I never did understand what killed the battery. In a failed alternator, this thing would be fun.

TL;DW

The editing was about as painful as watching the Raptor get heavy.

Ha!

My understanding.... the engine quit because of the AC. The throttle being above “idle mode” but too low to keep up with the extra load.

Then it went too dead to crank the engine. I think I heard peter say something about all the electronics.

That’s no good!

Time to put in a 2nd battery and more wires - there’s another 35 pounds!

He moved it to Valdosta, GA which has an 8000 foot runway for the test flying.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_contin ... =emb_title

I get that a pressurized plane must have AC, but perhaps his proof of concept should have excluded the AC initially. He's wasted a bunch of time fiddling with it.

Yeah, he has screwed around with so much unnecessary crap. He could have already flown prototype 1 and gotten the aerodynamics nailed down for the next prototype. He has a cracked window and can’t pressurize it anyway.

In his mind, he was going to build a production model. It was going to fly perfectly. He was going to either sell the company or bring in an investor that would fund the manufacturing of the kits and start rolling them off. And his business model is either a lie or he doesn’t know anything about making money.

I suspect "B".

I don't get that he's deliberately underhanded, I think he's in WAY over his head and had all of that in mind you just mentioned and has no clue how to get to the finish line given what he's done so far.

He had the right idea though. Start off with something promising, get people to pony up a LOT of money while you get paid to chase your dream, somehow get it to fly, collect the rest, dump it off on someone else and walk away with a good bit of cash.

We'll see.

I do like the engine. A lot. Probably because I know the powerplant well, and with dual channel FADEC and its own redundant 60 min backup power source with fail passive on the electronics, believe he's onto something with that engine.

The rest I wouldn't buy.

It's not a Malibu replacement, it's a Lancair IV-P Diesel replacement. Again, if he figured out the re-drive (as a gearbox, not a rubber band) and sold plans to it for $25k a pop, I'd happily put one in a Lancair IV-P. That would be a sweet combo.

A replacement for something that's never existed?

My understanding.... the engine quit because of the AC. The throttle being above “idle mode” but too low to keep up with the extra load.

Then it went too dead to crank the engine. I think I heard peter say something about all the electronics.

That’s no good!

Time to put in a 2nd battery and more wires - there’s another 35 pounds!

Makes sense to have a car battery with a car engine. Nothing wrong with 12V either. I'm 85% sure a lot of airplanes on this forum have 12V.

I’m surprised he doesn’t already have two batteries. What’s going to keep the glass panel running if he loses the alternator and battery?

Getting a new engine to work in an existing airplane is a ton of work.

Getting a new airplane to work is also a ton of work.

New engine + new airplane is piling on the challenges. It's a gutsy business move, high reward but high risk (high risk means it takes time and money).

It would be more conservative and less business risk to put that engine in an existing airframe and wring out the development that way (be it a Lancair or a Velocity or really any prop with a similar horsepower and weight engine).

It would also be more more conservative to develop the Raptor airframe with an existing big bore six cylinder aviation engine.


The Voyager didn't fly around with world with the most fuel efficient 100hp-class four cylinder engine in existence (although its engines were above average), it used a couple of pretty boring four cylinder Continentals- and that decision eliminated a lot of risk from that program.


I like the Raptor's engine too. But I like the airframe too.

The fadec in my RV, which I wouldn't recommend, had two channels and one channel was fed by a small, independent battery. Before take off you would disable each channel independently.

I don’t know why I am so surprised by the engine cutting out at idle. Haha.

What a mess. You have to tell a guy flying it that if he is on final and has to chop
Power the engine will die and will not restart? Wow. Seems like a big deal to me.


This project desperately needs an experienced tuner. And they are not that expensive to get. Lots of great guys tune this engines everyday.


Mike

Seems like the windmilling effect of the prop would be plenty to make the difference between it cutting out or continuing to run all the way through the rollout until it's down to taxi speed.

You did notice how slowly the airplane was moving when the engine sputtered and stalled between 49:20-49:30, right?

I realize it's popular on this thread to take pot shots and pile on; Peter has brought most of that on himself and I'm not going to carry his water for him, but when you write "if he is on final and has to chop the power, the engine will die," you're kind of showing some ignorance.