Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Ideas from Oshkosh. Cylons have a plan.

We got interesting ideas at Oshkosh and I think we have a plan now

So the concept is about high efficiency, high altitude and long range. In other words, these are called as HALR. None of these concepts have been designed yet. But I think we have now defined a goal that can be used as a target where to aim at. And what is the motivation for this? For fun of course. And because we can.

The plan now has the following steps:

 1. Develop, test fly, measure scale model aircraft of the full size concept. Electric propulsion is going to be used. The aircraft shall model the full size aircraft in configuration and prototype control mechanisms of the model 2 aircraft. Possibly more than 1 RC model needs to be built to validate feasibility of different configuration features. This step is very likely to succeed. There are no impediments for executing this plan.

 2. Develop, test fly, measure a human piloted scale model of the full size concept. The plane is intended to utilize electric propulsion. The aircraft shall be able to carry at least 100 kg payload, stay at least tens of minutes in air and then safely land on a grass runway. This requires some feasibility analysis - this one needs to be super-light because the full size one needs to be light as well, and needs to be able carry substantial amount of fuel (300-400 kg). I will blog about what I will learn about structural design and also can validate the feasibility of the concept along the way. We saw that single place CriCri size small aircraft is ideal test bed for testing configurations, technologies etc. for the full size aircraft. This one must work from our summer cottage neighbor's airfield, in other words, needs to be relatively STOL. This has good chance to succeed but there are few impediments to clear out before this can succeed.

 3. Develop, test fly the full size plane, and then fly it to Oshkosh. The plane is intended to have hybrid propulsion. The aircraft shall be able to fly at high altitude non-stop from Helsinki to Kangerlussuaq, refuel, and continue and fly next leg non-stop to Oshkosh. The plane shall be practical efficient transportation tool that can partially replace using commercial aviation. The plane shall carry at least two persons plus rescue equipment plus baggage plus full fuel, and must defeat Toyota Prius 2011 model in transportation efficiency. Some serious problem solving is required before this will succeed.

The plane shall be able to fly long distances non-stop to avoid cost of landing fees and other costs associated by stopping on places of no interest. There are no guarantees of success of any of the mentioned steps, but this is the intent. The intent is subject to change. But this is where we are at today. We are very limited by the budget unfortunately and it can affect to the timing and success of each step. If we had substantial budget for this available, we would like to work on this full time, but unfortunately this is not the case.
  

4 comments:

PlaneSid said...

The High Altitude aerodynamics are dominated by low Reynolds Number flow and so designing airfoils for the 500000 to 1 Million is needed. There was good work done in this area by Dr Pfenninger and his collaborators. They achieved a series of airfoil designs optimized to give good Cl/Cd ratios in cruise. I have the paper and can send if you like.

Super Heather said...

Hi! This is a cool blog!

My name is Heather Jackson. I found your Zygger project on GForge and tried to email you but it bounced.

I have a blogger page on Open Source Aircraft Design Resources (http://ostrevolution.blogspot.com/p/aircraft-design.html) and I volunteer with the MakerPlane team (MakerPlane.org), which is an open source aircraft design team. Right now, the MakerPlane team is focusing less on the design mission of the first plane (MP1.0) and more on developing a collaborative open source design process and building web-based infrastructure to support the collaborative design efforts, and keep volunteers connected and engaged in the project. It almost feels like designing and building the MP1.0 is a tool for designing the MakerPlane process...which will allow us to crank out more amazing and easy to build designs faster in the long run.

I would love to get in touch and talk about Open Source Aircraft design! You can reach me at Heather.Jackson at MakerPlane.org

Also, if you are willing to let me interview you (perhaps at Oshkosh 2012 or via G+ hangout) I would love to write a blog post about your designs at the Open Source Tech Revolution Blog (ostrevolution.blogspot.com)

Super Heather said...

Hi! This is a cool blog!

My name is Heather Jackson. I found your Zygger project on GForge and tried to email you but it bounced.

I have a blogger page on Open Source Aircraft Design Resources (http://ostrevolution.blogspot.com/p/aircraft-design.html) and I volunteer with the MakerPlane team (MakerPlane.org), which is an open source aircraft design team. Right now, the MakerPlane team is focusing less on the design mission of the first plane (MP1.0) and more on developing a collaborative open source design process and building web-based infrastructure to support the collaborative design efforts, and keep volunteers connected and engaged in the project. It almost feels like designing and building the MP1.0 is a tool for designing the MakerPlane process...which will allow us to crank out more amazing and easy to build designs faster in the long run.

I would love to get in touch and talk about Open Source Aircraft design! You can reach me at Heather.Jackson at MakerPlane.org

Also, if you are willing to let me interview you (perhaps at Oshkosh 2012 or via G+ hangout) I would love to write a blog post about your designs at the Open Source Tech Revolution Blog (ostrevolution.blogspot.com)

Super Heather said...

WOW!

That sounds like a great paper! How can I get in touch with you?