Thoughts on Velocity aircraft

[steingar]

4 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Beucause of the terrible loss rate. 

That, and I think most of the losses have involved fatalities.  Thing lands at twice the speed of our Mooneys.  That's four times the energy, and no steel roll cage to protect the occupants.  With deference to our resident Lanceair pilots, I wouldn't take one for free on a dare.  Too much airplane for me.

[gsxrpilot]

26 minutes ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

Here is a really interesting development for this air frame.  Mark Manke and company at RDD (Mark worked on my plane in 1999 with me during my factory assist program as a Lancair employee) have developed a new wing and new tail for the plane, as well as incorporate the BRS recovery parachute in the LX7.  They are targeting the "new" Cirrus customer looking for more speed and pressurization with an equally safe airplane.  Preliminary feedback from insurance companies has been they will be near the same price point as the Cirrus fleet.  This thing stalls like a certified airplane, has 6 hours of range which can be done in pressurized comfort, and is probably 40-50 knots faster in cruise.

http://www.rddent.com/lx7.html

So you have to start with a Lancair IV-P and then add $599,000. But it's still interesting. I'd certainly have one before I'd have an M20V.

[Yooper Rocketman]

3 hours ago, steingar said:

That, and I think most of the losses have involved fatalities.  Thing lands at twice the speed of our Mooneys.  That's four times the energy, and no steel roll cage to protect the occupants.  With deference to our resident Lanceair pilots, I wouldn't take one for free on a dare.  Too much airplane for me.

85 knot landing speed???  I can't come close to 42 knots on landing (half the speed) with my Rocket.   Over the numbers at 100 knots, land at 85 with the IVPT.

Fatality rate has definitely been an issue.  If we sat down for a drink and I told you the accident details on some of them you would be amazed.

Tom

[zaitcev]

5 hours ago, steingar said:

That, and I think most of the losses have involved fatalities.  Thing lands at twice the speed of our Mooneys.  That's four times the energy, and no steel roll cage to protect the occupants.  With deference to our resident Lanceair pilots, I wouldn't take one for free on a dare.  Too much airplane for me.

What I saw of Lancair accidents was not very crashworthy. Two locals got low and clipped a low-tension power line 5 years ago. The second biggest shard after the engine was a seat cushion. Everything else disintegrated into pieces no bigger than a book. So I guess the rule of Lancair is "don't crash". As long as you don't crash one, it's a pretty hot little airplane. Also, don't skip maintenance. The airplane had issues with the fuel system. Steve Appleton crashed because of engine trouble, too.

[steingar]

4 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

85 knot landing speed???  I can't come close to 42 knots on landing (half the speed) with my Rocket.   Over the numbers at 100 knots, land at 85 with the IVPT.

Fatality rate has definitely been an issue.  If we sat down for a drink and I told you the accident details on some of them you would be amazed.

Tom

My Mooney stalls dirty at 49 knots, so very nearly half.  I doubt I would be amazed at the accident details.  One of these days we should meet in the middle for some brews.  Actually, at the speed of your Lanceair and my Mooney, I think the "middle" time wise would be Toledo.

[N601RX]

Anyone can work on a home built. The repairman certificate only allows you to perform the condition inspection only on that particular aircraft each year. Otherwise the person performing the inspection must be an A&P. 

[Yooper Rocketman]

4 minutes ago, steingar said:

My Mooney stalls dirty at 49 knots, so very nearly half.  I doubt I would be amazed at the accident details.  One of these days we should meet in the middle for some brews.  Actually, at the speed of your Lanceair and my Mooney, I think the "middle" time wise would be Toledo.

You're based at KOSU?   Toledo half way.........that's funny.   I get into KDLZ  occasionally to visit a good friend building a Lancair Turbine.  I'll give you heads up the next time and if it happens to be an overnight I can even have glass of wine !

Tom

[steingar]

Just now, Yooper Rocketman said:

You're based at KOSU?   Toledo half way.........that's funny.   I get into KDLZ  occasionally to visit a good friend building a Lancair Turbine.  I'll give you heads up the next time and if it happens to be an overnight I can even have glass of wine !

Tom

I know your good friend, and he flies an M20E, if I'm not mistaken.  If you make it down here wine and or beer is on me.  And dinner perhaps.  Not that I want to go pick out curtains or anything...

[rainman]

Raptor Aircraft (pressurized based on Velocity) will be having an open house this month. See their website for progress/details. Over 1000 refundable deposits already. 

[Yooper Rocketman]

Yep, Joe Trepicone.  He's been drooling over my Rocket for years and I finally got him to move up from his Tiger this past summer.  After my discussions with him during my transition training it became painfully evident a Mooney would be one of the best "pre-Lancair " airplanes.  It's amazing the amount of Lancair pilots that moved up from a Mooney.  Speaks volumes about our Mooneys.

Definitely take you up on dinner!

Tom

[mike_elliott]

On 10/4/2017 at 10:08 PM, rainman said:

Raptor Aircraft (pressurized based on Velocity) will be having an open house this month. See their website for progress/details. Over 1000 refundable deposits already. 

Here is the live stream from the Raptor openhouse today, will go dark at 1600 EDT. They calculate they are getting in excess of 400 HP out of the Audi with upwards of 550ft/lbs of torque

https://video.nest.com/live/aazlFTeZxj

 

[Guitarmaster]

Just left the open house. Very cool!

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[carusoam]

The hangar is dark after hours...

550ft lbs of torque is gobs of power.

The gearbox and prop will be important parts of the airframe / engine design.

Done properly, That would deliver 0 to flying in about 6-8 seconds..?

Matt, what did you see while you were there?

Best regards,

-a-

[DaV8or]

15 hours ago, mike_elliott said:

Here is the live stream from the Raptor openhouse today, will go dark at 1600 EDT. They calculate they are getting in excess of 400 HP out of the Audi with upwards of 550ft/lbs of torque

https://video.nest.com/live/aazlFTeZxj

 

OK, you go first. High stressed auto engine conversion on a plane that lands pretty fast and long. Too rich for me.

[mike_elliott]

You may have a point, we will see. After all, the way our certified, proven aircraft engines fail, especially at take off, there is probably no hope this unproven combo will even get off the dyno and out of the hangar  in spite of the Audi race teams proving the engine's high output reliability. Personally, I hope he succeeds, and by the look at how many deposits he has and the turnout on his web cam from his open house, so do at least 1000 others. After all, he will equip it with a Garmin, so there's that.

 

 

[aviatoreb]

2 hours ago, mike_elliott said:

You may have a point, we will see. After all, the way our certified, proven aircraft engines fail, especially at take off, there is probably no hope this unproven combo will even get off the dyno and out of the hangar  in spite of the Audi race teams proving the engine's high output reliability. Personally, I hope he succeeds, and by the look at how many deposits he has and the turnout on his web cam from his open house, so do at least 1000 others. After all, he will equip it with a Garmin, so there's that.

 

 

Yeah - race car engines only need to last a few hours before they fresh rebuild them for the next race.

Consumer engines are not really as tweaked as they could be.  I know my car engine, the Subaru wrx sti, is rated at 300hp, but you can buy software kits to up them to 350, and other stuff to up them to 600hp, and people do that - and you see a lot of used tricked-out wrx-sti for sale with new engines on them....

And car engines aren't meant to be run at even 75% continuously, but rather sort of a peak ten second thing for yahoos accelerating with your foot to the floor and otherwise they live a polite life churning like 50hp while cruising down the highway.

Airplane engines are really big - if they were steel and on cars, I bet a 300hp big conty would be mapped as a 750hp car engine, but as above, Peak power, for advertising rights.

For reliability, I wouldn't want a car engine tricked up to 400hp on my car, much less my airplane.

The best car to airplane engine conversion out there is probably the corsair engine.  It turns rather slower than most modern car engines, so it turns naturally at airplane rpms.  So no gear box is needed.  And also, then down-rate it - for reliability.  They are popular and considered an inexpensive and reliable alternative for homebuilders.

[mike_elliott]

48 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Yeah - race car engines only need to last a few hours before they fresh rebuild them for the next race.

Consumer engines are not really as tweaked as they could be.  I know my car engine, the Subaru wrx sti, is rated at 300hp, but you can buy software kits to up them to 350, and other stuff to up them to 600hp, and people do that - and you see a lot of used tricked-out wrx-sti for sale with new engines on them....

And car engines aren't meant to be run at even 75% continuously, but rather sort of a peak ten second thing for yahoos accelerating with your foot to the floor and otherwise they live a polite life churning like 50hp while cruising down the highway.

Airplane engines are really big - if they were steel and on cars, I bet a 300hp big conty would be mapped as a 750hp car engine, but as above, Peak power, for advertising rights.

For reliability, I wouldn't want a car engine tricked up to 400hp on my car, much less my airplane.

The best car to airplane engine conversion out there is probably the corsair engine.  It turns rather slower than most modern car engines, so it turns naturally at airplane rpms.  So no gear box is needed.  And also, then down-rate it - for reliability.  They are popular and considered an inexpensive and reliable alternative for homebuilders.

They wind up the Diesel Audi race engines to over 1000 HP and make them go all week plus the 24 hrs under full load. I would be impressed if a big conti could last 5 hrs if they wound it up to 750 HP, so instead, the 300 its rated at will go about 1K before the junk cylinders need to be redone. The audi engine's success will be determined on  how well they solve the cooling issues that they will face. 4000 RPM continuous should not present a problem with the gilmer style drive reduction, but we will see. Technology has come a long way since the Conti's and Lycs left the gleam of the designers' eye, as has metalurgy (got your ears on Lyc? those cams need a bit of attention in this area one has to believe)

[aviatoreb]

7 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

They wind up the Diesel Audi race engines to over 1000 HP and make them go all week plus the 24 hrs under full load. I would be impressed if a big conti could last 5 hrs if they wound it up to 750 HP, so instead, the 300 its rated at will go about 1K before the junk cylinders need to be redone. The audi engine's success will be determined on  how well they solve the cooling issues that they will face. 4000 RPM continuous should not present a problem with the gilmer style drive reduction, but we will see. Technology has come a long way since the Conti's and Lycs left the gleam of the designers' eye, as has metalurgy (got your ears on Lyc? those cams need a bit of attention in this area one has to believe)

Wow - that IS impressive.

I figure first thing if these conty/lyco engines we have were meant for cars is they would have steel cylinders and cases and so be heavier but stronger.

But they are old designs.  That wouldn't be anything anyone would do.

What I was trying to say mostly I stand behind, that whatever you put on your car may not be the same as you put on an airplane since that horse power rating is often 75% continuous power on an airplane, and on cars that it is just a need for brief peak power.  

Race cars I don't know anything about.  How much continuous power is that 1000hp diesel Audi engine producing on a continuous basis?  I would still guess it averages no more than 200hp during that 24hrs.  Just guessing a number out of the blue.

Edited October 22, 2017 by aviatoreb

[Jerry 5TJ]

Drag racing engines are V8 of about 500 cubic inch displacement. By burning nitromethane fuel they can produce over 6,000 hp.  Two or three runs -- 10 to 15 seconds total -- and it's time to overhaul.  

Certainly you can combine high power, light weight and reliability in a piston engine: Pick any two.  

 

 

[Guitarmaster]

19 hours ago, carusoam said:

The hangar is dark after hours...

550ft lbs of torque is gobs of power.

The gearbox and prop will be important parts of the airframe / engine design.

Done properly, That would deliver 0 to flying in about 6-8 seconds..?

Matt, what did you see while you were there?

Best regards,

-a-

I'm really glad they decided to do the open house.  There ware probably around 300 people there.

They had the prototype up on it's wheels and we got to sit in the cockpit and play a little.  

It's very wide in the cabin.  Very much like sitting in my 2015 Sierra HD.    You can see the Garmin g3X touch screens are far apart.  the GTN 750 is in the lower, center panel.  The oval thing is the climate control. 

The side stick will take come getting used to, but I like it.  There is enough space under the seats to place a carry-on size rollerboard leaving plenty of room for feet in the back.

This is the flying model.  

Nose gear area.

Back seat area

I talked quite a bit with Jeff.  He is the guy that used to work at Velocity.  One of the concerns I had was the canard in icing conditions.  I told him about my friend's Varieze and how it doesn't even like to fly in the rain.
The canard Rutan used was not the best.  It was good for speed, but nothing else.  The airfoil on the Raptor is a proven to work well in icing, rain, bugs.  In addition, Jeff was asked about flaps.  Basically, flaps load the canard creating a higher AOA and higher stall speed.  Since the canard will now stall at a faster overall airspeed, flaps defeat the purpose by which they were intended.  

The engine:

This is where there is alot of debate.  My personal feeling is, this is a good engine choice.  

When I first heard of the engine choice, I asked about it and specifically noted that car engines don't have a good track record in airplanes.  What I found out was, that os true of gas motors, but all the aviation diesels out there are automobile derivatives.  

I know diesel.  I tune performance diesel trucks.  I would have NO issue flying with this engine.  Here's why.

The Audi engine is not only a proven, reliable engine in automobile use, but also in marine use.  You can make an argument for the fact it doesn't work very hard in a car, but it does work hard in a boat.  In fact, it runs 75% and higher in a boat.  
In an airplane, we RARELY run and engine more than 75% power, even if you are turbo charged.  To say the 3.0 won't hold up to running 100% all the time is probably a true statement, but it never does.  If a Lyc or Conti engine was run at 100% power all the time, they wouldn't last long either.
A better test is, will it run at 75% power for four hour stretches with an hour rest time.  That would be more typical of a flight.  
When I tow with my diesel truck, I am towing at 75%+ power for hours on end.  Diesels like to work.  Gas engines don't.
With a diesel, there is a ton of low-end torque that is not available in a gas engine.  Also, the torque curve is relatively flat.  This means you could throttle the engine back at cruise, turn a big prop and really move out while barely taxing the engine.  In addition, if you are light, it is very feasible to do what the airliners do; derate your take-off power.
The main difference between gas and diesel are the internals.  They are much beefier then their gas cousins.

The Raptor is probably 70% done.  Their target date for the first flight is March. 

The prototype will probably be heavier than they originally planned, but as the production begins, Mark (the structural engineer) is going through all the parts  to see what can be made lighter.  

Overall, it is very cool to see the operation in person.  You can really see the planning and the CAD at work.  Glad I took the time to go down and see it in person!

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by Guitarmaster

[jetdriven]

The Audi R10 diesel race car is good for a weekend and 650HP, but this is from a 5.5L CRDI V12 twin turbo handbuilt race engine. Basically twice this engine size and it's a 3M a year race car program which lasts a weekend between overhauls. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI#Diesels_racing_at_Le_Mans

Raptor V6 engine is going to put out 15% more HP/L with a 1000-1500-2000 hour reliability. Suspend physics, maybe. 

I hope they don't plan on flying that plane with barbed hose bibs and automotive style hose clamps. That does happens  

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by jetdriven

[Guitarmaster]

Just now, jetdriven said:

Raptor V6 engine is going to put out 15% more HP/L with a 1000-1500-2000 hour reliability. Suspend physics, maybe. 

Not sure where you are getting the 15% more number.  They are targeting 550 lbft torque.  Not 650 HP.  At 550 lbft, it would be about 350 HP.  A number VERY achievable with longevity.  With a 1.3 reduction, it would produce ~715 lbft at the prop with 350 HP.  But that is at 100% power.  Right now, they are simply seeing what they can produce, then back it off to what they need.  So far, they broke the Dyno in the test runs.  

[carusoam]

First, suspend disbelief.

Second, Show some of the happy boat owners... 

I'm happy to watch somebody work hard to make this challenge happen.

Surprised the engine block isn't incorporated as part of the plane structure.  Putting all the eggs in one light basket...

Is there a plan B engine like an IO550 pusher there on a shelf somewhere?

Is the cabin so super wide a lot of hp is needed to push a huge flat plate through the air?

great Pirep...

The klapmeier brothers didn't have very much that was believable when their first SR20s were at the topsfield fare in MA...

tell us about the fuel burn and what fuel is it using?

unsuspend disbelief in five....four....three.....  

Best regards,

-a-

[Guitarmaster]

In talking with Jeff, it sounds like the next step with the engine is to run it on the test stand for four hours on and one hour off every day; don't know how many days.  
Granted, it doesn't take into account altitude, but it should be a good stress test that simulates a typical flight day.

Lots of details to work out, but if nobody ever challenged the norm, we would still be flying radials on airliners.  

This is the very nature of 'experimental' and I love it.  I hope it goes as advertised, but if not, I'll take my deposit back out of escrow and move on.  After all; nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

[DaV8or]

What is the supposed secret sauce to this airplane? I'm not seeing it. Why try to develop a power plant and an airframe at the same time? How is this better than a Velocity again?

Sorry for the skepticism, but in the 20 years I've been avidly paying attention to GA, I've seen lots of these start ups come and go, all with the same promise that they are smarter than the old folks with their aluminum and tractor engines because they have hi-def digital secret sauce and the computer generated images to prove it! The vast majority have failed.

This sounds and looks like more of the same. What's different this time around?