I understand your point of view. And he should be congratulated for taking on a project of that scale. Also, I think that he is very smart, no question about it.
The problem for me is when you start making claims about what you are going to achieve and you take money from people... That is the issue for me. His claims are ridiculous. So he is either a dreamer, or a swindler... But those claims are just setting him up for failure.
The project is great, as far as I am concerned.
But:
He should have developed those concepts one at the time.
The air frame needs to be proven first. This is a plane and It needs to fly.
Then I would have developed the engine. Lots of potential issues there. Great concept though.
Then I would have gone for the pressurization,
Then for ice
So the weight would have increased in stages, and would have been more manageable.

But now, the ways it stands, he is going for the entire thing at the time.... The potentials of failures are astronomical... And not being to learn from failures, since he will not be able to see what went wrong when that thing comes crashing down in the pattern.

Big companies, with very smart people take a long time and a lot of failures to develop new concepts.

What is that saying about studying history?

Feynman on the shuttle disaster -
"The usual way that such engines are designed (for military or
civilian aircraft) may be called the component system, or bottom-up
design. First it is necessary to thoroughly understand the properties
and limitations of the materials to be used (for turbine blades, for
example), and tests are begun in experimental rigs to determine
those. With this knowledge larger component parts (such as bearings)
are designed and tested individually. As deficiencies and design
errors are noted they are corrected and verified with further
testing. Since one tests only parts at a time these tests and
modifications are not overly expensive. Finally one works up to the
final design of the entire engine, to the necessary
specifications. There is a good chance, by this time that the engine
will generally succeed, or that any failures are easily isolated and
analyzed because the failure modes, limitations of materials, etc.,
are so well understood. There is a very good chance that the
modifications to the engine to get around the final difficulties are
not very hard to make, for most of the serious problems have already
been discovered and dealt with in the earlier, less expensive, stages
of the process.
The Space Shuttle Main Engine was handled in a different manner,
top down, we might say. The engine was designed and put together all
at once with relatively little detailed preliminary study of the
material and components. Then when troubles are found in the
bearings, turbine blades, coolant pipes, etc., it is more expensive
and difficult to discover the causes and make changes. For example,
cracks have been found in the turbine blades of the high pressure
oxygen turbopump. Are they caused by flaws in the material, the effect
of the oxygen atmosphere on the properties of the material, the
thermal stresses of startup or shutdown, the vibration and stresses of
steady running, or mainly at some resonance at certain speeds, etc.?
How long can we run from crack initiation to crack failure, and how
does this depend on power level? Using the completed engine as a test
bed to resolve such questions is extremely expensive. One does not
wish to lose an entire engine in order to find out where and how
failure occurs. Yet, an accurate knowledge of this information is
essential to acquire a confidence in the engine reliability in use.
Without detailed understanding, confidence can not be attained.

A further disadvantage of the top-down method is that, if an
understanding of a fault is obtained, a simple fix, such as a new
shape for the turbine housing, may be impossible to implement without
a redesign of the entire engine."


From - https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/mi ... ndix-F.txt

Are you comparing the R&D power of the Nasa with this dude?

No. Bottom up or component design, vs top down design.
Essentially what you have described.

Even with NASA’s R&D power top down doesn’t work.

No. Bottom up or component design, vs top down design.
Essentially what you have described.

Even with NASA’s R&D power top down doesn’t work.

Very true.

Test pilots!

Now he’s re-working the ailerons. The bouncy-ness is a no fly item. Who would have guessed....

I have concerns about the re-drive. Specifically the belt wandering.

Finally, the fuel header and extra intercooler.

When the pump runs to pump fuel though the intercooler, it pumps from the header tank back to the main tanks. And it pumps out faster than it fills up. Couple that with max fuel flow for takeoff and climb out, say 25 gph, it’s gonna drain that tank in no time.

Is the point of that intercooler to cool intake air, or to heat the fuel?

Well it can do both

If the point is to warm fuel, then you turn off the pump when the fuel is warm enough. If the point is to cool intake air, there is a limited amount of cooling you can do. I haven't done the math on the amount of heat we're talking about to cool compressed turbo air, but I know some passive air/air intercoolers are quite effective.

The test pilot has on a helmet (smart) but is the pressurized O2 mask REALLY necessary for “some low-speed taxi tests”?? When I am done laughing I will return to our regularly scheduled thread.
...can’t wait to see what he does with the ailerons to stiffen them up.

Not necessary for low speed taxi testing, but perhaps it's to make sure it's easy to reach all of the controls, switches, etc. with the equipment on.

If the point is to warm fuel, then you turn off the pump when the fuel is warm enough. If the point is to cool intake air, there is a limited amount of cooling you can do. I haven't done the math on the amount of heat we're talking about to cool compressed turbo air, but I know some passive air/air intercoolers are quite effective.

With the premise I know nothing.
I have met two "experimental test pilots". Both who did it on a regular basis.
One wore a chute, and full O2 mask and everything on every test. The other wore jeans and a t-shirt.
So who knows what is going through the mind of this pilot?

Tim