Eviation redesigned Alice

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MountainDude

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MountainDude
It drives me crazy when a plane manufacturer spends many years changing the design, with no certification and commercialization. Companies used to crank out certified planes in 2-3 years. Why can't they design and certify a plane, become profitable, then fiddle with the design? Same thing has happened to the Flight Design C4, which morphed into F4. It's been a 13 year journey and still no plane for sale. Who funds these projects?

Eviation to supply UrbanLink Air Mobility with 10 Alice all-electric aircraft

www.urbanairmobilitynews.com www.urbanairmobilitynews.com
 
Well, I think you're recollection, may be a bit tainted. From the start of the drawing board until certification received was typically a bit over five years in a lot of the last century designs I'm aware of.

The certification environment certainly has changed over the years on the FAA's part so that likely contributes to some of it.

But Eviation isn't just retooling a traditional design. They're breaking ground here with the design of the electric engines and storage. Eviation only has existed for nine years and wasn't the outgrowth of some existing aerospace company, but a couple of "visionary" air force pilots. So in addition to getting a plane launched, you have to get a company launched as well.
 
MountainDude said:
Who funds these projects?
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Suckers? Idealists?

Everybody wants to see “green” electric airplanes and pilotless drone air taxis. So cook up a cool looking but utterly unrealistic design, whack together a cool looking but inflatable mockup (or just a 3D rendering, really). Now go schmooze investors and live off their money for as many years as you can. If there’s a sudden miraculous breakthrough in batteries or if we find out that physicists have had it all wrong for a few hundred years, great - you’re all set. If not, find more “visionary investors”.

Electric airplane companies can’t get their products to market and then fiddle with the design because fiddling with the design IS the business model.
 
I wonder if these projects begin with good intentions, but turn into "Let's find some more investor money so we can continue to pay ourselves big salaries." type efforts.
 
MountainDude said:
Companies used to crank out certified planes in 2-3 years.
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On average it takes 7-10 years from design lock to certification provided no new technologies are used. For example, the clean-sheet Beech Denali is still not certified and its design was locked in 2015.

MountainDude said:
Why can't they design and certify a plane, become profitable, then fiddle with the design?
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Depends. In the case of electric propulsion aircraft there still is no defined regulatory certification process. Currently they are using a Part 21 Special Class/Conditions certification process to certify these type aircraft in addition to the applicable portions of Part 23, 25,27,29. And you add the multitude of tech growth in this specific part of the industry, new components are being introduced on a regular basis. So at this point it may be hard to lock a design when tomorrow a new electric motor will be released. Which I think was the case on the Alice. Regardless, based on what I've seen, the FAA, EASA and other CAAs have been moving rather quickly on developing rules that will work globally.
 
Not saying that it applies here, but there are some that are just investor pits. Anybody remember Moller's Skycar? He's been at it for like 50 years. Settled with the SEC on his claims back in 2003, but is still at it.
 
One thing I've noticed during my 25 years in manufacturing industry is that there is an increasing gap between design engineers and manufacturing engineers.
The new engineers sure are really good with Solidworks, but absolutely unaware of the manufacturing tools, practices and manufacturability in general. The prototype manufacturing phase generally has a large budget so they make it work, however the actual production turns out to be much more expensive and time consuming then anticipated.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I feel your angst but I had thought that once a design was certified, any alteration after that was a painful and expensive process?
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Its the opposite. You'll find once an aircraft, engine, or prop is certified the OEM has a wide latitude to change things in-house.... within reason of course. Just look at the numbers of engine variants there are around a IO-540 or PT6 with some using different cert basis CAR 13 vs Part 33 under same TCDS.

Same with aircraft like a PA-28 or 737. However, I believe the MAX issues have finally put a lid on how far you can take a single design in-house. Now for those 3rd party entities who want to change things via an STC then yes it can be painful/expensive vs for the OEM on a similar change its could be as easy as a stroke of a pen. OEMs and Owners have all the power.
 
flyingron said:
Well, I think you're recollection, may be a bit tainted. From the start of the drawing board until certification received was typically a bit over five years in a lot of the last century designs I'm aware of.

The certification environment certainly has changed over the years on the FAA's part so that likely contributes to some of it.

But Eviation isn't just retooling a traditional design. They're breaking ground here with the design of the electric engines and storage. Eviation only has existed for nine years and wasn't the outgrowth of some existing aerospace company, but a couple of "visionary" air force pilots. So in addition to getting a plane launched, you have to get a company launched as well.
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Here are some planes that took less than 5 years from design to certification:
B707 - 4 years
Concorde - 4 years (this is obviously the best example here)
E170/190 - 5 years
A320 - 4 years

Eviation is on their 3rd design. Since their first flight, they changed their design. Why?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I feel your angst but I had thought that once a design was certified, any alteration after that was a painful and expensive process?
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I am sure it is. However, Eviation changed their design after the first flight. Makes no sense.
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
One thing I've noticed during my 25 years in manufacturing industry is that there is an increasing gap between design engineers and manufacturing engineers.
The new engineers sure are really good with Solidworks, but absolutely unaware of the manufacturing tools, practices and manufacturability in general. The prototype manufacturing phase generally has a large budget so they make it work, however the actual production turns out to be much more expensive and time consuming then anticipated.
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Thank you. I think this may be exactly why Eviation changed their design recently. The shape of the fuselage on the version that flew was probably not easy to mass manufacture.
 
MountainDude said:
Here are some planes that took less than 5 years from design to certification:
B707 - 4 years
Concorde - 4 years (this is obviously the best example here)
E170/190 - 5 years
A320 - 4 years

Eviation is on their 3rd design. Since their first flight, they changed their design. Why?
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Compare the size of the engineering staff and the company history and experience of Boeing at al versus the startups designing electric aircraft.
 
MountainDude said:
Concorde - 4 years (this is obviously the best example here)
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FWIW: I think you'll find it was closer to the 10 years. As I recall in the books I read the initial design work was started in the mid-50s with the full-scale prototypes built in the mid-60s and it was certified in the mid-70s. While I dont know about the others my guess there will be a few years of design work or there was a prior prototype they were based on. The only short design to "certify" time frames I've can recall were military aircraft.
 
MountainDude said:
Here are some planes that took less than 5 years from design to certification:
B707 - 4 years
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Well, not quite. The project was launched in 1952 and the first test flight of the 707-120 took place in December of 1957. It was certficied in September of 1958.
 
I wonder; if they get investors on board could they be beholden to the money guys’ desired changes to design?
So everytime a mil comes their way, they are asked to change X about the aircraft?
 
MountainDude said:
Eviation is on their 3rd design. Since their first flight, they changed their design. Why?
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Some guesses - poor handling, visibility, control, etc. Plus low payload and range, long turn around times, etc. Sure is pretty. Pity physics still plays a role.
 
The first Eviation Alice was an amazingly unworkable design.

1729465690966.png

It started out as a trike, but morphed into a taildragger. I'd bet there were serious CG issues that would have prevented flight anyway. Almost all the mass there is behind the wing. The prop behind the tailwheel would soon get chewed up by debris. A crosswind landing, especially in a taildragger, requires a wing-low slip, so what happens to those props on the wingtips? And what happens if one wingtip motor fails suddenly?

So what does all that say about their engineering abilities?
 
From that first prototype they showed around which was laughable in the lack of practical aviation good sense, to the second short taxi trials at AWO, to dismantling it trucking it to out of sight Eastern Washington, to a very, very short hop around the pattern at Moses Lake to keep investors interested, to the announcements of letters of intent with no photos of the plane as being rebuilt/redesigned - after that first hop redesign of the Alice other than nice art work which (surprise, surprise) looks conventional, to now… if they haven’t burned through every last dollar I would question their accountants. It has buyer beware all over it. And the fan comments are more than a little out of touch.
 
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Ashara Keliyn said:
One thing I've noticed during my 25 years in manufacturing industry is that there is an increasing gap between design engineers and manufacturing engineers.
The new engineers sure are really good with Solidworks, but absolutely unaware of the manufacturing tools, practices and manufacturability in general. The prototype manufacturing phase generally has a large budget so they make it work, however the actual production turns out to be much more expensive and time consuming then anticipated.
Click to expand...
A good example…the Starship design engineers at Beech wanted to wind a carbon fuselage on a one-piece plug. “How are you planning to remove the plug?”
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
One thing I've noticed during my 25 years in manufacturing industry is that there is an increasing gap between design engineers and manufacturing engineers.
The new engineers sure are really good with Solidworks, but absolutely unaware of the manufacturing tools, practices and manufacturability in general.
Click to expand...

:yeahthat:

We used to make a point of having early-career engineers do a rotation in a production support role for exactly this reason. Something that looks fine on paper looks entirely different when you actually have to put a wrench on it. We also used to do manufacturing simulations as part of design, and all production drawings required review and approval from manufacturing.

Unfortunately, smaller companies don't have the staff and resources to do all that's necessary. I just finished pickling and storing my Generac generator after Milton, and what a PITA that was. No thought was put into that design regarding maintenance. The starter battery can't be removed without loosening the holding bracket, and the bolts to do that are captured beneath the fuel tank. Access to the spark plug is also blocked by the fuel tank. The oil drain plug is blocked by one of the wheels. Doing basic maintenance requires near disassembly, and tasks that should take a minute or two require an hour. Grumblegrumblegrumble.....
 
Half Fast said:
:yeahthat:

We used to make a point of having early-career engineers do a rotation in a production support role for exactly this reason. Something that looks fine on paper looks entirely different when you actually have to put a wrench on it. We also used to do manufacturing simulations as part of design, and all production drawings required review and approval from manufacturing.

Unfortunately, smaller companies don't have the staff and resources to do all that's necessary. I just finished pickling and storing my Generac generator after Milton, and what a PITA that was. No thought was put into that design regarding maintenance. The starter battery can't be removed without loosening the holding bracket, and the bolts to do that are captured beneath the fuel tank. Access to the spark plug is also blocked by the fuel tank. The oil drain plug is blocked by one of the wheels. Doing basic maintenance requires near disassembly, and tasks that should take a minute or two require an hour. Grumblegrumblegrumble.....
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Thanks for the reminder, I knew I was forgetting to do something last weekend.
 
MauleSkinner said:
A good example…the Starship design engineers at Beech wanted to wind a carbon fuselage on a one-piece plug. “How are you planning to remove the plug?”
Click to expand...
Oh, that’s easy. Use Styrofoam for the plug, then just pour in a few gallons of gasoline. What could possibly go wrong?
 
Sounds like old GM engineers. I recall a few of their cars where you couldn't pull one of the spark plugs without removing the engine. At least my 1954 Buick Special only required a few extra parts on the socket wrench to pull that last plug. I haven't seen that beast since late 1979 and really don't miss working on it at all.
 
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