His static port fix is... bizarre. It's on the bottom of the fuselage with a huge dam duct taped in front of it.

I never took fluid dynamics or aerodynamics and I've been chasing the perfect location for my static port for a few years now. But I'm pretty sure static ports don't belong on a horizontal surface like the bottom or top of a fuselage or wing.

Not surprisingly he picked up 200' of altitude and over 20kts of airspeed with this "fix".

Yeah, I just saw that today. It looks like an impressive team, with money and means to make this happen. It really has all the concepts that Raptor has, or vice versa... No cannard though.
They are looking at some impressive numbers. 4k miles. High. Fast.... Big diesel pusher engine...
The big difference from what I see is that they have assembled a team, and are dumping money into it. 35 flying hours so far on the model. They are ready to go to production. AVweb has an article on them... Looks promising. Don't think that they are targeting individual market, more the commercial, charter.

Yeah, I just saw that today. It looks like an impressive team, with money and means to make this happen. It really has all the concepts that Raptor has, or vice versa... No cannard though.
They are looking at some impressive numbers. 4k miles. High. Fast.... Big diesel pusher engine...
The big difference from what I see is that they have assembled a team, and are dumping money into it. 35 flying hours so far on the model. They are ready to go to production. AVweb has an article on them... Looks promising. Don't think that they are targeting individual market, more the commercial, charter.

The flight suit thing is better late than never. Those are good, work clothing- nothing more utilitarian than drab coveralls to get dirty instead of messing up your own clothing. Without gloves and boots for burn protection then it's just a set of coveralls.

For high risk test flying, the ensemble ought to include a helmet.

The static port workarounds are still... interesting. I still don't understand why he doesn't fit this prototype with a combined pitot-static probe on the end of a long stick (will it not fit inside the hangar with the hangar doors closed?), either on the nose or from one of the wings. It's what's worked for countless test airplanes.





Pretty weird thing to get hung up about for a guy who claims an Aeronca 7AC in his profile...?

It's mechanically simpler to have a single control column instead of connecting two together- and it weighs less too. Maybe it offends some one's sensibilities because it's "weird." That's fine, to each their own. But while we're at it, let's not forget the Beechcraft throw-over yoke is weird too, so are the throw-over in Robinson helicopters, the center stick in Zenith experimental/amateur-built airplanes... Weird isn't bad if it weighs less and it costs less.

While I'm on the topic, I think it's near-heretical the way Piper and Cessna stubbornly insist on putting the Prop-Throttle-Mixture levers out of order on their throttle quadrants. They used to do it right but sometime in the 1950s they changed.

The fact that putting a dam in front of the static port would ever even be considered tells you all you need to know about this guy's aerodynamic understanding.

At some point you do have to admire his limitless incompetence. If you asked me to come up with the 10 dumbest ways to “fix” the static port, there is no way I would have been able to come up with that one.

At some point you do have to admire his limitless incompetence. If you asked me to come up with the 10 dumbest ways to “fix” the static port, there is no way I would have been able to come up with that one.

From a right-handed purist's perspective the right hand stick and left hand throttle are the optimum combination. The military does it that way on all fighter/attack aircraft, and even some that are not (S3 for example). The thing is that in a fighter cockpit you can reach everything that's not on the HOTAS with your left hand (radios, switches, etc.) In a side by side configuration like the S3 or A6, you have a right-seater who can twiddle the knobs for you while you fly. That's not going to work in a conventional aircraft, so you get into a helicopter situation where you have to take your hands off of the flight controls to change frequencies, or you sit in the right seat.

While from a right-handed dexterity perspective the right or center stick makes the most sense, the logic falls apart in practical use.

There are quite a few static ports that have a trip strip (or dam) in front of them. It's not that usual. I've got a picture around here of a Cessna with the static port between the door and the elevator with a trip strip.

Now putting static port on the belly of an airplane? That's one I haven't heard before.

Behind sometimes too, or behind/offset sort of in a split-V, with one above and behind and the other below and behind.

It is unusual but what's more significant here is if the test airplane doesn't have a known "good" static source then it's impossible to calibrate the unusual static port. (Maybe this task is saved for later in the test program... not gonna hold my breath on it though.)

I agree with you about the choice of the belly static port. I certainly enjoy learning about unusual aircraft throughout the ~120 year history of powered flight- this is a new one to me too.

There are quite a few static ports that have a trip strip (or dam) in front of them. It's not that usual. I've got a picture around here of a Cessna with the static port between the door and the elevator with a trip strip.

Now putting static port on the belly of an airplane? That's one I haven't heard before.

The two (empennage) left & right static ports on my C205 have small trips/steps.

The most important part of that is you have 2, on opposite sides. A single port never works well, for fuselage mounted ports you need one on the other side to equalize the pressure when you are not perfectly coordinated.

If he had a matching port on top it might work ok.