..and a jumbo tube of Testor's.

5.5psi doesn't sound like much until you realize that that equates to about 5000lb against a 2ftx3ft cabin door. Can the door of your airplane support the weight of a large SUV pushing it outward?

The door will be bigger than that, and you have to apply a safety factor for build variation and in service margin. So you are really looking at more like 15,000 lbs as the design goal.

Next, you have hot compressed air from the engines to pressurize the cabin so that means at least some precoolers if not some proper air conditioning system.

You are not making an airplane, you are making a little spaceship with wings.

Mike C.

The only way this is remotely possible is by massive economies of scale, which would allow for manufacturing tooling to produce the aircraft and engine at a very low cost per copy.

We just don't have a market for the kind of volume that would drive the price per unit production down.

If you were building 100,000 units per year at 250k each, that would be $25B in sales. Then you'd have a budget that would allow for millions of dollars of production equipment.

But you can't sell that many. Heck, knock it down to 100k units at $25k each, and you're still talking $2.5B in annual sales. If you can do that for 10 years, you can afford to setup a pretty good factory.

But even at $25k a plane, there's not enough market to absorb 100k units a year.

If we pretend that it gets close to the numbers claimed. I think this is basically proof of concept. Build a prototype showing performance, have 1000+ deposits. They need someone that can help ramp up production, so an investment group will buy a large stake. The investment group will take over and the price would go to $300,000+.

I had been thinking, since there's no risk, might as well put a deposit in escrow. If the airplane doesn't live up to my requirements in any way, I'll just bail out and get my money back, minus the $65 escrow fee. At least that's how it's been presented; no risk, right?

Well, after looking more closely into the escrow process, I'm not convinced my money would really be protected. It's set up as a "Milestone Transaction" but there is no definition of the "milestone" in the transaction details. Also, Escrow.com tells me they do not provide escrow service for transactions regarding deposits of any kind. So, it seems to be he's violating their TOS, here: https://www.escrow.com/escrow-101/terms-of-use

Doesn't prove that it's a scam for sure, but it's enough of a red flag to make me walk away.

I'm still going to follow their bi-weekly YouTube updates. It will be interesting to see where this whole thing goes, watching safely from my laptop screen, with my money still in my account.

That is $290K and 3000 hours.

Tim

The Velocity is glass, the Raptor is carbon. That alone will raise the price significantly. So will the systems, seals and beef up of pressurization. And every certified diesel aircraft engine costs way more than the equivalent piston. (When a 180 HP Lycoming was less than $30K a 155 HP diesel was almost $90K, although that included a prop.) No, the Audi engine doesn't have the cost of a certified engine but it doesn't have the reliability of one either, and raising the reliability will raise the cost. Bottom line for the Raptor is going to be a lot more than the Velocity, like twice as much.

Curiosity getting the best of me, I did a little research on carbon fiber cost.
Assuming the Raptors gross weight is 1/4 carbon fiber, the added cost of material over fiberglass is less than 5000 bucks. It could be half that. As it takes less than half the weight of carbon for the same strength and rigidity as glass.

Don’t forget the autoclave and associated mfg increases

Don’t forget the autoclave and associated mfg increases

A little more research shows that autoclave is not required. There are several methods including hand layup and ambient curing, just as in fiberglass.
I have done a little of this on my boat. It is dry to touch overnight , fully cured in about a week.
I grew up in the tobacco fields, and old tobacco barn combined with vacuum bagging could give the 250 degrees normally used in carbon epoxy cure.
I think they can do it for not a significant cost over glass, and obviously the believe as well.

Problem with the barn is not consistent. For tobacco that is less of a concern. For the curing epoxy, this is critical.

Tim

This is so painful to watch, but like a car crash, I can't seem to look away

Maybe this is just internet Trolling. Heck we have the Epic and Evolution which really are flying, great ideas, and hoping to make a profit at 1.5-3 mil, one is dead, the other still a question mark with millions of dollars of backing, and this plane will outperform both for 1/10th the cost.

can't believe this is still being discussed

they will sell fewer of these than velocity has of their canards

insurance rules the buyers markets because it controls the money (financing) options

it will be years after the first flight before insurance is offered on these raptors