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Raptor Aircraft Thruster Update
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- čas přidán 3. 03. 2023
- Thanks for watching.
Check out the Thruster Video at this link: • Could this Thruster tr...
In this video I give a detailed update on the prospective plans for the Raptor using the newly announced Thruster as the propulsion system.
Please leave a comment. Thanks.
Peter, as someone currently working at a company of hundreds of engineers towards certification of a Part 23 eVTOL aircraft, calling this project wildly ambitious is an understatement. I admire your ambition and courage to put this out there, but there is quite a lot to design what you are proposing. Control and stability from hover through transition, with the ability to continue safe flight with an engine, thruster, hydraulic system, or tilt/pitch control actuator is not a trivial add on, it is intrinsic to the design and architecture of the vehicle. There is a reason the number of vertical thrusters are not less than six, and many in the industry question if 6 is enough or optimal. The electric motors, controllers and batteries are significant certification programs. The vehicle architecture needs to consider avionics and power lane failures and continued safe flight. Software certification is a significant fraction of the program, and it starts from square one. Using a series hybrid approach for cruise power gives up a significant amount of power to conversation losses. The propulsive efficiency of a propeller is not so bad to explain your hypothesized performance gains. If it's possible to get 1500 lb static thrust from your electric thrusters, the power to do so must be obscenely high. There is a significant benefit to using longer wings.. get out of the mindset that there is an advantage to pulling this into a "standard" 2 car garage, of which a 20' door is getting pretty big. I have serious doubts that any automotive manufacturer would have interest in manufacturing an aircraft, aerospace quality systems are not at all in alignment with automotive.
I'd strongly consider building an experimental prototype first before starting certification efforts and to design and build for conventional takeoff and landing at least at first. Build an experimental prototype that validates the climb and cruise performance using the ducted fans after completing a ground test series of powerplant prototypes. In addition, the stability and control of Raptor 1 was somewhat questionable and needs work with a test pilot to get acceptable handling qualities before it could reasonably be handed off to an average pilot.
I wish you the best of luck, and truly enjoy seeing your videos developing the raptor.
i dont get what this multi rotor insanity is about. what can a multi rotor do that you cant already do in single rotor helicopter. and you could put same stability controls in heli too
@@Elios0000 rotating a single rotor is incredibly difficult, I'd almost say impossible.
Plus multiple rotors provide increased redundancy, ie increased safety.
What percentage of GA crashes are caused by a single power plant failing?
@@applicablerobot I like redundancy, but very few GA crashes are caused by power plant failures. I believe most of them are loss of control (spin/crash) or VFR into IMC.
@@applicablerobot Rotating a single rotor is not impossible, helicopters do it all the time. However like with everything there are trade offs namely speed as well as trade offs regarding carrying the weight of two systems if you want to fly fast and then hover etc.
@@Elios0000 with regular aeroplanes and helicopters they have the capacity to continue fly and land in the event of an engine failure. Aircraft that rely on props or fans for VTOL can't hence the need for multiple redundant systems in order to reduce risk.
Worked on too many STC's and mods, systems, and composites, watched entire first Raptor series, another over stated ambitious design that does not even comes close to the real world. Totally agree with Jon Beno's comment.
Sadly, I think this new aircraft's impact on the agriculture industry will be nearly the same as the last one.
hehe 😂
You mean impact on the corn yield?
@@DakarBlues the joke is less funny if you explain it to the plebian classes. 😂
@@andrewkirch5920 🤣 I know. But our friend has a knack for tackling herculean tasks, multiple challenges, weaving many unproven technologies at the same time. He is brilliant, but his approach is doomed to fail, unfortunately.
One breakthrough at a time is a good motto though 😢
@@DakarBlues I agree. The engine choice is interesting to me. Step 1 I think was integrating it into a Long-EZ and spending 250-500 hours in the flight levels validating it.
I admire your barnstorming spirit and tenacity, having watched Raptor since the beginning and always looking forward to each video....but this? You should have walked away from that corn field and never looked back...
Glad to see you back trying a new design. I wasn't sure how motivated you'd be after the first Raptor crash. Less motivated people would give up. I'm looking forward to see how this build goes.
Many years ago, when I was a young engineer, we had a guy like Peter, Grandiose, confident, and a very nice fellow, always great to have a sit-down with. Most of his concepts were no good, but on rare occasions, he would hit it out of the park. I suppose that is why my boss kept him around, or perhaps it was because of the son-in-law factor. 🤔 I enjoyed working with him (mostly).
I will give Peter a nine on the `Stick-to-it Scale', but as an engineer, perhaps a two, he still needs to learn that the cart goes behind the horse.
I wish him the best of luck; I'm looking forward to the You-Tube videos; I expect them to be entertaining; now, where are my Bourbon and popcorn?
Cheers
That is probably what your great grandparent told the Wright brothers. Yet here we are capable of flying Mach 2+ in many fighters and cross oceans in a mere 10 hours. Guess he liked humble pie as well. Its ambitious. Will it work? I do not know. But if he never tries who will?
@@photographyisnotacrime7300 you cannot get 1500lb of thrust from 120hp, I don’t care what kind of ambition you have.
@@superskullmaster Back of the napkin, agrees.
@@superskullmaster Basic momentum theory, T^3 = 2 · P^2 · A · rho, where T is thrust, P is power, A is swept area, and rho is air density can be solved for T = 1500 lb and P = 120 hp by using a sufficiently large value for swept area A.
@@jimml1938 I’m not a math person BUT if you could really get 1500lb of high velocity air from 120hp (as opposed to slow moving air like a helicopter rotor) then the big 3 would have been doing it long ago.
Let’s make a crazy project even more unrealistic.
Peter with your Raptor project you have embarked on a very challenging and expensive project. Many dreamers have given up long ago, I admire your persistence to keep on going. Beside that you and your CZcams followers have learned alot from this project and we thank you for this. Your new NG looks awesome but will require huge resources which you may not have. It comes down to the numbers. Unless your name was Howard Hughes, convincing a multinational to invest in this is extremely challenging.
My advice is get the raptor back in air. You have all the moulds needed to recreate and replace the damaged parts. Except that on this occasion replace that heavy Audi engine with an N57s BMW all aluminium block weighing less then 400Lb, have the PSRU bolted to the engine block and most important use electric constant speed. This one was your Achilles Heel…
Many if not most of us learned nothing from him, and he refused to listen o any of us engineers who tried to help him. He might as well been designing submersibles for Titanic dives
Peter, glad to see you back (like everyone else is). I'm a little more conservative than you. I might use your molds to build another CF fuselage (not enlarged). Then simplify the design to only have the 2 'fixed' thrusters (no nose thruster and no vertical lift). Fly conventional for the next prototype. This will give you performance and durability numbers on the generators and your thrusters. After having proved all this, it might be easier to go to Ford or some other manufacturer to agree to become a partner, etc.
The last two attempts to mass manufacture airplanes went really bad, the last one failed because there weren't enough costumers to justify it. Their business plan expected to sell almost the same as whole small airplane market that already existed. The first one didn't care to implement any strategy to mass manufacture it, just hired more people and bought more tools.
Yep and Maybe even some sales of the design...
The first design was ambitious but nice. This is unrealistic. It will not take off - figuratively or literally.
@@Svitjod1 He could either buy a kit and try to build only this powertrain or only build the airframe with an existing engine (with VTOL being a later development in both cases), but both and VTOL is way too much.
There is no new data here for a manufacture to invest in, until people quit crashing their cars leaving the dealers lot they won’t be manufacturing these.
Peter, no offense, but maybe you should get really good at Simple Planes first?
Just because you can CAD some overcomplicated and bloated whale up on your laptop doesn't mean that it's a good idea to start building it IRL.
And to say that anything about this will be "magnitudes of less complexity" is gonna end up on someone's headstone.
Sorry Peter, but it's painfully and terrifyingly obvious that you learned nothing from all the mistakes that were made with Raptor 1, EXCEPT, that you didn't go BIG enough with that failure.
I was so excited to see that you had posted a new video since I kinda figured that Raptor 1 had SURELY humbled you enough that your next project would've been more grounded in reality, but here we are.
Is this a grift? I can respect the grift. I can't respect someone that can't learn from mistakes so deadly that it nearly killed you every time you left the ground and then played it off every time like "nothing to see here folks. Everything is fine. Don't mind me yanking on the control stick like I'm 14 again". That's what I can't respect, Peter. Your lack of retrospect is gonna get you, or worse, someone else, dead.
Screw vertical takeoff/landing. Keep it as simple and reliable as possible. Big fan good luck!
I agree, keep it simple. Ax the vertical take off.
Peter- How many engineers do you have on your team?
Thanks for the update, very very interested developments. I am so looking forward to watching this evolve.
This is just full vaporware. The original had at least some possibility of existing.
Also does that gasoline motor even exist or is it also just a dream?
There's too much here that just isn't real yet. This would be a hard project for Lockheed Martin to succeed with, let alone an individual. Ducted fans inherently are very inefficient at high speed. This is just simply not going to work in multiple aerodynamic ways
I just told my kids two days ago that we weren't gonna get this plane. Now here you are with a better plane! Awesome!!
It all looked outrageously optimistic, then VTOL was introduced. :( I don’t understand why it needs to be SO ambitious.
Not only VTOL, but self delivering from Ford. And he didn’t even mention the best part…..the entire airframe is gluten free!
I want to make one thing perfectly clear to set expectations about my comment. I am absolutely not an aircraft engineer, nor do I even try to pretend to understand any of the mechanincs involved. I also want to say that I wish you the very best in this endeavour, and I really do hope that you do manage to make this work. Now unfortunately I have to somewhat bring my comment to what could be construed as negative. I followed the original Raptor project and watched all the videos, and I think if we're all honest conclude that the design of that was a failure. There is nothing wrong with failure, ultimately it's how we learn to succeed. My major concern with this new design is it seems even more ambitious than the original Raptor. While the CAD models and your ideas are very enlightening I wonder if you could elaborate some more on how your thought process has changed. More importantly what has brought you to the conclusion that this new prototype will succeed where the previous did not with the added complexity?
I was all in for the previous raptor until his ego got the best of him. Hopefully he can look back on that experience and learn from it or this is gonna be like watching a slow moving train wreck.
I followed the original Raptor design and always thought that the biggest issue were the manufacturing compromises that undermined the design. This unit needs to be built with those lessons in mind and hopefully as an autonomous system from the outset so that testing an unknow airframe and prolusion system does not become the issue it was with the previous iteration.
@@condor4679123 he's a one man show. The Raptor 1 was beyond his scope. Now he's went and gone full engineer team and manufacturing money behind him. Or so he thinks.
Autonomous is hard enough to achieve for the likes of Boeing and Northrop Grumman.....Peter is light years away from the ocean that those juggernauts swim in. I predict that either this will never make it outta CAD or it'll be changed so many times that it'll be just another Raptor 1 with the same mistakes.
The way he tried to down play everything and how he was so dead set on not taking any advice from guys that actually are engineers and build more complex machines than the Raptor 1 really left a sour taste in my mouth. That and I think he's a little too willing to put customers' lives in jeopardy so he can get this dream plane he's always wanted.
Either it's a grift or he truly believes that there were no mistakes with Raptor 1 except that he didn't go BIG enough.
@@BIGWIGGLE223 .. I do think Pete has shown a good deal of poor judgment on this and the previous project. Any investor worth his salt is going to watch through Pete's videos and see that at which point they will simply walk away.
I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and say he's not a grifter but rather a combination of ego, over enthusiasm and bad judgment and decision making has led to the failure of Raptor 1 and the over ambitions of Raptor 2 ..... he seems set on making the same mistakes and more again..
what sad about it all, was that the aircraft was 60% there. There were viable proven powerplants. . . this design obviously works, it's just a copy of Rutans design.
Dear Pete. The wheel has already been invented.
I actually really like the concept of this. Looking forward to the future development.
He obviously is not an adherent to the KISS principle 😂
The reason they can build F150s so cheaply is that they can spread the initial tooling cost over hundreds of thousands of truck. You're not going to have that much volume.
Millions of trucks…. AND they don’t make any money on sales, all the profit is selling parts….AND Peter is talking about 30,000 Raptors a year???? I don’t know if there are 30,000 aircraft sold world wide in a year??
There have been 44k Cessna 172’s manufactured in 68 years. There is no way he’s going to manufacture 30k aircraft in a year. First off there’s no market for that many. Secondly the FAA would never certify it. Auto manufacturers have a certain allowance for lemons cars that just aren’t up to standard that make it out of the factory. It’s a relatively safe margin because if a car breaks down on the highway they pull over and get it towed. Aircraft manufacturers don’t have that luxury and aren’t going to manufacture as many planes because their standards have to be much higher.
You do realise that you don't need to have an aircraft certified for it to sell and fly privately? Certification is for commercially used aircraft. There are a heap of aircraft that have been available for decades that still run under experimental registration.
Now I realize that you’re joking. You had me going for a bit there, thinking you were serious.
Hello, Peter! So glad you're back and with the creative juices are still flowing. Thankyou for once again sharing your dream. Exciting!
As soon as a nice renderings are accompanied by words like game changer and a lot of marketing bla bla the only question is if this raptor is going to eat corn or sugar canes
Creativity never does negativity.
Good on you mate! 👍
The claims are beyond what I would consider extraordinary.
Sign me up as the chief skeptic of a project that a team of 1,000 seasoned engineers with unlimited financial resources would struggle to achieve...... if at all.
Best of luck. Prove me wrong. I would LOVE to be wrong.
Some things to look at:
-Rutan's VariViggen sub-par handling and high angle of attack with canard and delta wing
-Ducted fan disc loading and hp loading
-90 hp with 1500 lb thrust seems unreasonable
-Ducted fan reliability on bearings and wheel wear and multiple fatigue/failure points of each and other parts of fan/motor
-Fuselage dimensions vs drag and weight. Cessna sold many airplanes with tight interior. Maybe copy Cirrus interior dimensions?
-30k airplanes a year seems highly unrealistic based on amount of pilots and then pilots who have 100k+ to spend
-Liability, development, testing, and FAA certification quagmire will eat up money and time
-Compare Ford pickup sheet metal thickness to Cessna sheet metal thickness. Semi-monocoque weight to monocoque weight.
-Look at FAA and other eVTOL manufacturers certification process and amount of new rules being currently developed along with proving of tech along with the number of employees, years of still being in development, and amount of money they have invested. Lilium is an example.
-Maybe keep it conventional in version 1 and then eVTOL later on?
-For a smaller private eVTOL market, a partnership with someone like Cessna or Piper might be more realistic since the money needed would have investors most likely require a proven airplane partner who knows the FAA process.
If he can simply get eTOL without the V to work with this design, I would be amazed.
90 hp is 67kW. 1500 lb is 6.68 kN Power = Thrust x Velocity 67/6.68 = 10.0 m/s 10.0 m/s is 36 km/h or 19.5 knots which is not a very fast flight. OK for initial vertical take off but a bit more airspeed means lower thrust. 90 hp will get 195 knots if the thrust is 150 lbs. I hope it is a success!
aim for the stars, you might just hit the moon.
Think big, then work from there bro.
GREAT to hear from you Peter! 👏👏 Wonderful news!
I'm afraid you're underestimating the software complexity of transitioning between the forward flight and hovering flight regimes.
Most commercial drone software either doesn't handle it or doesn't handle it well. It's possible that ardupilot has made progress in the last couple years though.
Plus drone software isn't human rated. The requirements for memory safety, redundancy/failover, and deterministic behavior aren't built in, and it might be easier to develop from scratch than retrofitting it.
Lol you sound surprised that he has under estimated this. Bloody amazing😅 couldn't build a normal plane properly so let's try something 10x more ambitious
@@nathanchalecki4842 I don't think we need to poke fun, he seems like a dreamer, an idea guy. We need these people very much in this world.
I used to be one of them, a decade of reality wore down a lot of it for me. I'm honestly impressed that he has held onto it this long.
I've also learned recently that it's really easy to miss the fine details that have a massive impact on the actual complexities involved in implementing something when you haven't worked in the particular field.
@@applicablerobot agree. We all dream. He is obviously incredibly intelligent and dedicated- but misguided. Imagine if he put his energy into something viable and used the many resources available (experts) to better the designs.
This might work out pretty good
If you attach it to the bottom of a blimp
I watched the rv6guy
Delighted to have you back Peter. Looking forward to some amazing adventures.
Hey Peter, great to see you back. Wishing you success in this new project and can't wait to see all the videos about it.
Peter, whatever you do, I will. Support you because you make me dream and that is real wealth. I want to sign up and send a deposit. Very few peoples get to dream because if is expensive and day to day life takes over. So really, thank you for making us dream.
Glad you’re back!!! Can’t wait to watch this build. Please keep the videos coming.
Nice to see you're still an enthusiastic engineer reaching for the moon Peter. Interesting juxtaposition between your decision and justification to go with tried and tested landing gear for all the right reasons, but then go for a batstuff-crazy non-tried, non-tested propulsion system - on top of the dubious-advantage box wing - with an oxygen concentrator thrown in, Oh and make it a three-ducted fan (ie non-survivable) VTOL just to throw in some major MAJOR complexity. More power to your elbow. We need people like you mining at the non-viable aeronautical coalfaces, because you never know what just might happen.
Oh and now you're talking about a novel IC engine....I'm loving the late night whiskey induced unfettered blue sky thinking.
I already have this RC airframe with a ducted fan buried on centerline, and was toying with the idea of making it VTOL.
Good to hear your voice. I work with electric drive designs and I'd be keen to see a significant amount of robustness and redundancy around the drive system.
One potential way to both generate interest and potentially start to test out software options would be to create a model for use within a flight simulator like X-Plane. Not only can X-Plane can provide a relatively high fidelity simulation, but the X-Plane community is filled with GA enthusiasts. If you shared a high fidelity model with the community there, it could potentially generate a huge amount of interest.
Very glad to see you back and the project not dead!
Oh come on.. VTOL! With a totally new fan design. This seems a bit mad but glad you're back.
You should pitch this to Honda Aircraft in Greensboro. Their engineers could probably use their software to see if it will even fly, maybe offer a sponsorship.
Great to have you back!! Exciting new concept too!
Welcome back Peter! Good to see you are back at it. I’d like to see observed performance data on the propulsion system.
Did you watch the other video linked in the description?
Instead of rollers, I wonder if Kaydon reali slim bearings have the proper RPM rating
@@RaptorAircraft I watched the thruster video, and there is no observed performance data - unless you can give us the timestamp ? All I saw was the modelling spreadsheet.
Welcome back. Perfect candidate and timing for an electric plane. Waiting for more 👍
Maybe you should finish the original Raptor! There’s a concept 😮
Great news Peter! And great to hear from you! Excited to learn more! 👏👏
Hi Peter. I was wondering if you could tell me your vitamin, supplement, essential oils, recreational medicine, etc regiment? I'm trying really hard to get to this level of engineering and calculations, but haven't been able to yet and am wondering if that's what could be holding me back. Thanks.
Nice to see you back.
What if Ford says no?
Watched the entire first series, and it was cool to see you working on the Raptor. However, if you failed to make a rather conventional aircraft work, how on earth would trying to make a much more complicated craft succeed? I personally believe you should not attempt this new design, and save your time for another endeavor. Just my 2 cents though.
On the vtol thing, where is the redundancy if one thruster fails? if you look at almost all vtol concepts they will have two thrusters on each axis, or multiple thrusters spread out to compensate if one fails. just three is not a good idea imo.
Waiting for the rc model if you do foolishly decide to proceed.
Good luck.
Glad to see you back with a new project, at least I can follow along from the beginning rather than having to bing watch about a years worth. Keep the content coming.
Great too see you still developing. I am looking forward to watching the progress!!
Great to see you back. Looking forward to seeing this new concept come to life🙏👏👊
Okay well it was fun hoping the raptor will still happen.... Now I can move on knowing it's just completely dead now.
Welcome back sir it's great to see new videos put out by you. I really love the new concept aircraft. And the new ideas.
I wasn't expecting that, glad to see an update - I actually looked for an update last week but there wasn't anything on your channel or website so this is good timing :)
I would think the best application this would be for powered lift device. It just seems that this would be a no-brainer for a VTOL.
Ducted fan OK but, VTOL as well seems overly complex
Welcome back my G!!
You were missed!!
EDIT: what are your plans for the prototype? My dream would be to complete that aircraft instead of a Velocity.
Great new concept, Peter. Wish you the best of lucks. I'm looking forward to seeing it take flight and actually fly one someday.
I could see myself flying this new Raptor if it all works out. I've always been crazy about the interior size.
The idea of Ford, on the surface is pretty good but they would have to build a whole factory just for this and all the equipment for it and then you've got the union labor and the union contracts.
Unfortunately this probably end up costing 3 to 4 times your estimate.
Keep working on it I love your videos.
Fun idea, but you are simply putting too many massive asks on yourself. Focus on the one thing you have that is yours - the ducted electric fan. If you can meet performance and reliability targets with that on a test stand, you have a chance of generating some interest and pulling in partners. The idea of Ford mass producing it is pie in the sky for several reasons. 1) They are in a fight to survive at the moment. They will be going through seismic changes and restructurings in the ongoing auto- electrification, and will not want to split their focus into completely new markets. 2) I doubt you have enough of a reputation to get a face to face with the level of person required to get any traction. 3) They are not an aerospace company, and have no current experience in aerospace. 4) As others have pointed out, the production revenue needs to offset the tooling costs which requires huge volume. 5) The big one - they are risk averse. What they are definitely _not_ going to do is spend a billion dollars building a factory, production line, tooling, facilities and creating a whole ecosystem of suppliers and required logistics setup for an unproven concept, by a guy who's last concept nearly killed him... twice.
Getting 1500 lbs of thrust from a mere 90HP seems like an incredible claim. A C172, with double the engine power, develops one third of the thrust.
I can imagine there are a bunch of improvements you can get over a C172, but a 500% improvement? Seems improbable.
Did you even watch the thruster video for a detailed explanation of how those numbers were arrived at? I'm guessing you didn't.
I will admit I have not watched the previous video regarding the fans however there is a very simple formula for converting HP to thrust at a known velocity.
HP = T * V / 375
Where HP is the horsepower
T is the thrust in pound-force
V is the velocity in miles per hour.
By this calculation you would require 1400hp to create 1500lbf thrust at the speeds you are considering. I can’t see how you could achieve the thrust you are claiming on 90hp. I would also recommend adding a support ring to the ID of the fan blades to tie them all together. There appears to be significant blade tip vibration which could result in fatigue failure of the blades.
@@RaptorAircraft is the thruster video on a different channel? This video is the only one I see on this one since last year
@@timaidley7801 czcams.com/video/Lrnu0-vL504/video.html Maybe you didn't see it above link.
@@RaptorAircraft I have now watched the video and to be honest it was a bit unsatisfying as it largely boiled down to 'I have a CFD that proves it', which reminds me rather of Fermat and his "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain".
Anyway, looking at your spreadsheet the 90hp row shows the mass of air you accelerate with your thruster - 18.6 cubic meters - and I was curious how much that air would have to be accelerated to produce the 1,500lbs of thrust. So plugging
force = 1500lbsf = 6670 Newtons
and
mass = 18.6 cubic meters * 1.3 kg (mass of 1 cubic meter of air at sea level) = 24.18
in to f = ma, we can rearrange the formula to a = f/m and get
a = 6670 / 24.18 = 275.8 ms^2
So that's accelerating all that stationary air to 615 mph.
The new kinetic energy of that air is given by K = 0.5 * m * v^2
K = 0.5 * 24.18 * 275.8 * 275.8 = 919633 m^s/s^2
The net work performed on the air in one second is therefore is 919KJ. How can that be only require 67KW of power?
Anyway, I'm rusty on all this stuff. I'd love for someone to point out where I've gone wrong here.
Quite an ambitious new design. I am quite interested to follow along.
Great to have you back Peter!
If the less ambitious design was flawed, this one certainly has me worried. But hey, it’s your life not mine. If you get a few million in funding and 5 or 6 more engineers you might have something that nobody will buy in a few years.
Glad to see you back
The calendar doesn't show April 1st yet, but I know this is a gag video!
Whaaaaat?! A new update?! I'm glad to see you're back!
As far as Ford getting into Aircraft business you might look into the Ford Tri-Motor a.k.a. the Tin Goose from the mid 1920's. Ironically this plan also has three motors one in the nose and two on the wings.
The first version didn't work as expected and now we've got a version with extra complexity and VTOL? The last plane weighed 3500 pounds, how is it going to develop more thrust than that for a reasonable amount of time?
Watching this makes me think of Jim Bede
That Raptor was a beautiful machine. Good to see the channel back, looking forward to loosing many hours enjoying the content again!
Peter glad to see you back at it. I like the ultimate design idea. I personally would love to have an aircraft like that. But just like your last design, you are embarking on an uphill battle with novel airframe, propulsion and software for certification. Doing it all at once without the right resources will take a long time. I am excited to watch this journey progress.
Here are my points to highlight:
Build a simplified prototype before trying to sell to manufacturers. They are going to want, if not need, that before they will do anything.
Don’t go to Ford! Unless they have an aviation division, there will be so much unexpected costs in the certification and manufacturing process, that it will go through the roof. Auto manufacturers will have a hard time understand aviation certification.
The one engineering company I know, they create a lot of STCs and know about certification process, is Consortia Aerospace Group. If nothing else they could be a good resource.
I don’t know if you heard of Liquid Piston. They are developing an engine that I think would fit this application perfectly.
I am an A&P in the airlines and I would be happy to offer my minuscule expertise, if an opportunity should arise. Keep it up.
Sounds great! Good Luck! Keep us updated. Thanks for your hard work.
I am impressed you are still trying to continue your efforts. An R22 with 25 foot diameter rotor needs 73 hp to generate 1375 lbs of thrust. With the shown diameter of fan I have doubts that you are able to make 1500 lbs of thrust on 90 hp. With respect to the lower doors of the nose fan, you should consider moving them for yaw control.
welcome back peter. good to see you.
Hey Peter,
Didn’t NASA testing find box wings to be super draggy? I think the advice on here to test one innovation at a time is wise. In your last project you didn’t follow conventional wisdom, which says to never combine a new airframe and a new power plant. It could have cost you your life…
I think you should consider designing this project in a modular way, which allows you to unit test innovations, one at a time.
I’m still rooting for you, but think there’s power in heeding some of the more conservative views on how development should be planned.
Steve
As an aviation outsider, the practical innovation is exciting.
As an entrepreneur I know the adversity you will face from the knay-sayers. Always best to find people who can grasp your vision and know how to take the next step.
Those who know the mine fields and the paths through.
Do not let those who get overwhelmed by the challenges you face to influence you.
Let in only those who see a way through.
Comments from the Internet are not the place to gain support.
I think you may need a prototype...
Glad to see you back, my friend!
I have to say I’m amazed at your enthusiasm. However I have my doubts.
Wish you luck tho!
I work as a stress engineer at a Tier 2 aerospace company. We had work on a certain eVTOL design with a flying (but not yet vertically) craft. We are no longer working with that company. If I understand correctly, one of the greatest problems resulted from the fact that the materials they used to build the prototype were not a certified material system, thus most of the engineering work on our side was redesigning the whole thing from materials that had established allowables and manufacturing methods. I think that if you're expecting to farm out work for mass production it would be wise to talk to the manufacturer as early as possible.
We are also interested in the CAD design. You could make regular videos of how you are doing the CAD design. I am sure many people will appreciate that and it could grow your channel.
FORD - Found On Runway Dead?
If everyone was to do what's being done in engineering, no change would be seen . Peter keeps on exploring which is a good thing. Maybe one day someone will take the idea ,polish it and make it possible to fly
While the concept is interesting, and I would like to see this succeed, I think you are being extremely naïve about this. First, FORD only functions because it sells huge numbers of vehicles every year. Now think about the difference between getting a drivers license versus a pilots license. Do you really think any significant percentage of the driving public / non-pilots are going to start flying around in these like the Jetsons? And if they did, do you really think the FAA is going to let these people just pop up from their driveway into Class B airspace? The only way this will work as you envision is if a system exists such that people can just enter a destination into a guidance system and the vehicle flies itself, while at the same time avoiding other vehicles. Yes, we are talking serious sci fi / in the future stuff here. And you of all people should know how slowly the government, and particularly the FAA, moves on this sort of thing. It seems like you are making the same type of mistakes as you did on your previous project - overreach. My advice, and from what I can see, the advice of many others, is to skip the FORD mass production and vtol stuff, and focus on getting a good aircraft out that enough pilots can afford to buy as EAB kit. You can always get it certified later on, and possibly do some of the other things as well, such as vtol. If you go for all these pie-in-the-sky things initially, you will probably go out of business or die of old age first. Remember, Amazon started off selling books online.
Not happening dude
Petrol-electric can be very heavy.
The Rolls-Royce EFanX jet-electric failed miserably, because the hybrid setup ended up being 4x the weight of standard jet engines. Rolls promised a 70% reduction in CO2, but ended up with a 400% INCREASE in CO2. And if Rolls could not make jet-electric work, why would Pete?
He needs to build the engine setup in a hangar first, as an iron bird, to see what the weight, power, thrust, and fuel consumption is.
R
Muller? Or Moller?
The Dyna-Cam engine was built in the 1940's. Very similar concept. It even has FAA certification. The engine never caught on and is a part of history now. BTW, screw VTOL and first make a successful aircraft. After that succeeds you can experiment with VTOL.
And here we have it, the best prototype/concept of a true flying car that I've ever seen. If we could get general transportation off the ground, and in the sky, travel would be transformed.
Love the way you think!!
I love that you took out the pressurization system and let people use a portable oxygen system as they see fit. While I do think you should stick to a conventional airplane for version 1 and then move to evtol, my largest concern is the protection from a catastrophic failure of the front fan. I'm sure you know turbofan engines in passenger planes have kevlar blankets to contain shrapnel. Keep it going!
Skip the plane, if you can achieve 1500 pound thrust from 90 horsepower you will make a billion dollars on the power plant alone.
Man that's a very interesting build! Good luck with it!
I like that you are pushing ideas and some of it I like, some of it I don't :)
Series electric drive might just be a good idea but but I would do a conventional ducted fan because the blades are in lazy tension, not standing and wobbling. I suspect such a rotor would be difficult to make reliable without vibration. By difficult I mean essentially impossible. similarly I would try a turbine generator instead of that very untested piston design that I'm sure has problematic forces in the design. A gas turbine can be very light, very simple, very power dense, runs on jetA and runs very high rpm which is ideal for electric generation. because speed translates to volts and volts are lossless while amps is where the losses are. high rpm is power density for electric motors. The ducted fans can also run high rpm. The big jet engine makers are thinking electric transmission in the future so that's pretty much the same idea. Could actually work.
However, as I recall your prior design already had a very wide cabin which resulted in slow flight, well below expectation so when I hear you say you have made it even bigger and you expect it to casually fly from LA to Hawaii, I'm guessing no :) If you get 25% of the way I'd be impressed. The speeds you have in mind are very unrealistic as well, I think you said 90HP, there is just no way it will do that. As for Ford building it, hard no :) they don't have the ambitious, inclination nor would it be viable for them. I agree with mass production and yes in ways a plane can be simpler than a car but you went with VTOL so no :) one does not simply do VTOL.
The box wing is a hard no, the chubby body, also no. 4000km range, no. You can do 4000km range but not in a chubby box, think glider/U2 configuration. Sleek with skinny wings and flying at high altitude, the higher the better. In thin air you get speed for free. A sleek teardrop shape lends itself to aerodynamics and a pressure vessel and as single piece composite structure. Yes you could stamp a plane like a car fab but a car maker spends about a billion dollars minimum these days to make a car with production facility. So stick to carbon fiber and I'd strongly recommend single piece fuselage with round cross section because then it can hold pressure while weighing next to nothing. Rutan designed planes for artistic reasons, not by engineering merit. Forget Rutan.
If you must have vtol why not just let the fans fly down behind the wing edge instead of through.
How are you funding all this? how do you have the time?
I also believe mass production mindset can make planes quite inexpensive but you are proposing a fairly complex craft while at the same time being cheaper than everyone else.
It's "ambitious". For instance you'll need custom power electronics to run the series electric drive. Think Tesla style complexity of products. Expensive to develop and produce. Not impossible but it's "ambitious".
I think first of all you need a better intuition of aerodynamics and the burden of weight. You can't just declare the cabin ever bigger and assume that wont affect its speed and range. There is a reason that the larger private jets use ungodly amounts of fuel. The plane needs to be much sleeker. And who said you could have a box wing? who? :) you can't. You can't just indulge whimsicle designs. Aerodynamics is your god. Lightness is your god. Zero vibration is your god.
Try building small models with same motor and see which one is fastest and flies the furthest. If this chubby box design is vastly worse than say a lancair design then learn from that. Hint Lancair is much better. Glider even better although a higher speed design will need shorter wings than the best gliders. But U2 is a guide. That was a transonic design flying at FL700 in the 50s. If your design can't beat that, it's not innovation.
You might take inspiration of body shape vs interior volume from the Celera 500.
I can't say I have high expectation of this project 😅
If you deliver on the claims it will be a great airplane. But that would be a big if. Like 4500lbs of thrust in optimal conditions for a 4000lbs (maybe if not overweight) airplane. Probably doesn't leave much room for non standard conditions...oh well dreams are nice.
This is a ground breaking design for a general aviation airplane. I love your concept, and to the best of my limited aviation knowledge there is noting on the market like this. I do wish you success on this project.
I think there's a very good chance it will be "ground breaking."
It seems you just want to sell another idea to investors who don’t know any better.
This idea is ludicrous. I’m sorry.
Missed you, Man! Hope the best for you!