I just watched the video and it did much better than I expected. That was a nice improvement. Not saying I think it will ever live up to the claims or even close but he made progress. I was pretty bummed for him after the first flight video.


Mike

That's what I was referencing above, but no engines on it yet or at least not since the last time I was up there. He has a lot into it but it's a compelling machine once the engines start shipping next year. Should be a must-visit booth at Oshkosh next year.

Excellent job of engineering a heavy home depot plumbing system to keep oil temps to a mere 254df!

Bear in mind, he's carrying a heavy fuel load of 12 gallons, and the gear is down.

If you can't keep the engine cool on a short flight in 40df temps, you need to start over from the beginning and bring in some help.

I'm ready for him to tackle these cooling problems, because I think the real fun starts when he works on the pressurization.

I am absolutely dumbfounded that he can't see how far off his design is. He leveled off burning around 12 gph. Given how badly tuned his engine setup is, let's say he's producing 150 hp, and only got to 105 knots. How on earth do you see those numbers and not go "Oh $4!t. Something's wrong."

It looked to me like he was continuously losing altitude at 12 gph which is a bit of a surprise to me. 12 gph of jet A is similar energy content to 14 gph of 100 LL due to the higher density per gallon. It should cruise quite a bit faster or climb on that fuel flow! Compared to a Velocity XL, Bonanza, big engine Mooney, 210 etc. the thing is an absolute dog!

Something is very wrong. I can’t see how the drag can be that high, so he either has an instrumentation error, or the power to the prop is way less than the fuel flow suggests. Good chance it’s both.

A good chunk of his ff is being turned into heat due to his mis-designed turbo system. If he’d listen to people who have experience and fix the turbos he’d gain horsepower AND require less cooling. But he won’t address the turbos because it would be time consuming.

I am really impressed that he is flying.

But this is a pig, that is underpowered.

The original claim numbers are so far off the reality, it's not even funny. Maybe that is why he took down the website.
With that much coolant all over the place, that bird will never go in the high altitude, where it is actually cold. There are so many points of failure in that design, I would never get into this contraption.

Glad that he got this thing to fly. But this project was dead from the beginning. Though it provided some good entertainment for some of us, watching from the side line.

Can't wait to see what he adds next. ...

I don’t have any real turbo experience, but I am surprised you could be wasting that much fuel flow without parts glowing, big flames escaping, or a lot of black smoke coming out the back. I guess I shouldn’t underestimate Peter’s ability to screw something up.

It looks to me as though the left aileron is always deflected up. Admittedly, he is turning right most of the time but it looks like it still has that right roll tendency even with that gigantic trim tab he put on the left wing.

A while back someone on the HBA forum said his TIT was north of 1650 degrees F. That means at the head it’s probably above 1800. No one knows what the actual temps are coming out of the cylinders because Peter didn’t install EGT probes at each cylinder because “he didn’t have time for that”. So, yeah, parts probably are glowing.

He should probably put one of his cameras back there (in the engine compartment) for a flight or two.

Hot turbo exhaust leaks frighten me even more than bleed air leaks. At full power, the latter are like a high pressure air heat gun from hell; at full power the former are a big, powerful blowtorch. The only real way to deal with either is to reduce the power to idle or to shut the engine off.

Ever fly in a Navajo at night? Those top mounted exhaust runners glow red hot through the cowling louvers. I never got used to that.

My first night flight in a Navajo, I RTB’d. Like you, I never got used to it.

414A is the same way except exhaust is not top mounted.

My M.E. lab in college had a small block Ford V-8 on a dyno. Not turbocharged or anything, but the exhaust manifold would still get red hot after running at full power for a while.

414A is the same way except exhaust is not top mounted.

My M.E. lab in college had a small block Ford V-8 on a dyno. Not turbocharged or anything, but the exhaust manifold would still get red hot after running at full power for a while.