DarkAero Aircraft

I've been loosely following them. With only two seats and a small cockpit it seems to have a limited audience. Reminds me a bit of Lancair. Cool project with a competent team but the market for ga is already tiny..

If you want to be successful look at Vans. Simple, fast, four place
 
Tantalum said:
If you want to be successful look at Vans. Simple, fast, four place
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I was under the assumption their two place aircraft are selling better than the four place RV-10?
 
Spinka said:
I was under the assumption their two place aircraft are selling better than the four place RV-10?
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Well then color me wrong. I guess the ones I've seen have all been four person
 
Spinka said:
I was under the assumption their two place aircraft are selling better than the four place RV-10?
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Yep. The 2 seaters have far higher ongoing sales than the RV-10. The RV-10 is a great airplane but a huge commitment in both time and money.
 
To their credit, they are using an engine from a manufacturer with a proven record
of delivering a quality product. To their detriment, they are making unrealistic performance claims. 275 mph cruise, when a 200 HP RV-8 gets 210 mph. I don't see it happening . Plus, I don't think 66 square feet is enough wing, what will the stall speed be? I hope they are planning on including a BRS.
 
I'm following it and it looks neat. I agree that the performance seems a bit optimistic though. What do I know though, I'm not an aerospace engineer.

I think the luggage space is too small. Looks like they are thinking of their bare minimum packing for a 20-something year old. Some trips we could do that, but not all. This past trip we brought stuff to our daughter in KY, plus extra work-out cloths (I did some running in the mornings). The trip was a week long with some cool weather, so jackets and long sleeve shirts. A long weekend trip in the summer with just shorts and short sleeve shirts would fit better.

Hopefully it turns out well and has good sales. More options and competition would be good.
 
FormerHangie said:
To their credit, they are using an engine from a manufacturer with a proven record
of delivering a quality product. To their detriment, they are making unrealistic performance claims. 275 mph cruise, when a 200 HP RV-8 gets 210 mph. I don't see it happening . Plus, I don't think 66 square feet is enough wing, what will the stall speed be? I hope they are planning on including a BRS.
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They are (kind of) following the Lancair model. A very sleek design with a relatively small airframe and retractable gear. Can they go 275 mph on 200 hp? I'm skeptical.
 
Tantalum said:
Well then color me wrong. I guess the ones I've seen have all been four person
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kyleb said:
Yep. The 2 seaters have far higher ongoing sales than the RV-10. The RV-10 is a great airplane but a huge commitment in both time and money.
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Yep, way more two-seaters. I see more RV-10s when I'm traveling and stopping at bigger airports. I see more of their other planes when I stop at smaller, more rural airports. I always see a lot of them at the Winder airport; KWDR. No telling how many are in hangars though.
 
kyleb said:
Spinka said:
I was under the assumption their two place aircraft are selling better than the four place RV-10?
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Yep. The 2 seaters have far higher ongoing sales than the RV-10. The RV-10 is a great airplane but a huge commitment in both time and money.
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rv regisrations.JPG
Ron Wanttaja
 
With the numbers they are trying to hit, I have a question.
How strong is this plane going to be?
OK, the engine is "lighter", but everything that adds speed and distance also adds weight.
Where do you make the cuts?
Example:
The Arions LS-1 will do 140 knots in level flight at 2,500 ft. I can attest to that personally. I have no idea what it will do at altitude, as I never got more that 3,000 ft. under me when I flew it.
If my memory is correct it can do +6/-4 Gs and has a Vne of 180.
All on 120 hp.

I'm intrigued where this is going to end up. I'm all for a 2 seat airplane with a 1,700 mile range.
 
Shepherd said:
I'm intrigued where this is going to end up. I'm all for a 2 seat airplane with a 1,700 mile range.
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You might check out the Blackwing BW 635 RG then. It should be able to make that range.
More likely at 160 something knots for long range cruise, but still. If you accept a higher fuel consumption, you can probably cruise at 200 knots true.
 
FormerHangie said:
To their credit, they are using an engine from a manufacturer with a proven record
of delivering a quality product. To their detriment, they are making unrealistic performance claims. 275 mph cruise, when a 200 HP RV-8 gets 210 mph. I don't see it happening . Plus, I don't think 66 square feet is enough wing, what will the stall speed be? I hope they are planning on including a BRS.
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Rutan Catbird is a 4-seater that claims a cruise speed of 274mph on 210hp.

The Questair Venture only has a wing area of 72 ft^2.

the Dark Aero specs seem slightly optimistic to be, but not far out of the realm of possibility, unlike other aircraft (Synergy, Raptor, etc)
 
skier said:
Rutan Catbird is a 4-seater that claims a cruise speed of 274mph on 210hp.
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I *think* the cruise speed was more like 250 mph, but that's a big number in any case. Have you ever gotten up close to the Catbird? There are a whole lot of speed related compromises in it. The speed and efficiency are great, but I'd love to find data on its stall performance and short field performance.
 
skier said:
Rutan Catbird is a 4-seater that claims a cruise speed of 274mph on 210hp.
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This plane has the most potential to be a real winner if anyone could actually get the data and agreement to build it. Love that design and it is a Proven winner both in speed and fuel efficiency. Love this bird. Wish Beech had built it and there were 2000+ out there today, but it just never happened.
 
I’ve been tracking this project. Don’t even compare it to that backwoods nonsense the Raptor guy is rigging together.

I’ve also viewed it as a Lancair with a few more features, made out of a different composite. I’m looking forward to seeing the performance results as well.
 
skier said:
Rutan Catbird is a 4-seater that claims a cruise speed of 274mph on 210hp.

The Questair Venture only has a wing area of 72 ft^2.

the Dark Aero specs seem slightly optimistic to be, but not far out of the realm of possibility, unlike other aircraft (Synergy, Raptor, etc)
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Speaking of the Venture, it does have the cruise speed that the Dark Aero claims, but it does it with an IO-550. How will they get the same performance on a third less power?
 
FormerHangie said:
Speaking of the Venture, it does have the cruise speed that the Dark Aero claims, but it does it with an IO-550. How will they get the same performance on a third less power?
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Less drag but I don’t see it. Then again, I can’t believe a Sling TSI gets 145 KTAS on only 140 hp but it does.
 
Shepherd said:
With the numbers they are trying to hit, I have a question.
How strong is this plane going to be?
OK, the engine is "lighter", but everything that adds speed and distance also adds weight.
Where do you make the cuts?
Example:
The Arions LS-1 will do 140 knots in level flight at 2,500 ft. I can attest to that personally. I have no idea what it will do at altitude, as I never got more that 3,000 ft. under me when I flew it.
If my memory is correct it can do +6/-4 Gs and has a Vne of 180.
All on 120 hp.

I'm intrigued where this is going to end up. I'm all for a 2 seat airplane with a 1,700 mile range.
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Carbon fiber airplane, so it should be very strong and very light. I think their theoretical numbers won't hold up to reality, but they should be able to surpass an RV.
 
They will need to be substantially faster than a RV to be successful. If they can get a 220 knot cruise it will be a big hit. 210 knots it might do fine. Below that the better all around performance of the RV plus acrobatic capability will hurt them badly.
There is by the way a RV4 flying that does 250 MPH with fixed gear. I owned a RV6 that did 184knots/211MPH at cruise.
 
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Jeff767 said:
They will need to be substantially faster than a RV to be successful. If they can get a 220 knot cruise it will be a big hit. 210 knots it might do fine. Below that the better all around performance of the RV plus acrobatic capability will hurt them badly.
There is by the way a RV4 flying that does 250 MPH with fixed gear. I owned a RV6 that did 184knots/211MPH at cruise.
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I agree, but I'm not even sure they'd sell that many if they were 210 knots plus. You're talking around a 50,000 dollar difference between their kit and a RV-9 kit. Is that speed worth 50k over an RV9? I'm sure some people would say so, but I don't think it would be a huge number. I'd build the RV9, save the extra money, and fly in a fully checked out airframe.
 
I love their manufacturing videos as one who is trying to get back into that space. But GA experimental is difficult path. I wonder where their funding is coming from. If they’re working for free and just paying for raw materials then maybe not that much. May be worth it just going through the process, bonding with brothers and learning.
 
I’d love a fast two seater with a huge baggage area to travel with. But, alas, to get that you have to go with a 4 seater and not use the seats.
 
The RV’s have a decent sized luggage area.
 
bflynn said:
Carbon fiber airplane, so it should be very strong and very light. I think their theoretical numbers won't hold up to reality, but they should be able to surpass an RV.
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Theoretically I agree with you. But we see the other carbon fiber plane and how fat it got. I know it's fiberglass and not carbon fiber, and also a 6' wingspan difference. But look at the RV-10 vs cirrus. Something like 650 pounds difference.
 
More like 500 lbs difference. CIrrus empty weight is 2224. Less than 10% of RV-10s are under 1575 lbs empty weight (poll from Vans AF). The heaviest are close to 2000.

The Dark Aero is planned as a kit, so like the RV-10, it can be as lean or as fat as the builder likes. I'm sure if you load it up with a premium avionics package, luxury interior, active fiki system and built in oxygen, it will bulk up in weight, just like a RV-10 would.
 
bflynn said:
More like 500 lbs difference. CIrrus empty weight is 2224. Less than 10% of RV-10s are under 1575 lbs empty weight (poll from Vans AF). The heaviest are close to 2000.
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SR22 wing span is 38’, the RV-10 is 32’. That 3’ on each wing weighs something, maybe not a lot, but something.

That weight difference is why the RV-10 and SR22 have pretty much the same performance with a 50 hp difference in them.
 
bflynn said:
Carbon fiber airplane, so it should be very strong and very light. I think their theoretical numbers won't hold up to reality, but they should be able to surpass an RV.
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The material strength per weight capita might be higher, but the fatigue behavior of composite is not predictable in the yield zone (they effectively are treated as not having one). As such, the design for composite load carrying structures is always built to ultimate, which is why plastic airplanes are relative weight pigs. They're overbuilt because they're unpredictable in fatigue. The heavier but more malleable metal (high strain-yield) material doesn't carry that opportunity cost, so the latter is actually lighter in end product outcome. The benefit is that you won't rip the wings off the former, even when certified down to normal category. But that's more of an aerobatic nut consideration.
 
Not familiar with the engine. Does it have a track record of reliability and making it to TBO? What is the TBO on this engine?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Since there's been a lot of discussion of this airplane in the Raptor, thread, how about reviving this one?

I watched some of their latest update. I see they have hopes to have a flyable prototype later this year, hopefully that will pan out.

Earlier in this thread, I was comparing the DarkAero 1 to an RV. That's probably not a fair comparison, so I went looking for a more comparable aircraft. The one I settled on is the Lancair 360, which is also a two seat side by side 200 hp retractable. Comparing the two, they have a very similar wingspan, the DarkAero is three feet shorter in length, is proposed to weigh 300 pounds less, and will cruise 40 mph faster. The DarkAero has even less wing area, 66 square feet rather than 77. By most accounts the Lancair is a hot ship, it appears the the DarkAero will be hotter. I see they're projecting a stall speed of 61 knots/70 mph.

If I were a kit buyer (I'm not), I would look at this with the assumption that they can't meet their empty weight goal, and in order to have adequate useful load, they'll need to raise their gross weight, which will increase the stall speed. There's no mention of a BRS, and from my standpoint, I wouldn't fly in a single with such a high stall speed. I'd also expect that the DarkAero would perform similarly to the Lancair.

The UL Power engine that they've specified makes it 200 hp at 3300 rpm, and 185 hp at 2800 rpm. Sounds like a three bladed constant speed prop in order, maybe you'd set it up to not go to 3300 rpm and accept a longer takeoff roll. 185 hp should be plenty to get this airplane off the ground, but it would not be a short runway machine.

Does anyone know if the three builders have experience in aircraft construction?
 
This would be an airplane you'd have to be on top of for sure. It doesn't sound forgiving especially down at the bottom of the speed envelope.
 
FormerHangie said:
...The UL Power engine that they've specified makes it 200 hp at 3300 rpm, and 185 hp at 2800 rpm. Sounds like a three bladed constant speed prop in order, maybe you'd set it up to not go to 3300 rpm and accept a longer takeoff roll. 185 hp should be plenty to get this airplane off the ground, but it would not be a short runway machine.

Does anyone know if the three builders have experience in aircraft construction?
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The UL is a direct drive engine I believe. Suggests a rather small diameter prop to keep the tip speeds acceptable.

Does anybody know if the three have any experience in aircraft design?
 
GRG55 said:
The UL is a direct drive engine I believe. Suggests a rather small diameter prop to keep the tip speeds acceptable.

Does anybody know if the three have any experience in aircraft design?
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I think each one is a different type of engineer- electrical, mechanical, at possibly aerospace. I think one had prior aviation experience. I remember an old video describing their start.
 
How come nobody brings up the White Lightning aircraft? Established and built, goes 265-280 mph on 210 HP. 4 seats and 1000 lb useful load.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
How come nobody brings up the White Lightning aircraft? Established and built, goes 265-280 mph on 210 HP. 4 seats and 1000 lb useful load.
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WLAC-1 stalls at 91mph. Cruise 245. Reflex Lightning Bug is another comp.
 
High stall speed is what you tend to get in a hot airplane. The canards all seem to come in pretty fast, and I think Lanceairs did too. They aren't aircraft to take into the back woods, they're to go from one big city to another, the type of travel folks with enough money to buy one of the things do.

I have to admit, flying these sorts of aircraft might make me a tad nervous. Energy goes up as a square of the velocity, so coming in twice as fast yields four times the energy. And naught but some carbon fiber or fiberglass to dissipate all that crash energy. I just hope the fool thing glides some.
 
steingar said:
I have to admit, flying these sorts of aircraft might make me a tad nervous. Energy goes up as a square of the velocity, so coming in twice as fast yields four times the energy...
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I don't think enough people give this consideration.

This has always been one important factor in my choice of airplanes to own. It's one of the reasons I elected to go with an Aztec as a first twin. I am unconcerned about giving up some cruise speed for those times when the weather is crap and the runway is slippery with ice and snow - which sometimes seems 1/2 the year where I live.
 
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