I enjoy getting their 5-10 minute video update about twice a week.

Like most of you, I still feel this project is "Too good to believe", but man, they are putting in a ton of work to see this project to fruition.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, once they get (or if they get) a flyable version and release the specs.

I enjoy getting their 5-10 minute video update about twice a week.

Like most of you, I still feel this project is "Too good to believe", but man, they are putting in a ton of work to see this project to fruition.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, once they get (or if they get) a flyable version and release the specs.

What "incredible amount of work" are you referring to?

Where I have suspend belief is some of the math just does not make sense.
e.g. a 15% drag reduction compared to Cirrus, does not give you an increase of 15% in speed.
They are predicting a BSFC which is better then the car engine gets in normally daily driving....

Tim

Where I have suspend belief is some of the math just does not make sense.
e.g. a 15% drag reduction compared to Cirrus, does not give you an increase of 15% in speed.
They are predicting a BSFC which is better then the car engine gets in normally daily driving....

Tim

What "incredible amount of work" are you referring to?

Where I have suspend belief is some of the math just does not make sense.
e.g. a 15% drag reduction compared to Cirrus, does not give you an increase of 15% in speed.
They are predicting a BSFC which is better then the car engine gets in normally daily driving....

Tim

Equality 7-2521 writes from the forest to which he has fled that he has abandoned hope and believes he will sleep on the grass for a few days until the beasts come to eat his body. He feels that he has aged a lifetime in this day. He recounts the events of the day: he is able to walk right into the meeting of the World Council of Scholars because there are no guards to stop him. The first thing he notices is the sky shining in the windows and a painting on the wall, depicting the twenty men who invented the candle. The shapeless forms of the scholars are huddled around a long table. As he enters, the scholars turn to him, but they do not know what to think. He addresses them in a loud voice and in greeting.

Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the scholars, asks Equality 7-2521 who he is, and Equality 7-2521 gives him his name and tells him he is a street sweeper. The scholars are angry and scared that a street sweeper should have interrupted their meeting. Equality 7-2521 stops their murmurs by telling them he has brought them the greatest gift ever presented to mankind, and they listen to him while he tells them the story of the invention of the lightbulb, the tunnel, and his incarceration in the Palace of Corrective Detention. The scholars hear out his story, but when he lights the lightbulb, they become terrified and huddle against the walls, trembling together. Equality 7-2521 laughs at them and tells them that he has tamed the sky for them and has presented to them the key of the earth.

Collective 0-0009 lambasts Equality 7-2521 for breaking all the laws of their society and even boasting of doing so. The other scholars begin slinging insults and threats at Equality 7-2521, telling him they will have him burned at the stake or lashed to death. Equality 7-2521 tells them he does not care what they do with his body but that he wants them only to protect the light. The scholars tell him that what is not achieved collectively cannot be good and what is not thought by all men cannot be true. They tell him that there have often been scholars who thought they had brilliants ideas, but when their brothers voted against them, they abandoned their work. They worry that the light will ruin the Department of Candles, which was only recently established and took great labor to be ratified, and that it will ruin the plans of the World Council, without which not even the sun can rise. One scholar concludes that if the light lightens the toil of men, it is evil because toil is the end for which men exist. The scholars conclude that the light will be destroyed.

Equality 7-2521 cannot abide the destruction of the lightbulb, so he grabs his invention and flees the council. He runs blindly until he collapses and discovers he is in the Uncharted Forest, where he supposes he will die alone. He realizes, however, that he had been lying to himself, that he did not create the light for his brothers but rather for its own sake. He does not regret building the light and pursuing his scientific discoveries, though he wishes he could see the Golden One again.

“[I]f this should lighten the toil of men . . . then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men.”

Mark,

No one actually knows: they do not have a flyable prototype.

Maybe flyable this year, maybe next.

I find the premise of this airplane to hard to believe, but I root for them, as they would be a game changer.

Frank

Actually, a lot of the concepts, manufacturing processes, weights, airfoils and other items have been resoundingly commented on few other aviation forums, with many aeronautical engineers. The end consensus has been they are a little optimistic, but not crazily so.
Where the disconnect with reality seems to be completely centered on the power plant, expected power and finally the drag comparisons.

Tim

High HP auto conversions have never ended well in experimental aircraft.