So either the wings aren’t straight and there’s a different angle of incidence, the rudder/winglets aren’t straight, the controls/flight surfaces aren’t rigged, or there’s a significant roll imbalance in weight.

Over the years I’ve probably weighed aircraft 100 times. I don’t ever recall one which had the same scale reading on the left and right wing. I never noticed any ballast in the left wing of a Caravan to counter act the weight of the radar pod on the right side. Nor is there any ballast in the right tip of a Lear to compensate for the 6 gallons less fuel most of them hold compared to the left side. Somehow those planes fly just fine. Is that side stick in the Raptor connected to the control surfaces, or is it just a grab handle for Peter to hold? Why does he think using ailerons and/or rudder to maintain the centerline should not be required? Can you imagine flying the Raptor to another airport to pick up a passenger? While the passenger is getting buckled in you have to open up the wing and remove the sinkers, so it won’t be left wing heavy on t/o.

Had a leaking valve in the water ballast system in my glider. One wing emptied completely during flight so the other was ~80lb heavier. Couldn't tell the difference in flight. Only found out when I forgot to dump ballast before landing once and the heavy wing dropped on the roll out.

Doug

But this is on a 3,200lbs empty weight bird...

I'd be curious to hear what our resident canard flyer Mr. Johnston sees for takeoff characteristics on the Velocities.

I'd assume it's fairly similar in regard to p-factor and gyroscopic effects, but the pusher wouldn't see the spiral slipstream hitting the airframe...so one would think typical physics and rudderwork still generally applies.

The only thing I have noticed is a slight left roll in the first couple of flights during Phase I testing. But that was from a tendency to pull on the stick (which is on the center keel on my right). Once I stopped doing that, it went away.

I got no idea what is causing this supposed right roll problem. Rigging would be the first thing I looked at.

The only thing I have noticed is a slight left roll in the first couple of flights during Phase I testing. But that was from a tendency to pull on the stick (which is on the center keel on my right). Once I stopped doing that, it went away.

I got no idea what is causing this supposed right roll problem. Rigging would be the first thing I looked at.

I’m not sure if Peter’s vast test pilot experience, vast experience in canards and well vast experience in aviation is the best determination of some roll on the first hop into ground effect.

Time to get in the pattern and see if there’s any real problems. And demonstrate that no matter the polar that plane isn’t going to go 300 knots and isn't anywhere near promised performance specs.

Instead he’s creating more problems by making it even heavier and over-analyzing some go-pro video of a sloppy attempt at ground effect flight.

Really, he just needs to bolt some weight rack to the left winglet. I found one of these they he can modify.

Seriously though, let’s think about how grossly overweight this thing is. I think this thing weighs 3200# empty. So, it looks like he has 18.5 gals of jet A + him in it at 3493#. So, Peter with 3 more 170# people and no rear seats with maybe 1 hour of fuel are just under 4000#.

Yes, but what you are forgetting is his new engine will produce 850hp. Combine that with his revolutionary aerodynamics and it should easily do 400+kts at 30,000 feet even fully loaded. You worry to much, Peter has it all figured out and under control.

I just hope we see another video on Saturday and not something on Kathryn's report.

Is it time to change the thread title? It doesn't have 5 seats nor the useful load to fill them, it won't pressurize and it won't have anything like 3,600 nm range. The only word still accurate is "diesel".

I kind of hope that's the word that is accurate, rather than the actual post subject on the last 160 pages...

LOL, I saw that just about an hour ago and had to scroll up to the top of the page to confirm that the thread title is correct and just truncated in the individual posts. A bit freudian maybe?

It won't take 3600NM.

When Peter was at Oshkosh with his scale model (which was, at the time, only a fuselage and really didn't look like anything), my son (engineering student at the time) and I tried to talk with him about his design. IIRC, my son had questions about load distribution along the spar and wing. Peter was unwilling to talk with us. We weren't being confrontational at all, just asking simple questions. He gave a couple of short, curt answers and then just ignored us. In contrast, when my son talked with the Dark Aero folks a couple of years ago at Oshkosh, they spent a half hour with him. My son's a pretty chill guy, easy to talk to, so I think Peter has an attitude problem. That doesn't bode well for quality design and safety.

I don't know if any of you saw the hour-long youtube video by his test pilots, describing their experience with Peter, but it was pretty clear Peter wasn't willing to listen to them. They gave him a squawk list of over two dozen items, and when they returned a few months later, he hadn't addressed hardly any of them. I haven't seen hide nor hair of the test pilots lately - I wonder if they excused themselves from the project. They convinced him to change to an airport with a longer runway, and that's the last I heard of them.

I had a deposit in escrow on a Raptor, as a number of things claimed about the design were attractive (pressurized and pusher prop, so quieter - wife hates noise), but I got my money back when the aileron problem showed up. That turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. As with Monty Python: "Run away, run away!"