Taurus G4 Wins $1.35 Million NASA Challenge

Pia Bergqvist

Tuesday, October 04, 2011 at 10:06 PM ET

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Pipistrel-USA's Taurus G4 NASA/Bill Ingalls

Key Takeaways:

Pipistrel-USA.com's four-seat Taurus G4 won NASA's CAFE Green Flight Challenge, receiving the largest prize in NASA history at $1.35 million.
The Taurus G4 achieved an impressive 403.5 passenger miles per gallon, demonstrating high efficiency against the challenge's requirements.
The e-Genius team secured second place and also won the inaugural Lindbergh Prize for Quietest Aircraft.
NASA highlighted the challenge's success as a significant step, indicating that electric aircraft have moved from science fiction into practical reality.

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NASA handed over a check for $1.35 million, the largest prize in NASA’s history, to Pipistrel-USA.com‘s team leader Jack Langelaan in a ceremony at the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, on Monday, Oct. 3. The team’s four-seat Taurus G4 won the CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency) Green Flight Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge program funded by Google that took place last week at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, California.

Only three of the 14 teams who registered for the competition qualified to compete – e-Genius, Phoenix Air and Pipistrel-USA.com. While Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s EcoEagle did not qualify for the competition, the airplane was allowed to participate as a demonstrator.