Inexpensive Jet ??

[TBoone]

Does this make $en$e?

https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/who-says-a-jet-cant-be-cheap-24547164/

 

-TBoone

Edited May 14, 2020 by TBoone

[tmo]

Why not get one that actually exists as opposed to CGI eye candy.  Remeber the Raptor or the Pipistrel Panthera (from people who build quite successful ultralight planes - a couple at our field, and the owners love them).

[N201MKTurbo]

You can buy a jet warbird for an amazingly cheap price if you shop around. You can buy an old bizjet for an amazingly cheap price.

But then you have to operate the things! Jets are crazy expensive to operate! 

They look great parked on the ramp outside of your hangar.

[tmo]

23 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

They look great parked on the ramp outside of your hangar.

That is assuming you are willing to keep them clean and shiny ;-)

Then again, if it's just a ramp decoration, gratuitous power washing with some heavy duty NAPA stuff won't take much time...

That said, that Sonex doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive to run.  A L39 will, by the nature of things military.

[tigers2007]

I wonder if [mention]Yooper Rocketman [/mention] could chime in here regarding a tuned turbine. Is his Walter flamethrower specifically tuned for ops under FL280?

[Ibra]

Without taxpayer funding, only jets that are easier to maintain are these, they may cost more than warbird jets sold on the ramp but they make similar noise and run cheaper:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/562950022143128062/

Edited May 14, 2020 by Ibra

[jetdriven]

2 hours ago, philip_g said:

raptor, v.2.0

 

outlandish claims that will never be met.

The Raptor had a 100 page thread on Beechtalk.  It boiled down to two camps, engineers, experienced pilots, and math guys saying there is NFW the thing can deliver half whats promised, and its a paper airplane. The other side had the faithful. no amount of science ansd engineering could convince them. It kind of mirrors current events, in a way.

[tigers2007]

“Sure, every jet flying today gulps prodigious amounts of fuel when going low and slow. But that's because they were all designed to run high and fast. The secret, Merrill says, is to simply optimize the configuration of an engine's turbines, compressors, and fan for, say, 250 mph at 15,000 feet instead of 500 mph at 40,000 feet. "It's not rocket science," he says. "My engine technology and materials are basically 1960s.”

I don’t buy this. If it was truly possible then all of the propjet powered package and passenger schleppers would have been “fine tuned” for the low altitudes. I’d say that most spend their entire careers below 280. Think about the freight expediters in B1900’s and Merlins and all of the Dash series.

[N201MKTurbo]

Seriously, the words inexpensive and  jet don't belong together.

[gsxrpilot]

That Darkaero group seems to be building a two seat Mooney. Any J, K or M can probably do what they're airplane is supposed to do.

[aviatoreb]

March 2008?  Where is it?

The art looks cheesy low end even for vaporware standards.

I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell.

And I am going to build a 3 seat jet that goes 375TAS on 18gph, and its going to cost $85k, or $91k with FIKI de-icing.  And it will have an expresso maker.

[Ibra]

7 hours ago, philip_g said:

outlandish claims that will never be met.

No issue with outlandish claims, it is very good: I can imagine one saying same for doing 200mph on 200hp (M20J ) but at least someone showed they can do 120kts on 65hp few years ago...

Raptor comes out of nowhere down production lines or serial numbers: scratching IPads, taking deposits and now selling big dreams
 

29 minutes ago, philip_g said:

Cruise 275mph? Yeah no

NFW ! even if they find "magic engine & material", they will never get it certified to cruise at 275mph with 23lb/ft^2 wing load (max VNE they get is 240mph no engine dive at those loads, also even if they show that airframe sticks together 15% past VNE, slightest turbulence will get you past 20Gs at 275mph with 1500lbs on 66ft^2 wing area ) 

Only pilots with parachute & no teeth dare to fly at 275mph on 1500lbs/66ft^2 load, the other pilots will chicken out well before losing their teeth...
Surely a demo ride will deter most of your investors when you go above 180mph 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Ibra

[Andy95W]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

March 2008?  Where is it?

The art looks cheesy low end even for vaporware standards.

I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell.

And I am going to build a 3 seat jet that goes 375TAS on 18gph, and its going to cost $85k, or $91k with FIKI de-icing.  And it will have an expresso maker.

And this:

 

[cferr59]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

March 2008?  Where is it?

The art looks cheesy low end even for vaporware standards.

I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell.

And I am going to build a 3 seat jet that goes 375TAS on 18gph, and its going to cost $85k, or $91k with FIKI de-icing.  And it will have an expresso maker.

I don't want your crappy jet.  I am building one that goes 500TAS on 10gph and is cheaper than a Mooney that hasn't flown in 10 years.

[EricJ]

The Moller Skycar was in active development for more than thirty years.   Its great success was in sucking a lot of investment money out of many people during that time.

That's the main product of many of these efforts; stock certificates.

 

[cferr59]

14 minutes ago, EricJ said:

The Moller Skycar was in active development for more than thirty years.   Its great success was in sucking a lot of investment money out of many people during that time.

That's the main product of many of these efforts; stock certificates.

 

Imagine if everyone had a flying car...  There would be tons of shoddily repaired flying cars out of annual with people who barely know what they are doing flying them around.  And a non-trivial percentage of them would be drunk.

[afward]

5 hours ago, philip_g said:

I've followed the build vids on youtube, they're downright scary. nothing is engineered it's just thrown together, all the hardware comes from mcmaster carr, no aviation hardware, the control system has been bodged together 3 different times, right now empty it's 300 or something pounds below mas gross. No amount of reasoning will convince them.... All the knowledgeable people that started on the project left and only the founder has been working on a lot of the major systems.

Scary is right...  Looks nice, roomy, appears to have "good" power, but soooo many little (and not so little) decisions that are of questionable correctness.  Watching it rock back and forth during high speed taxi due to aileron imbalance (and control slop) was genuinely painful...  I foresee a BRS deployment prior to the end of the test flight regimen, and I hope they didn't screw up the FEA analysis (and later modifications) on the parachute attach points in the process...

[Hank]

2 minutes ago, afward said:

Scary is right...  Looks nice, roomy, appears to have "good" power, but soooo many little (and not so little) decisions that are of questionable correctness.  Watching it rock back and forth during high speed taxi due to aileron imbalance (and control slop) was genuinely painful...  I foresee a BRS deployment prior to the end of the test flight regimen, and I hope they didn't screw up the FEA analysis (and later modifications) on the parachute attach points in the process...

Like the Experimental whose NTSB report stated that the seat belt attach points were held to the fuselage by only a single layer of fiberglass cloth and resin . . . . But it was lightweight and looked good.

[carusoam]

Other than the hundreds of technical details....  (just brush these aside for a moment...)

The Raptor project went on hold, awaiting some personnel to perform the test flights...(?)

Could be a long Corona wait... 

While we are waiting for the next crop of low cost, experimental planes, that perform better than a Mooney...

Hey, how ‘bout them Red Sox?...  

Best regards,

-a-

[carusoam]

13 hours ago, TBoone said:

Does this make $en$e?

https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/who-says-a-jet-cant-be-cheap-24547164/

 

-TBoone

Simply....   no.
 

Or....

Unfortunately...  no.

 

Or...

Any way you look at it... no.

 

It is a two part project...

• Airplane design
• Engine design

 

It requires a huge amount of intelligence and experience to put these together...  Followed by a company of people to build a commercially viable second one to sell...

Around here we are often challenged by getting a good PPI before buying an existing proven plane... with a known engine and prop...

$o... if it$ only a financial question...  no.

For a more interesting YouTube presentation... watch the Patey brothers build airplanes...  Draco, Scrappy, and that other race plane...

Don’t get the feeling that the dream is dead...  get the feeling that the dream takes a whole lot of work and money... 

Then you have it... a fast plane, a reliable engine, a really cool looking prop... or  turbine pod... are you ready to talk about insurance?

Go Mooney!

-a-

[afward]

Just now, Hank said:

Like the Experimental whose NTSB report stated that the seat belt attach points were held to the fuselage by only a single layer of fiberglass cloth and resin . . . . But it was lightweight and looked good.

Yup!  I don't know the report in question, but it doesn't take much to imagine.  Sadly.

There's some really great stuff done in the E-AB world (a certain Lancair IV-PT on these forums comes to mind), but not just anyone can achieve that level of safety or quality.  Most don't have the budget or patience (and it takes both).

Just now, philip_g said:

The scariest is that gear reduction belt drive. He has one half mounted to the engine mount and the other to the engine which is on fluid mounts so the two halves can move independently and he wonders why the belts shred

Huh, I missed that detail somehow...  Yeah, that pretty bad.  I especially love that it's exacerbated by the fact he absolutely refused to put a fence on the re-drive pulley to keep the belts in place.  Actually, speaking of the re-drive, who doesn't love that it's been fully redesigned at least twice?  Third time's a charm, right?

/me takes a deep, cleansing breath...

Back to planes that makes sense...  Now if only the weather would cooperate this weekend!

[Yooper Rocketman]

10 hours ago, tigers2007 said:

I wonder if [mention]Yooper Rocketman [/mention] could chime in here regarding a tuned turbine. Is his Walter flamethrower specifically tuned for ops under FL280?

Mine is tuned for FL 280.  300 knots (give/ take 10 knots depending on temps) on 30 GPH.  Not exactly real efficient but then neither was my 305 Rocket.   I’m a pretty well documented “Speed Guy”.  
 

Tom

[aviatoreb]

22 minutes ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

Mine is tuned for FL 280.  300 knots (give/ take 10 knots depending on temps) on 30 GPH.  Not exactly real efficient but then neither was my 305 Rocket.   I’m a pretty well documented “Speed Guy”.  
 

Tom

:-). Well yeah - you have proved that even a garage-built kit can go 300kts with a big enough engine. 

But these guys have promised us 270mph on 12gph.  All for $150k.  Now were' talking!

[FoxMike]

Inexpensive Jet?  Their is no such thing.  Low price= High deferred maintenance.

[jaylw314]

3 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

:-). Well yeah - you have proved that even a garage-built kit can go 300kts with a big enough engine. 

But these guys have promised us 270mph on 12gph.  All for $150k.  Now were' talking!

At those speeds, the power requirement is almost entirely from parasite drag.  It's already clear that piston-prop aircraft motors are already some of the most efficient heat motors in common use (and near the practical thermodynamic maximum), so it's hard to imagine any other motor/propulsion system will do better than a Rocket (or @Yooper Rocketman's slippery Lancair, for that matter) at those speeds.