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 won NASA's CAFE Green Flight Challenge, receiving $1.35 million for their four-seat Taurus G4 electric aircraft, marking the largest prize in NASA's history.
The winning Taurus G4 demonstrated exceptional efficiency, achieving 403.5 passenger miles per gallon during the competition.
The e-Genius team placed second, receiving $120,000, and also won the inaugural Lindbergh Prize for Quietest Aircraft.
NASA views the challenge as a significant milestone, indicating that electric aircraft technology has moved "beyond science fiction and are now in the realm of practice."

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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.