You are the one that jumped into this thread... Don't be offended if someone has an opinion on a failed project.
Those videos are still being produced, and we, as a group, can look at those, and have opinions.
Fly Raptor, Fly to the numbers that you are supposed to fly to.

10/13...and #3 is kind of an outlier (doesn't really fit with the others), so 10/12 for the impromptu "skills test". I'll probably knock out my CFI/CFII in a few years when I'll be more actively able to use it, so that'll likely get me some spins in for 11/12. No real desire to manage employees, but that's just a personal thing...so I'll be content at missing one.

There's definitely a lot of varied background on here, in a good way...similar with the crew over at HBA - it's interesting to read the banter on the turbos from RV6guy directly.

I am good on 10/13 also. Help me out on line 4 and 5 please.

It's missing the point to argue whether the Raptor will ever make its predicted numbers or whether the critics were right from the beginning, although it won't and they were. The project is a business venture, the goal has always been to sell enough kits to at least recoup the money spent developing it. Clearly that won't happen. It's possible a few hardy souls could actually take delivery of this sow's ear of a kit, just for the challenge, but not more than a handful. Judged as a business, its stated goal, it's a smoking crater.

Matt, I am genuinely curious...

Do you find it more intriguing to consider why folks resort to ad hominem attacks when confronted with uncomfortable truths,

1.) TAM is an anchor financial/accounting term used by sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, family offices and venture capital funds when evaluating the total revenue a prospective business would be capable of generating if they completely saturated the market with 100% penetration and were able to maintain forecasted margins. It stand for, “Total Addressable Market.”

I found it humorous to include because the smartest SpaceX critics (who occupied a vast vast minority of them as a segment of that particular population and where populated by the likes of Tren Griffen who was both an early Microsoft Employee and deeply involved in Paul Alan's Stratolaunch Systems Corp as well as many other space ventures) correctly pointed out that even if Musk was able to reduce the dollar per kilogram to LEO (Low earth orbit) lift cost by a factor of 10 (Which Musk has exceeded) the total lift market revenue was not enough to recoup the R&D let alone the CAPEX (Capital expenditures) and OPEX (Operational expenditures) required to operate SpaceX without gargantuan federal subsidies. This explains why before SpaceX NASA, Roscosmos, CNSA and the ESA, etc. have all needed federal money to even exist.

What Tren and a few other people failed to realize is by dropping the LEO lift dollar budget by an order of magnitude or more it completely redefined the landscape in regards to what was possible when evaluating dollars generated versus kg lifted to LEO or beyond.

Enter Musk’s Starlink. “Everyone” knew if you could launch a LEO satellite based, low latency, high bandwith internet service you could make 100’s billions in potential revenue. The trick was how to get it manufactured cheaply (They vertically integrated everything) and launched affordably. (SapceX)

2.) The Mandelbrot set is a mathematical fractal. A fractal is a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Why it is important in regards to aerodynamics, and specifically modeling bounded air flows (such as when one side is bounded, (or defined) by airflow over the surface of a wing or the tube wall of a pipe that water is flowing through)) is that the whole set repeats when enough scale is viewed, but individual portions are governed by chaos theory. This is exactly what happens in non laminar airflow. (think vortices) All of our current computer fluid flow simulations are based on a set of equations that were created in the early 1800’s by a French mechanical engineer named Claude-Louis Navier and an Irish mathematician named Sir George Gabriel Stokes.

Think about the implications of that for a minute.

The reason is chaos theory makes it impossible to predict exactly where the boundary fluid flow area transitions from chaotic turbulent flow to calculable laminar flow. This also explains why there is a now famous (in some circles) youtube video of an MIT professor explaining (incorrectly) how lift is generated by a wing (And the porfessor’s explanation was better than most CFI’s explanations and 99% percent of pilots… but still dead wrong)
3.) I waited for a few of my “best and brightest” critics to reply first.

It gives some resolution to the macro understanding of who thinks what and why.

And who says what and why…

and most importantly what that really means.

In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar, "It's a trap!!!"

In the immortal words of Thufir Hawat, "The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence."

Good grief. To Beechtalkers looking for a stellar example of how to ramble on like an insufferable twat, I present you Chris Close!

I truly hope that you are not trying to compare this bird with SpaceX ventures...
Just because one makes claims, it does not mean they can achieve it...
Space X , JPL... yes, they have a lot of money, but they have really smart people working there.
Really smart people.
Money is not your issue.

Wow, the guy who brings up TAM doesn’t even understand it, and we are talking about a very basic business term, which is NOT used in accounting!

Here is a clue, TAM, SAM, and SOM are all about market size measured in terms of revenue (mostly) or volume (occasionally). Total market or potential market, the portion of that that your company can address (can you sell your product or service in China, or is it North American only?) and the sub portion that is obtainable.

Margins don’t come into play in TAM, but might be considered in deciding what SAM you will target and what SOM you can achieve profitably. But, again, they are all measure of market size, not margin or profitability.

For the Raptor, TAM might be the total kit plane market. SAM is going to be limited to countries where a 3000 plus pound AB Experimental is legal and where he can ship kits. The killer is SOM. What is the obtainable market for a 5 place kit plane with the performance numbers of the Raptor at its price point and with its build requirements.

This is what I touched on yesterday. Ignore the issues achieving the performance numbers for a minute. The only 5+ seat kit plane I can think of is the Velocity XL or closely related VTwin series. They don’t seem to be selling a large number. The closest comparison for a pressurized high speed cross country platform is the out of production Lancair IV-P series which I believe totaled under 300 airframes since the early 1990’s. The market is small! If he can’t get the performance high enough, his market share of a small market will be zero. Even if he achieves decent performance, some builders are going to be more comfortable with the RV-10 or Velocity XL. So what do you think the REALISTIC market share will be for the Raptor assuming it ever makes it to market?

I don't know how well-known he is outside of French-speaking circles, but I am sure Franck will agree with me when I say that you would enjoy reading Molière's "Les Précieuses Ridicules", "The Absurd Précieuses" or "The Affected Ladies".

Not only is it extremely well-written, as always with Molière, but strangely appropriate with regards to this thread, thus still relevant to this day

How ironic

Here’s another Venn diagram: circles for people who have:
1)trolled BT once.
2)trolled BT twice.
3)trolled BT three times.
4) don’t have a pilot’s license in the US.

Stuart, hopefully you won't kick people out of BT because of #4
I am not sure mine is still valid...

TAM
airline in Brasil
Usually nice scenery on board. Akin to southwest in the 1970's

That brings back memories... ( As kids, we were forced to read and recite Molière)
I love Moliere, and his views
Funny how accurate his writing is into today's society. 300 years later, and the same things apply...

Tomorrow we will do La Fontaine. Remember, by heart, mon ami!