DrawguyScott
Well-Known Member
Introduction
Hi, I'm a new member here, but I've been doing a ton of lurking over the last few months, reading up threads in this section and trying to get a sense of what's-what round here.
My background is a now-senior Industrial Design Student at the Rhode Island School of Design. My father is a long-time EAA chapter president who's so-far built one flying kit and assisted on countless others, and as a result I've spent my whole life going to airshows and people's garages and observing many different methods of construction of aircraft. That said, I'm not an engineer and math is not my strong-suit, so I do not propose to have any knowledge of how to do the maths. So as a result, I'm not looking at aviation from a perspective of "how efficient is the wing?" so-to-speak.
I know that in this very forum reside a number of professional and amateur aircraft designers and at least one other ID kid (Unknown Target, holla, hollaback!) and I have a pretty good idea of where aviation/aeronautical design fits in comparison to traditional product design, the distinctions and historical developments related to them all.
My Idea
So what I'm really looking to discuss by posting here is a bit of a continuation on the "are cheap aircraft simply impossible?" thread, but off on a tangential course that relates to an idea I'm working on.
What I am looking into is how to make a homebuilt LSA kit aircraft, that is affordable and fun, but without the result looking like, well... lame. Personally, I'm a big fan of the idea of Warbird replicas, as they look great, they are traditional aircraft, and it gives me some good design constraints to work within. So for now, I'm just thinking "how can I make a scale Hellcat, or Zero, or P51, or similar, that is cheap and simple and fun?"
Now, how cheap? Let's say that a flying model can be built in the sub $50,000 range. I think, for a good-looking kit, that's not an unrealistic cost, nor too high a cost. So maybe $30k for a finished kit and then firewall forward is between 10-20k depending on what you want.
So here's a few examples of projects that come close to what I'm thinking in one way or another
Example 1: The Icon
Now everyone's seen the Icon, and some point out that, "oh, well it's designed". Well, yeah, it's a cool plane. (The cabin is indeed sexy) But I mean it's cool like an exotic sports car is cool. I personally don't have the ability to spend the money on a carbon-fiber bodied amphibian pusher... that just sounds expensive, and while it looks cool, has the design cachet and pricetag to attract the ladies, etc... it still doesn't make me feel like a fighter pilot when I look at it. James Bond maybe, or a soccer mom, or a rich guy with fancy toys... I don't know.
Like, they want to make flying more accessible?
Good design: yes
Media coverage to non-pilots: you-betcha
Cockpit that feels less like a switchboard and more like a sports-car: definitely
Pricetag: $140,000
So... It's accessible to non-pilots in the same way a Tesla Roadster is an accessible way for me to go green with my car.
Right now my green approach is to use Zip-Cars, buses, and a bicycle.
So yeah, Icon isn't really what my idea is, either. It's on a different level entirely. At that, they still have 400+ pre-orders.
Thus the real take-away from Icon is that people are responding to the idea of a consumer-oriented aircraft company that's not being just another aeronautical engineer in the hanger coming up with a performance-centric design that looks like a NASA prototype (ie. Facetmobile)
And I like the idea of treating an aircraft as a brand, as a product, as an experience that you buy into, with a marketing focus not on the aircraft, as just an aircraft, but on the aircraft as a medium for a certain experience/lifestyle. Again, the focus is on having fun.
And in all that, I don't suppose the Icon is the best-flying machine out there. It probably flies just fine, but it's not going for optimal aerobatic performance, it's not going for lowest weight, it's not going for highest speed... it's going for user experience. If I feel like a fighter pilot, as long as I'm doing above 100mph and I can do a few rolls, I'm gonna be loving life. I don't care if an RV can beat me in the turns, or the same plane with a custom-tailored airframe would get an extra 10mph and a slower stall-speed... I'll care about saving $10,000.
Example 2: The Solo
There's a concept plane called the Solo, that was discussed on the tail end of that cheap aircraft thread I mentioned before, that looks interesting; and it fits the price-range... but honestly it seems like a dinky little plane to me. It's a sexy little plane, sure, but it's not winning me over with the whole making me feel like a fighter pilot. When I look at it I think "I'm getting exactly what I pay for, a cheap plane." As a consumer, someone with some flight training but who is looking for that first plane, I don't want to be stuck in something dinky. I want something awesome... I just don't want to pay full price. So we need to be able to scale it all up and make a beefier aircraft, with a bigger motor. Not that hard with the right time and effort put into designing said aircraft. But to do it without costing more?
What I do like about the Solo is they are making it from simple pieces, all out of composite, modular sections that all bolt together, and that reduces a lot of the hand-processing and should really make it easy to assemble if it were sold in kit form: send the client the fuselage, and the wings, and the tail, a crate with the other parts, and the firewall forward kit... and in a short time everything's been bolted and fitted and looking good. No figuring out stuff on your own.
What I don't like about the above is that if I were to produce a plane with that methodology, I'm still dealing with fiberglass composites and while those aren't too bad, I'm thinking back to my experiences of how finishing fiberglass is a pain. Getting the airplane to have a nice finish with cool colors and everything... might be time-intensive.
Now, it might be something that on a factory floor can be streamlined, make a bunch of bodies and gelcoat them all at once, get a big team to finish it all; but in my experience... it always took forever for composite planes to go from formed to finished. And lets just add in quickly that I loathe working with composites for the health issues. While of course it's safe with the right equipment, it's still a hassle, and I've already smelled too much curing resin in my rather short life to be happy.
Polymers
So while I think fiberglass is definitely viable, it's known and it works... I'm also looking into thermoforming. Something like ABS/royalite/etc that's used in kayaking. I'd definitely use thin layers, and just use it for making the plane superficially LOOK cool. Underneath can be a simple composite or aluminum unfinished structure that is hidden and takes load from that skin relatively quickly. Maybe a complex thermoformed structure, like packaging with many ribs and valleys and webs, would also work. That could be analyzed. I think it doesn't have to be too thick to do its job... ABS is tough stuff.
I like this approach in that it takes care of the finish, which is done for you: no painting. And it takes care of making the plane durable... you can pound on ABS with a baseball bat and at most leave scuff-marks which sand out into the same color as the rest of the plane. In addition, while large thermoforming equipment is decidedly expensive... if the man-hour savings over 50 planes is roughly equal to the amortized cost of the equipment, it's a great deal.
Lastly, because warbirds are not just one plane, they are a whole genre of similar planes, we can really grow the product lineup by using a SINGLE airframe design, with a universal airfoil/wing, with maybe one or two configurations of where things are placed, and then use the thermoforming process to give it a bunch of different skins. The mold costs might be something like $20-30k per fuselage, but if you can sell 20-30 of them over a few years, then you're not talking about a huge cost per-plane when the labor to assemble is so low.
Figure you start with two models, go from there.
That way my Hellcat with the skin off looks just like your Zero, and just like Randy's P51. Maybe my Hellcat has a Rotec 7-cylinder on it and the P51 has a Honda in-line. Maybe they all use a Jabiru. That's not that important at the end of the day, the minutiae of the airplane isn't that critical to the consumer who just got their Sport Pilot license. The important thing, as I see it, is the idea of a fun airplane. (That said... a Rotec on a Hellcat would be awesome.)
Conclusion
So let me reign it in a little. The Icon is cool, but not really doing what it says its doing. A small single-seat like the Solo, that meets the technical design challenge, is also interesting and inspiring, but can the overall plane be more exciting? And, in addition, can we make it more modular? Can we make it look like different things depending on the fancy and whims of the consumer?
I think there are some discussable points here, so I'm interested to see what things you guys pick up on. I know there are some things, like using polymers, which will instantly cause controversy, and other things, which everyone might agree with, so I expect that.
Other than that, thanks for having a forum like this, it was a great resource thusfar; you all know a lot about what makes planes go up. It'll be good to meet you.
Hi, I'm a new member here, but I've been doing a ton of lurking over the last few months, reading up threads in this section and trying to get a sense of what's-what round here.
My background is a now-senior Industrial Design Student at the Rhode Island School of Design. My father is a long-time EAA chapter president who's so-far built one flying kit and assisted on countless others, and as a result I've spent my whole life going to airshows and people's garages and observing many different methods of construction of aircraft. That said, I'm not an engineer and math is not my strong-suit, so I do not propose to have any knowledge of how to do the maths. So as a result, I'm not looking at aviation from a perspective of "how efficient is the wing?" so-to-speak.
I know that in this very forum reside a number of professional and amateur aircraft designers and at least one other ID kid (Unknown Target, holla, hollaback!) and I have a pretty good idea of where aviation/aeronautical design fits in comparison to traditional product design, the distinctions and historical developments related to them all.
My Idea
So what I'm really looking to discuss by posting here is a bit of a continuation on the "are cheap aircraft simply impossible?" thread, but off on a tangential course that relates to an idea I'm working on.
What I am looking into is how to make a homebuilt LSA kit aircraft, that is affordable and fun, but without the result looking like, well... lame. Personally, I'm a big fan of the idea of Warbird replicas, as they look great, they are traditional aircraft, and it gives me some good design constraints to work within. So for now, I'm just thinking "how can I make a scale Hellcat, or Zero, or P51, or similar, that is cheap and simple and fun?"
Now, how cheap? Let's say that a flying model can be built in the sub $50,000 range. I think, for a good-looking kit, that's not an unrealistic cost, nor too high a cost. So maybe $30k for a finished kit and then firewall forward is between 10-20k depending on what you want.
So here's a few examples of projects that come close to what I'm thinking in one way or another
Example 1: The Icon
Now everyone's seen the Icon, and some point out that, "oh, well it's designed". Well, yeah, it's a cool plane. (The cabin is indeed sexy) But I mean it's cool like an exotic sports car is cool. I personally don't have the ability to spend the money on a carbon-fiber bodied amphibian pusher... that just sounds expensive, and while it looks cool, has the design cachet and pricetag to attract the ladies, etc... it still doesn't make me feel like a fighter pilot when I look at it. James Bond maybe, or a soccer mom, or a rich guy with fancy toys... I don't know.
Like, they want to make flying more accessible?
Good design: yes
Media coverage to non-pilots: you-betcha
Cockpit that feels less like a switchboard and more like a sports-car: definitely
Pricetag: $140,000
So... It's accessible to non-pilots in the same way a Tesla Roadster is an accessible way for me to go green with my car.
Right now my green approach is to use Zip-Cars, buses, and a bicycle.
So yeah, Icon isn't really what my idea is, either. It's on a different level entirely. At that, they still have 400+ pre-orders.
Thus the real take-away from Icon is that people are responding to the idea of a consumer-oriented aircraft company that's not being just another aeronautical engineer in the hanger coming up with a performance-centric design that looks like a NASA prototype (ie. Facetmobile)
And I like the idea of treating an aircraft as a brand, as a product, as an experience that you buy into, with a marketing focus not on the aircraft, as just an aircraft, but on the aircraft as a medium for a certain experience/lifestyle. Again, the focus is on having fun.
And in all that, I don't suppose the Icon is the best-flying machine out there. It probably flies just fine, but it's not going for optimal aerobatic performance, it's not going for lowest weight, it's not going for highest speed... it's going for user experience. If I feel like a fighter pilot, as long as I'm doing above 100mph and I can do a few rolls, I'm gonna be loving life. I don't care if an RV can beat me in the turns, or the same plane with a custom-tailored airframe would get an extra 10mph and a slower stall-speed... I'll care about saving $10,000.
Example 2: The Solo
There's a concept plane called the Solo, that was discussed on the tail end of that cheap aircraft thread I mentioned before, that looks interesting; and it fits the price-range... but honestly it seems like a dinky little plane to me. It's a sexy little plane, sure, but it's not winning me over with the whole making me feel like a fighter pilot. When I look at it I think "I'm getting exactly what I pay for, a cheap plane." As a consumer, someone with some flight training but who is looking for that first plane, I don't want to be stuck in something dinky. I want something awesome... I just don't want to pay full price. So we need to be able to scale it all up and make a beefier aircraft, with a bigger motor. Not that hard with the right time and effort put into designing said aircraft. But to do it without costing more?
What I do like about the Solo is they are making it from simple pieces, all out of composite, modular sections that all bolt together, and that reduces a lot of the hand-processing and should really make it easy to assemble if it were sold in kit form: send the client the fuselage, and the wings, and the tail, a crate with the other parts, and the firewall forward kit... and in a short time everything's been bolted and fitted and looking good. No figuring out stuff on your own.
What I don't like about the above is that if I were to produce a plane with that methodology, I'm still dealing with fiberglass composites and while those aren't too bad, I'm thinking back to my experiences of how finishing fiberglass is a pain. Getting the airplane to have a nice finish with cool colors and everything... might be time-intensive.
Now, it might be something that on a factory floor can be streamlined, make a bunch of bodies and gelcoat them all at once, get a big team to finish it all; but in my experience... it always took forever for composite planes to go from formed to finished. And lets just add in quickly that I loathe working with composites for the health issues. While of course it's safe with the right equipment, it's still a hassle, and I've already smelled too much curing resin in my rather short life to be happy.
Polymers
So while I think fiberglass is definitely viable, it's known and it works... I'm also looking into thermoforming. Something like ABS/royalite/etc that's used in kayaking. I'd definitely use thin layers, and just use it for making the plane superficially LOOK cool. Underneath can be a simple composite or aluminum unfinished structure that is hidden and takes load from that skin relatively quickly. Maybe a complex thermoformed structure, like packaging with many ribs and valleys and webs, would also work. That could be analyzed. I think it doesn't have to be too thick to do its job... ABS is tough stuff.
I like this approach in that it takes care of the finish, which is done for you: no painting. And it takes care of making the plane durable... you can pound on ABS with a baseball bat and at most leave scuff-marks which sand out into the same color as the rest of the plane. In addition, while large thermoforming equipment is decidedly expensive... if the man-hour savings over 50 planes is roughly equal to the amortized cost of the equipment, it's a great deal.
Lastly, because warbirds are not just one plane, they are a whole genre of similar planes, we can really grow the product lineup by using a SINGLE airframe design, with a universal airfoil/wing, with maybe one or two configurations of where things are placed, and then use the thermoforming process to give it a bunch of different skins. The mold costs might be something like $20-30k per fuselage, but if you can sell 20-30 of them over a few years, then you're not talking about a huge cost per-plane when the labor to assemble is so low.
Figure you start with two models, go from there.
That way my Hellcat with the skin off looks just like your Zero, and just like Randy's P51. Maybe my Hellcat has a Rotec 7-cylinder on it and the P51 has a Honda in-line. Maybe they all use a Jabiru. That's not that important at the end of the day, the minutiae of the airplane isn't that critical to the consumer who just got their Sport Pilot license. The important thing, as I see it, is the idea of a fun airplane. (That said... a Rotec on a Hellcat would be awesome.)
Conclusion
So let me reign it in a little. The Icon is cool, but not really doing what it says its doing. A small single-seat like the Solo, that meets the technical design challenge, is also interesting and inspiring, but can the overall plane be more exciting? And, in addition, can we make it more modular? Can we make it look like different things depending on the fancy and whims of the consumer?
I think there are some discussable points here, so I'm interested to see what things you guys pick up on. I know there are some things, like using polymers, which will instantly cause controversy, and other things, which everyone might agree with, so I expect that.
Other than that, thanks for having a forum like this, it was a great resource thusfar; you all know a lot about what makes planes go up. It'll be good to meet you.
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