its aircraft financing and leasing arm, GE Capital Aviation Services, boosted second quarter profits by 19 percent compared to the previous year, illustrating the value they bring to GE’s industrial core.

Last April, GE announced plans to sell most of GE Capital assets and focus on growing its industrial units that make everything from jet engines to MRI machines and blowout preventers for subsea oil wells. To date, the company has announced deals to sell a total of $68 billion in assets.

Aris Kekedjian, vice president and managing director of global business development at GE Capital and the person in charge of selling the assets, said in July he was pleased with the overall deal momentum. He said he was moving fast to get the job done while the conditions were just right for the sale of strong franchises with reliable revenue streams. “Our businesses, especially the deep franchise businesses we have, create yield in a yield-starved world,” Kekedjian said.

GE said in April it would focus on its core industrial units. It is spending billions of dollars on developing more efficient wind turbines, gas turbines, jet engines, medical scanners and other technology (see above and below). Image credits: GE Reports and CFM International

Kekedjian says he wants to complete most of the divestitures before the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates. “I don’t want to wait six months for a new interest rate environment and see what happens,” he said. “Today we get maximum value for our businesses and maximum appreciation for our franchises. I wake up every morning paranoid that something is going to happen in the world and this liquidity-flush environment is going to disappear.”

We create yield in a yield-starved world, says GE Capital’s Aris Kekedjian. Image credit: GE Capital

After years of quantitative easing by the U.S. Fed, yields on U.S. Treasuries remain near historic lows. That has left global financial markets flush with highly liquid capital in search of high-quality assets capable of producing dependable yields. These circumstances make assets such as those being sold by GE Capital especially attractive to potential bidders.

One of GE Capital’s yield-creating businesses on the auction block is GE Capital’s Healthcare Financial Services unit, which expects to receive final bids from interested buyers in the coming month or so. The company is a leading provider of capital to U.S. healthcare companies, sponsors, developers and investors. The business has funded more than $70 billion in capital to the healthcare industry since 2001.

The unit’s Chief Executive Officer, Darren Alcus, said in an interview that his team is balancing selling the business with assessing and closing ongoing business financing deals for customers. “We are continuing to perform very well,“ he said.

Alcus has an upbeat view of the overall U.S. healthcare sector, which accounts for $3 trillion of U.S. economic activity, or 17.5 percent of the total economy. He says that with an aging population and rising demand for high-quality healthcare services, the need for financing should also increase in coming years.

“You’re going to see consolidation, you’re going to see growth, you are going to see increased demand,“ Alcus said. "All of those things point to a lot of activity that is going to grow financing and that’s where we come in. It‘s a space that is going to continue to grow and continue to need private capital from companies like us.”

Among deals already signed are GE Capital’s U.S. and European Sponsor Finance businesses, which are leading providers of mid-market and private equity-backed transactions, and its global Fleet operation, which provides commercial car and truck financing and fleet management services. Other major milestones this year include the sale of GE Capital Real Estate, the sale of UK Home Lending mortgage portfolios and the sale of GE Capital’s Hungarian Bank.

An employee inspects the compressor section of a GE 7F.05 turbine. Image credit: GE Reports

GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt has said he wants to create a simpler and more valuable industrial company where the retained financing businesses will better support GE’s industrial core.

Those units, which include GE Capital Aviation Services, Energy Financial Services, Healthcare Equipment Finance and Working Capital Solutions, directly support GE’s industrial units and contribute the financing piece of what the company calls the GE Store, the sharing of ideas and expertise between its businesses.

GE Capital Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Keith Sherin says there are three challenges in structuring deals: the speed of getting the deal done within the announced schedule, getting the right value for GE and striving to retain jobs for existing GE employees.

As Kekedjian tries to get the right deals done to sell platforms such as the Healthcare Financial Services business, he describes his role as, “a little bit quarterback, a little bit symphony conductor, [and also] cheerleader and optimist,” he said. “A lot of my role is to clear roadblocks.”

Kekedjian says that while the numbers associated with transactions worth billions of dollars might seem huge and impersonal, it is often the personal touch that helps get deals over the finish line.

“People ask me why I go halfway around the world just to have dinner with someone and then come back the next day,” he said. “The reality is that institutions are not going to wire you billions of dollars because they like your voice on the phone.”

“Deals are done based on relationships and they are closed based on relationships,“ Kekedjian said.

GE Healthcare’s new 4D cardio ultrasound machine. Image credit: GE Healthcare

By Mike Keller

On July 16, one pendulum started to swing in Niskayuna, N.Y. Nearly 3,000 miles away, in San Jose, Calif., another weight hung from a fixed point also oscillated back and forth.

The motion of each was slightly off from the other. At one point, software in New York sent a command to equipment attached to the pendulum in California to fix its movement so that the two remote instruments swung identically (see video below).

It sounds like a simple task, says Colin Parris, the vice president of software research at GE. It is anything but. Beyond just the continental divide between the two pendulums, the time it takes for software and equipment to measure movement, analyze position and communicate the data normally introduces delays that make it impossible to get the instruments exactly in sync.

Top image: Machines like GE’s latest 9HA gas turbine will be connected to the Industrial Internet. Surrounding the turbine in GE’s Greenville, SC testing facility are walls of wires. These wires connect to over 6,000 sensors on the turbine, which, during testing, collected 5 terabytes of data - as much information as half the printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress. Photo by Chris Talbot.

It’s a technical hurdle that needs to be overcome for machines around the world to start talking with each other, a dream embodied in the Industrial Internet.

Such seamless machine-to-machine communication will soon usher in major efficiency and operating improvements in airlines, power generation and other industries that undergird modern life.

To do it, major players in the Industrial Internet space, including GE, Cisco Systems, National Instruments and others, have teamed up to run one of the world’s fastest fiber-optic communications links between New York and California. It will transfer data at an astonishing 100 gigabits per second, enough bandwidth to download 6,000 movies at once. Compare that to the typical home Internet connection that operates at 15 megabits per second, or about 0.0002 as much bandwidth.Above: Dan Sexton, a project manager at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY, is balancing two pendulums located on opposite sides of the U.S. over one of the world’s fastest, high-speed fiber optic lines. Image credit: GE Global Research

The light speed of this data transfer is expected to erase the delay in communication between one system reporting to the other, the current state it is in, where its pendulum weight is located in its oscillation and the velocity and vector the weight is moving.

“We’ve run a very big data fire hose across the country that can deliver all the water needed all at once,” Parris says. “This demonstration has very deep implications–if we can put these pendulums back into sync it means we can optimize the functioning of two remote machines. Once we do that, things will get more profound. First we’ll be able to connect two wind turbines so each knows the exact state of the other in real time. Then we’ll connect 15, and onward.”

A close-up of the technology. Image credit: GE Global Research

Parris says letting big machines talk to each other instantaneously involves tons more data than when people talk on the phone. And in the future, when more machines are connected to each other through the Internet, the information superhighway will need even more lanes.

“We’re not talking about a few kilobytes of data here, we’re talking about thousands of times that amount,” he says. “In the future, billions of systems—wind turbines, jet engines, people, computers and machines coming together—will be moving exabytes of data around the world all at the same time.”

The pendulum demonstration is part of the Industrial Internet Consortium, a group of 180 corporate and public members in 24 countries dedicated to accelerating innovation in connected, intelligent machines and processes.

By Tomas Kellner

Before a new GE machine design gets cleared for production, it has to go through rigorous testing and endure conditions it will likely never see in service – from golf ball-size hail to exploding jet engine fan blades. In the U.S., the company’s testing facilities are sometimes located in remote corners of the country and even employees rarely see more than a couple.

But that’s about to change. Starting Monday, GE will use drones to beam footage from five testing sites and factories to everyone with the Periscope app on its channel @generalelectric.

The event, called #DRONEWEEK, will kick off on Monday, July 20, in Houston, when GE makes massive blowout preventers and other subsea equipment. GE Aviation’s jet engine testing facility in Peebles, Ohio, will follow on Tuesday, and the drones will then move to the Mojave Desert, Calif., where GE is testing a futuristic wind turbine prototype called EcoROTR (see below). The team will travel to GE’s locomotive plant in Texas on Thursday and conclude the flyover week at a unique gas turbine testing facility in Greenville, S.C., on Friday.

“We’re always trying to tell the full picture of the GE story which is a complicated one, so any time we can talk about the various industries and variety of expertise and disciplines, we try to find unique and innovative way to do that,” Sam Olstein, GE’s director of innovation, told Fast Company about the project. “Drone Week allows us to showcase five different sites and five industries to give people a really cool perspective and peek at some of the stuff they don’t see often but does have an impact on their lives.”

By Tomas Kellner

When Paul Poberezny launched the Experimental Aircraft Association in 1953, he could run the gathering of flying enthusiasts and do-it-yourself airplane builders from the basement of his suburban home in Milwaukee, Wis. The group’s first fly-in, which took place later that year, attracted 22 planes and 150 visitors. “We were amateurs,” said Poberezny, who died in 2013.

Not anymore. Since then, the EAA’s annual fly-in, which now takes place in Oshkosh, Wis., has grown into the world’s largest aircraft gathering. Every July for a week, Oshkosh’s Wittman Regional Airport becomes the busiest airfield in the world. Last year, EAA AirVentures Oshkosh, as the fly-in is officially known, attracted 500,000 visitors and 10,000 planes ranging from small, home-built aircraft to a giant Airbus A380. (Large companies, including GE, do business here and also use the show to look for talent. So does NASA and the Air Force.)

The 2015 fly-in starts on Monday, July 20. GE Reports and photographer Adam Senatori will be there, filing daily dispatches, photo essays and Periscope live streams on @ge_reports.

Pilot and photographer Adam Senatori will be taking pictures for GE Reports in Oshkosh. Above and below are images from his visit in 2014. Image credits: Adam Senatori

“This is an air show for people with a passion for aviation,” says Brad Mottier, a GE Aviation executive who started coming to Oshkosh more than 40 years ago with his parents in their 1949 Navion plane. “We pitched a tent under the wing and thousand of people will be doing the same this year. Sure, business gets done, but here you can get your hands dirty and learn how to build a plane.” (See below a video of Mottier flying into Oshkosh in a Husky in 2013.)

Oshkosh alumni include aviation legends like Dick and Burt Rutan. In 1986, Dick and his co-pilot, Jenna Yeager, became the first people to circumnavigate the world non-stop in a plane.

The plane, called the Voyager, was designed by Burt and made a stop at Oshskosh before it permanently landed in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Burt, who also designed the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo aircraft, will be on hand this year for the Burt Rutan Legacy Day. It will take place on Tuesday, July 21, and celebrate the 40th anniversary of his iconic VariEze plane. “That plane ignited the home-built aircraft movement,” Mottier says. “It gave high performance on little horsepower. Following that, Burt arrived with kits for people to build, and the next year they flew in with those planes.”

Mottier, who skipped only one Oskosh fly-in over the last four decades, will be flying in a Cessna 182 piloted by GE Aviation’s chief marketing officer Laurent Rouaud. “I’ve seen the fly-in grow up,” Mottier says. “This is a celebration. I would not miss it.”

By Tomas Kellner

There seem to be more planes parked on the green grounds of Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wis., than there are cloverleaves in the grass beneath their wheels. The airport is the home of the annual EAA AirVentures air show – the world’s largest gathering for flying enthusiasts (see below). Here, all the planes, their pilots and owners each tell their own unique story.

Take the World War II-era Douglass C-47 Skytrain transport plane parked just a few steps from the GE Aviation pavilion here. The flakes of its peeling, gunship-green paint coat flutter in the Wisconsin wind like hangnails. It’s clear that the plane has seen better days. But the weathered look gives its story even more gravitas.

The plane’s name painted on its one - That’s All, Brother - was the crew’s bold message to Adolf Hitler that his time was up.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, just three months after That’s All, Brother rolled off the assembly line in Tulsa, Okla., the plane took off into the night from the Royal Air Force’s Greenham Common base in the south of England, leading 800 allied aircraft over the Channel into Normandy.

It was the largest airborne formation the world has ever seen and carried 13,000 paratroopers whose mission was to jump behind enemy lines.

The plane survived the mission and other wartime sorties over France, Holland and Germany, before it returned unharmed to the United States in 1945. But, despite its achievements, it it cycled through 16 different owners ended up in a bone yard, until a group of enthusiasts from the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) saved it and launched a Kickstarter campaign to restore it.

Although the C-47 remains earthbound for the moment, the CAF flew here fully functional B-29 and B-52 bombers.

GE Aviation got its start by developing turbosuperchargers for aircraft engines, including the massive machines powering Boeing B-29 Superfortresses called like the one in the foreground, called Fifi. The gray nose of a still-active B-52H bomber from AFB Barksdale, La., is peeking out behind. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Between flyovers, the planes are parked just a short walk from the latest planes like the HondaJet business jet, some of the world’s oldest planes like the Wright brothers’ “B” flier, and experimental planes that force visitors to suspend their disbelief that they can actually fly.

The HondaJet’s HF120 engine was developed by GE and Honda. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Pilot and photographer Adam Senatori, who flew his Cessna-172 here on Monday morning, took a walk around the show with his camera and captured some of the highlights from the first day. Take a look and stay tuned to our Periscope channel @ge_reports for live streaming of flyovers and other events.

Legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan piloted on Monday his Starship plane. The plane’s body is made entirely from composite materials. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Airbus brought to Oshkosh its latest A350 XWB passenger jet, whose body is also mainly made from composites.The plane’s fixed wing trailing edge, made from carbon fiber composites, comes from GE Aviation. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Kevin Coleman performed acrobatics in his Extra 330SC plane. Image credit: AdamSenatori/GE Reports

A motley squadron of Russian-made Yakovlev aircraft. The Yaks are trainers made in the 1970s. But their predecessors, like Yak-9, formed the backbone of the Red Army’s air force. The planes performed a glorious flyover on Monday. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Acrobatic planes (center) park right next to experimental planes (left). Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

This beautifully restored World War II-era Vought F4U took off from aircraft carriers. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

A tale of two tails. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

By Tomas Kellner

The HondaJet business jet is one of the newest planes at this year’s EAA AirVentures fly-in extravaganza at Oshkosh, Wis. It was developed by Honda Aircraft, a subsidiary of the Japanese industrial giant primarily known for car and motorcycles.

Right away, the jet captures attention with its unusual over-the-wing jet engine mount. Honda spent the last two decades developing the design. Removing the engines from the fuselage allowed the engineers to build a more spacious cabin, reduce cabin noise and cut fuel consumption.

The plane is powered by a pair of HF120 jet engines jointly developed by GE Aviation and Honda.The engine was certified by the FAA last year and is now in production. With 18.5 inches in diameter and 2,095 pounds of thrust, it is the smallest jet engine in GE’s portfolio. For comparison, GE’s largest engine, the GE90-115B developed for Boeing 777 wide-body planes, can generate 127,900 pounds of thrust. On Tuesday, photographer Adam Senatori got an exclusive access to the plane here in Oshkosh, which has been already sold to a customer.

Images and GIF credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

By Tomas Kellner

In July 1987, eight months after it became the first plane to fly nonstop around the world, the Voyager made one last landing on its way to the Smithsonian at the EAA AirVentures fly-in in Oshkosh, Wis., the world’s largest gathering of aviation enthusiasts.

The plane was designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by his brother Dick and Jeana Yeager. The Voyager fly-in was just one of many great moments at Oshkosh engineered by Rutan, who is rightfully known as the godfather of the experimental and homebuilt aircraft movement.

Above: Burt Rutan’s Boomerang. Top three images: The Beech Starship. All image credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Rutan has brought to Oshkosh designs for homebuilt planes like VariViggen and VariEze, as well as the unconventional composite corporate jet Beech Starship, and other flying gems like the Boomerang and Catbird.

Rutan’s CozyJet Mk3 plane uses the same T-58 jet engine made by GE - it was developed for civilian helicopters - that Carroll Shelby used in a turbine car that raced in a 1968 Indy 500 race.

To commemorate Rutan’s design genius, the organizers created the Rutan Legacy Day here at Oshkosh on Tuesday, and filled a chunk of the afternoon flyover show with his planes. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to present his latest design, the SkiGull. We will bring it to you tomorrow.

This year is the 40th anniversary of Burt Rutan’s  iconic VariEze plane (above). “That plane ignited the home-built aircraft movement,” says GE Aviation executive Brad Mottier. “It gave high performance on little horsepower. Following that, Burt arrived with kits for people to build, and the next year they flew in with those planes.”

Burt Rutan’s Speedy.

The Catbird set several world records in its class. On April 19, 2014, pilot Zach Reeder maintained average speed of 211.27 mph over a 5,000-kilometer (3,106 miles) closed course.

The Boomerang on the ground.

Rutan also designed the Williams  V-Jet II.

By Tomas Kellner

Sean D. Tucker may not be a household name, but within the aviation community he could well be Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk with his red airplane.

Tucker is a member of the Living Legends of Flight, an elite group of aviators and astronauts that includes Jimmy Doolittle, “Chuck” Yeager, and John Glenn.

On Tuesday he performed in Oshkosh a stunning 11-minute routine that would send Albert Einstein back to his desk to re-check his gravity equations.

Above: Tucker executes one of the tightest backflips, basically falling on top of himself. Top: The smoke from the flare going straight up indicates that Tucker is in a stall and almost no air is flowing over the wings. Image and GIF credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Barnstormers and aerobats are a big draw at the EAA AirVenture fly-in here and Tucker draws more people than most. According to Tucker’s website, more than half of his maneuvers have never been duplicated by another aerobatic pilot. Several times during Tuesday’s performance he seemed to be suspended in the air, before flying his biplane backwards at more than 100 mph.

Tucker is also the only pilot to perform the triple ribbon cut. During this maneuver, he slices through the ribbons, which are just 25 feet off the ground, at 220 mph in right knife-edge for the first ribbon, then left knife-edge, and finally inverted.

Above: Tucker is slicing through the second ribbon. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Tucker flies a fire engine-red Challenger III biplane that can reportedly produce 400 horsepower but weighs just 1,200 pounds.

Photographer Adam Senatori captured some of the best moments from Tucker’s flight. Take a look.

All image and GIF credits Adam Senatori/GE Reports

By Tomas Kellner

The annual EAA AirVenture fly-in at Oshkosh, Wis., the world’s largest gathering of aircraft enthusiasts, which takes place at the end of July, attracts 10,000 planes from around the globe and over 500,000 visitors. GE Aviation’s Brad Mottier first came here as a teenager and rarely missed a year over the next four decades.

Mottier, who leads GE’s business and general aviation business – that means all GE aircraft engines that are not being used by the military and commercial transport - sat down with GE Reports this week to talk about the history and the spirit of the place. “There is a sense of liberation, of self-direction about Oshkosh,” he says. “When you’re a pilot, you have a heightened sense of freedom and in many ways are not bound by decisions that someone has made for you. You set your own course.”

Tomas Kellner: How did your family get into flying?

Brad Mottier: Both of my parents were pilots. They started flying after World War II. My dad was an amphibious tank mechanic. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps on Guam in the South Pacific. My mother was a WAVE, serving in the women’s reserve in the U.S. Navy. They met after the war ended. They decided to make up for the lost time and live on a broader scale.

Above: “In the 1970s, my father bought a 1949 Navion plane, similar to this one, and we used it to fly to Oshkosh, ” Mottier says.Top image: Mottier runs GE Aviation’s general aviation business. One of his units makes the composite flexible wing trailing edge for the  Airbus A350. Image credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

TK: What kind of plane did they fly?

BM: It was a Cessna 120 and they got it before they even got their pilot’s licenses or bought a house. They flew it from Indiana, where they lived, over the Rockies to the West Coast and down to Mexico. They even made it to the Florida Keys.

Before my brother and I were born, my mother, Phyllis, would sometimes take the plane and go quail hunting at my Dad’s family’s farm in Central Illinois. She would land there, take her 410 shotgun, get some quail and fly back home with dinner.

TK: When did you first start flying with them?

BM: I’ve always had passion for aviation. I must have been 18 when I first came to Oshkosh with my father in a Cessna 172, which can seat four people. That was in the 1970s. The next year he bought a 1949 Navion and flew that plane down here for the first time. That was a miserable trip. It rained the whole time, there was standing water in the field and we ended up sleeping in the plane. But that was part of the fun.

“My father used to camp under this tree with his friends for many years,” Mottier says. GIF credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

TK: What was Oshkosh like then?

BM: It was much smaller. In the 1970s, it was predominantly a show for people who were building their own airplanes. The certified aircraft manufacturers, who now have a very large presence, fit inside a fairly small space. In many respects, it was less commercial than it is today. In the evening we would go to the Theatre in the Woods, sit on folding chairs or on the ground, and watch old aviation movies. There were no big concerts like now. The show is now more upscale. It has grown up. Today’s it’s a celebration of all aviation.

TK: Last year there were 10,000 planes at Oshkosh and 500,000 visitors. But walking around, it seems to me that everyone knows each other.

BM: This place has a special spirit. There is a sense of liberation and self-direction about Oshkosh. It’s both inspirational and aspirational.

TK: Can you explain it?

BM: Flying gives you freedom and perspective. There’s a sense of accomplishment from being a pilot that’s not readily available in many other earthbound activities. When you’re a pilot you are in many ways not bound by decisions that someone has made for you. When we flew up here from Cincinnati on Sunday, for example, we didn’t talk to air traffic control the whole trip. We designed our own route, obviously following air space restriction, and flew up the Lake Michigan coastline past Chicago. The views were amazing! That’s the liberation I am talking about.

And that’s just the big picture.

Here at Oshkosh, there are many people who build their own planes. That’s an entirely new level of freedom. They choose the design, the engine, the propeller, the avionics, and wheels their planes will have. A lot of pilots here have been innovating within technical and financial constraints and that’s forcing them to use their imagination, be very creative.

Mottier has been coming to Oshkosh for four decades. Two years ago, he arrived in his yellow Aviat Husky.

TK: When did you start flying?

BM: I got my license when I was studying engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In fact I flew myself to my first job interview. The job was more than three hours away driving and the company agreed to cover the cost of my plane.

TK: Did you get that job?

BM: Yes, I did, and in many ways I still have it. It was with a tiny company called Slick Electro, which made ignition systems for piston engine aircraft. That company grew into Unison Industries, which was in 2002 acquired by GE. At Unison, we made electrical and mechanical systems and components used on aircraft, but also communication satellites, the International Space Station and even nuclear submarines. Our magneto ignition system flew on the Voyager, the first plane to fly non-stop non-refueled around the world in 1986 and is now in the Smithsonian Museum.

TK: Do you own a plane?

BM: Yes, I fly an Aviat Husky, which is a small bush plane like you see in Alaska I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I’ve taken it as far out west as Jackson Hole, Wy. and north as Lake Placid, N.Y. I have also flown it to Miami several times. I like my Husky because it can take off and land in a very short distance and you don’t need paved runways. I fly about 150 hours a year. My parents’ philosophy was to live their lives to the fullest and I believe an airplane is the perfect vehicle to help do that.

By Tomas Kellner

Paul Poberezny, the founder of the world’s largest gathering of aviation enthusiasts in Oshkosh, Wis., was born to a poor Midwest family. But he grew up to be wealthy. “I ended up being a millionaire because I have a million friends,” he told the news site for pilots AVweb.

Poberezny died two years ago, but his riches live on. This year, the Experimental Aircraft Association– the organization that Poberezny founded in his basement in 1953 - attracted 10,000 planes and a half a million visitors to the Wittman Regional Airfield in Oshkosh for its weeklong annual fly-in.

The people  who come here include pilots, home aircraft builders and fans, but also employees of big companies like Boeing, Airbus and GE Aviation, which makes everything from turboprops and jet engines to aircraft components.

“We’re a family,” Poberezny told AVweb. “The early members would bring their kids and later on we’d see the kids come and they’d be married, then years later those kids would come with their grandkids.”

Poberezny could be talking about GE Aviation executive Brad Mottier, who started flying in as a teenager with his father, or flying instructor and former Northwest pilot Adam Senatori, who first came to Oshkosh as a little boy and will be bringing here his four-year old son, Samuel, this weekend.

This year, Senatori, who is also an award-winning aviation photographer, has been shooting the airshow for GE Reports. He decided to document the spirit of this unique event hour-by-hour.

“Oshkosh is a life-changing experience,” Senatori says. “There is the amazing technology, engineering and ingenuity of the aircraft builders all around you, but there’s also spirit of the place that harkens back to the beginning of flight, with barnstormers, wing walkers and all that. You can feel it in the air and I wanted to do my best to capture it. This is my ode to Oshkosh.” Take a look:

“Most of the pilots who come to Oshkosh pitch their tents under the wings of their planes,” Senatori says. “We did the same. This is the first thing  I saw at daybreak when I opened my tent.” Top image: Barnstormer Gene Soucy and wing walker Teresa Stokes dazzled Oshkosh on Wednesday.

It’s time for morning hygiene in one of many community bathrooms built on the edge of the airfield, not far from the runway. More than 10,000 pilots and their families camp next to their planes at Oshkosh.

The hours just after sunrise is the best time for exploring the place. There is a sense of serenity and calm that hovers over the airfield.

The Experimental Aircraft Association was launched by pilots like Paul Poberezny, who built their own planes. You can feel their hands-on, maker legacy especially during mid-morning workshops where visitors can learn how to build aircraft wings, stitch canvas to them or build the body of a plane.

Living aviation legends like designer Burt Rutan come to Oshkosh to talk about their latest projects.

Some of the most creative flying contraptions are in the ultralight section at the south end of the airport. Top: Mark Amenson demonstrates the motor pack for a paraglider. Above: A homebuilt ultralight plane designed by 82-year-old Oshkosh veteran Gene Smith from Valley Engineering in Rolla, Mo. Smith, an engineer and former crop duster pilot, still tests every single plane he makes by flying it over his 780-acre cattle farm.

Lunch at Oshkosh is an All-American affair. Greens are usually in short supply.

The warbirds section featuring American, Russian, Japanese and other planes from World War II and the 1950s and the 1960s is a big draw. The planes make frequent flyovers throughout the day.

The airshow occupies the main part of the day, usually lasting for several hours. It typically starts with the national anthem and covers everything from barnstormers and World War II battle reenactments to experimental planes and the latest jet flyovers. The result is a sense of awe for the young and the old.

The day ends with night flyovers, an Oshkosh specialty, and fireworks. After that, it’s time to crawl back into the tent. Good night! All images and GIF credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

By Mike Keller

Today, when doctors are assessing athletes who have suffered a head injury, they will check their symptoms and perform an array of neurological and cognitive tests to arrive at a diagnosis. They will then observe the patient for another day to make sure everything’s okay. The whole process takes time, costs money and isn’t necessarily accurate.

But BrainScope Company, Inc., based in Bethesda, Md., is now developing a medical device using electrodes stuck to the athlete’s head to read electrical activity coming from neurons in the brain. The test can be done in the locker room and results from the device, called Ahead 2000, are available within 10 minutes. This helps doctors objectively assess whether a person has endured a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

“Every time you hit your head, you don’t necessarily have a brain injury,” says Michael Singer, BrainScope’s CEO. “But if you do have a brain injury, the earlier you catch it, the better the outcome tends to be.”

A digital rendering of a human neuron network. Top: BrainScope’s Ahead 2000 device.

The company has found that TBIs alter the brain’s electrical activity so much so that an electroencephalogram (EEG), which reads the organ’s electrical output, can detect it. BrainScope is using a commercial smartphone loaded with EEG-analyzing algorithms to bring the capability out into the field.

The technology was recently awarded $500,000 in additional funding from GE and the NFL Head Health Challenge I to continue their work. (Read about the original award here.)

The contest one of three Head Health Challenges aimed at speeding diagnosis and improving treatment for mild TBIs like those commonly suffered in sports and by the military.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that 2.5 million TBIs occurred in 2010. (Many experts believe this number is actually substantially underestimated). Because so many people are confronted with this injury, a number of projects are underway to understand, diagnose, treat and prevent TBIs.

Besides BrainScope, there are other five Head Health Challenge I winners developing techniques to detect brain trauma. Several of the winners are looking at blood and bodily fluid biomarkers that appear to indicate brain injury. Researchers at Banyan Biomarkers in California are focusing on whether certain proteins showing up in bodily fluids indicate a TBI.

Scientists at The University of Montana, Missoula, are learning whether changing levels of certain proteins and micro ribonucleic acids in the blood point to a brain reacting to damage. And at Massachusetts-based Quanterix, researchers have developed a sensitive blood test to measure molecular biomarkers, with hopes of being able to use this test to diagnose a concussion in a clinic or on the sidelines of a game.

Another winner, the Medical College of Wisconsin, is using MRI scanning and data analysis to understand how sports-related concussions change brain structure and function for better diagnosis, and to know when a player can return to the game. A group at the University of California, Santa Barbara is using MRIs to see how the information transmission lines between brain regions get damaged after a head injury.

All of the finalists had already earned $300,000 each as winners in the first round of Head Health Challenge I, which ended in January 2014.

“There are a number of breakthrough ideas that are advancing our understanding of the brain,” said Alan Gilbert, director health policy, government and community strategy for GE healthymagination. “[We are looking] at applications not only on the playing field but also extend to neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.”

By Tomas Kellner

The energy usage curves of most industrial countries – or load curves - have long resembled a crumpled fedora hat. They rise sharply at daybreak as people start brewing coffee and companies switch on machines, then peak twice – in the morning and the late afternoon, before dropping off after dinner. Utilities usually crank up their turbines and bring extra power plants online to cover the “peak” demand.

But on a sunny May 8, 2011, something unusual happened in Germany: this midday call for extra output didn’t materialize. For the first time, the country had so many solar panels in use that utilities were able to supply all the energy needed to cover the bulge. Although May 8 was a Sunday, a similar thing also happened the next day on Monday. “This is the first time solar power plants were able to deliver peak load,” says Robert Roesner, high power electronics engineer at GE Global Research in Munich, Germany.

Top: Artificially grown silicon carbide (SiC). The material is so hard it’s been used to make sand paper. Image credit: Getty Images Above and below: Solar panel’s covering the roof of a GE plant in Berlin, Germany. They supply electricity to the company first hybrid power plant.

Solar panels are becoming so widespread that a new forecast from Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that by 2040, rooftop solar power will be cheaper than electricity in the grid in every major economy and will account for more than a third of new power capacity worldwide.

Roesner and his team in GE labs are now hoping to give this solar revolution a boost. They are using chips made from a material called silicon carbide (SiC) to build superefficient “inverters” that switch direct current (DC) generated by solar panels into alternating current (AC) that flows from the wall outlet. “This material stands to revolutionize power electronics,” says Danielle Merfeld, global technology director for electrical technologies and systems at GE Global Research.

SiC takes the best features from diamond, one of the toughest materials in the world, and combines them with the properties of silicon, which is inside every computer and every smart phone.

The results can be quite powerful. For example, SiC can shrink the size of a one megawatt inverter, which can supply 500 homes, by 35 percent. The material also allows engineers to switch DC to AC in tiny incremental steps, rather than big jumps, and increase power conversion efficiency by about 1 percent, compared to today’s standards. “Right now inverters are about 98 percent efficient so a one percent gain may not seem like much,” Roesner says. “But with the huge installed base, the gains will quickly add up.”

So few losses also means that the converter doesn’t generate as much heat and doesn’t require a complex water-cooling system. “We switched from water cooling to air,” says Tobias Schuetz, lead engineer for high power electronics at the Munich lab. “The design is cheaper and also more reliable.”

Above: The SiC inverter at the hybrid power plant in Berlin. Image credit: GE Reports

The first prototype of the SiC inverter is already switching solar electricity from DC to AC in Berlin, Germany, where GE recently opened an innovative hybrid power plant suppling with electricity its local factory. Depending on price and availability, special software allows the manager to select the cheapest energy source between solar power, a gas engine, the grid, heat storage and even batteries.

Schuetz says solar power inverters are just the beginning. SiC chips can be applied inside any device that needs to switch power between AC and DC. They could make trains, planes and wind turbines much more efficient. “We call this idea where one technology serves multiple industries the GE store,” Merfeld says.

These applications hadn’t existed previously because the process to make SiC chips is quite onerous. For starters, SiC is extremely hard and the material’s early applications included sandpaper and abrasives. It doesn’t help that making a SiC chip involves up to 300 discrete steps in a clean room (see below).

But GE scientists have been studying the material for 50 years, starting with Robert Hall, the inventor of the first semiconductor laser. They came up with several breakthroughs, including the first practical and reliable power switch.

Building on these foundations, the company transfered technology and intellectual property valued at more than $100 million to a power electronics manufacturing consortium created in Albany, NY, in 2014. The consortium, which includes GE, New York State, the SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, and other industry partners, is building a shared fabrication plant that will develop and produce silicon carbide power devices on six-inch wafers – a big deal when it comes to production efficiency. “This will dramatically open up silicon carbide applications,” Merfeld says. “We want people to come to New York and take advantage of the technology.”

By Terrence Murray

Rolling out almost any consumer product is an intricate process that usually involves lengthy market studies and costly R&D. But consumer tastes are fickle - especially today - and a blockbuster idea can grow stale before it arrives in the store.

But there’s a way to fix this: by speeding up the design and development cycle. That’s what FirstBuild has set out to do. The year-old joint venture between GE Appliances and the crowdsourcing invention factory Local Motors is transforming how companies choose, develop and launch new products.

The FirstBuild community only started working on their latest product, the nugget ice maker Opal, in March. Image credit: FirstBuild

FirstBuild stands on two cornerstones: a website where a community of some 7,500 makers from around the world share and improve their ideas, and a microfactory on the campus of the University of Louisville, where the best ideas get prototyped and made.

“What you’ll find on FirstBuild.com are people who are techies and hackers and who do electronic and mechanical hardware design and understand engineering principles,” explains Taylor Dawson, FirstBuild’s self-professed “product evangelist.”

“But you’ll also find people who are designers and able to create elegant products.”

Above and below: Opal prototypes at FirstBuild’s microfactory in Louisville, Ky. Image credits: FirstBuild

The concept is working. During the first year, the group worked on more than 800 ideas and came up with eight new products.

The latest one is a special kind of countertop icemaker called Opal. (FirstBuild started selling the first version of the machine on Tuesday on the website Indiegogo.) Opal produces the soft, chewable ice nuggets that are extremely popular in the South but until now were mostly available only in restaurants and convenience stores.

“We know from our consumer surveys that people prefer nugget ice over crescent ice by about three to one,” said Natarajan Venkatakrishnan, director of FirstBuild. “We developed Opal to offer an affordable nugget ice maker for home use and we are using Indiegogo as a selling platform to gauge market acceptance of the product.”

By product development standards – it can take as many four years to come up with a new appliance - Opal’s design is approaching warp speed. It was only in March that FirstBuild challenged its community to develop a compact nugget icemaker capable of producing up to one pound of nugget ice per hour.

The call garnered 30 total entries, and the winning proposal, which was submitted by an independent designer based in Guadalajara, Mexico, was selected just a month after the launch of the contest. The first prototype rolled out of FirstBuild’s microfactory in early July.

“Literally, from the time that we got the product concept finalized until the time that we had the first functional prototype took just about two to three months,” Dawson explains. “What we’ve done is take that years-long process and try to turn it into a months-long process.”

FirstBuild plans to bring the retail version of Opal to Indiegogo users by next summer and, based on response from the early adopters, scale production. That’s pretty cool.

The finished product. It’s now on sale at Indiegogo. Image credit: FirstBuild

By Tomas Kellner

The Czech plane builder Aircraft Industries has a long history of building small turboprops that can handle extreme conditions: from Siberian frost and Saharan heat to thin Himalayan air in places like Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla, which many pilots consider the most dangerous landing strip in the world.

For decades, its planes have been using engines developed by the Czech aviation company Walter Aircraft Engines, which was acquired by GE Aviation in 2008. Now Aircraft Industries just put GE’s newest propeller engine, the GE H85, on its latest plane, the L-410 NG.

Above: Nepal’s Goma Air flies L-410 aircraft powered by GE H80 engines to Lukla in the Himalayas, considered the world’s most dangerous airport. Its sloping, 1,700-foot-long runway begins at the edge of a chasm and ends in a wall. Image credit: Shutterstock Top: Aircraft Industries’ L-410 NG landing after its maiden flight. Image credit: Aircraft Industries

A prototype of the new plane just completed its maiden flight on Tuesday. The all-metal, high-wing twin turboprop can fly for 10 hours and has a maximum range of 1,550 miles. It can seat 19 passengers.

Aircraft Industries says it designed the plane for short-haul flights from remote and undeveloped areas to big cities. The aircraft’s wide body and the new engine’s endurance also make it an “ideal platform” for maritime patrol and surveillance, the company says.

Above and below: The new L-410 NG plane is using a pair of GE H85 engines. Image credit. Aircraft Industries

The new version of the L-410 is building on the ruggedness of its predecessors. The version that’s currently in production has been ferrying aid around earthquake-stricken Nepal this spring, for example.

The L-410 and its engines have an interesting history. In the 1960s, the Soviet airline Aeroflot was shopping for a tough new commuter plane that could service far-flung airports in the frozen Taiga as well as the sun-baked Kazakh desert. With few options on the market, Aeroflot bosses commissioned Czech aviation engineers, long regarded among the best in the business, to build an aircraft that met their needs and an engine to go with it.

Engines from Walter, and later GE, have accumulated more than 17 million flight hours by carrying passengers and cargo over Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.

Besides the L-410, GE propeller engines also power the American Thrush 510G crop duster and Nextan Aerospace G90XTM, and China’s CAIGA AG300 aircraft.

By Tomas Kellner

The tiny El Chuparosa biplane wasn’t the strangest aircraft at the annual EAA AirVenture fly-in at Oshkosh, Wis., which ended last week. That title probably belongs to one of Burt Rutan’s creations like Speedy or Defiant. But the diminutive craft was certainly the smallest.

Parked on the grass at the edge of the homebuilt aircraft section, the Chuparosa biplane - Spanish for hummingbird because of the sound it made in flight – is only 14 feet long and just under 13 feet and 12 feet across its upper and lower wingspan, respectively. When Ray Hegy designed it in 1948, it was the smallest plane in the world capable of carrying a human. Now part of the EAA museum collection, it still strains credulity that it could actually fly.

Above: Burt Rutan’s  twin-engine four-seater Defiant. Top: El Chuparosa. Image credits: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

“Airplane design is an exercise in compromise and trade-offs,” says aerospace engineer and self-professed “aviation junkie” Joe Nelson, a manager in GE Aviation’s turboprop business. “You have to give up something to make something else better.”

Nelson, who got his pilot’s license when he was still in high school, says that that Chuparosa looks to him “like it was designed to be the smallest possible airplane that would go fast and still carry a person.”

“The wings need to generate enough lift to hold the airplane up, but lift is a function of the wing size - or area - the flight speed, and the curvature of the wing,” he says. “If you want to fly slow, you need a big wing or a lot of curvature. But if you only want to go fast, the wing can be smaller. Small airplanes are usually also light, so a light, fast airplane only needs a small wing to hold it up.

Hegy spent 18 years and 1,520 hours flying the 478-pound biplane, covering thousands of miles. He donated craft, which could reach cuising speed of 110 mph, to the museum in 1977. Photographer Adam Senatori took pictures of the Chuparosa and other similarly “crazy awesome” planes that made an appearance at Oshkosh this year. Take a look.

U.S. Army Signal Corps used the Wright Brothers’ B Flyer for training and reconnaissance in 1911. It’s top speed was 60 mph. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

A century later, Lockheed Martin’s stealthy F-22 Raptor can travel at 1,500 mph - 2.25 times faster than the speed of sound. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

The HondaJet’s unusual over-the-wing jet engine mount allowed its designers to build a more spacious cabin, reduce cabin noise and cut fuel consumption. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

More than half of the wings and the fuselage of the new Airbus A350 XWB is made from composite materials - essentially high-grade plastics that can be both lighter and tougher than metals. GE Aviation makes the flexible trailing edges of the plane’s wings from carbon fiber composites. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Poland’s PZL-104 Wilga can climb at an astonishing 11 meters per second, or 2,165 feet per minute. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Burt Rutan’s designs made frequent flyovers at Oshkosh, including the asymmetrical Boomerang. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

Some designs strained credulity that they could actually fly. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports

And some drew a lot of attention, but never took off. Image credit: Adam Senatori/GE Reports