Raptor Aircraft

It's perfectly reasonable to test incrementally to expand his flight envelope. Keep in mind that he is working with a newly-installed engine, so the conservative course of action would be to assume it is unreliable and do some reliability testing before trying anything new for the airframe. While it is possible that the plane can't make it to 5,000 MSL due to weight, power, or cooling limitations, it's also possible that he just isn't ready to test new altitudes yet. We'll have to watch and see.
 
iamtheari said:
It's perfectly reasonable to test incrementally to expand his flight envelope. Keep in mind that he is working with a newly-installed engine, so the conservative course of action would be to assume it is unreliable and do some reliability testing before trying anything new for the airframe. While it is possible that the plane can't make it to 5,000 MSL due to weight, power, or cooling limitations, it's also possible that he just isn't ready to test new altitudes yet. We'll have to watch and see.
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"perfectly reasonable" doesn't seem to apply here. lol
 
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Just me, or does his speed tape looks like a 104 year old’s electrocardiogram.

B9C7D803-4599-44FE-8DA2-312B4B28131B.jpeg
 
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I wonder why he's always landing after less than an hour and what he's doing for the rest of the day?
He's probably still flying with the heater fully cranked up to dissipate as much heat as possible, what might explain why he's having enough after a relatively short period of time. Another explanation might be that he periodically want to check his engine for leaks or issues with the PSRU. This however doesn't explain why he doesn't go back up after a break.

The other thing that puzzles me is that he always seems to fly relatively late in the morning (Flightaware is showing the earliest recent take-off at 9:26) or in the evening.
I would have thought that if he is looking for cool, calm conditions and wants to "fly-off" his 40 hours as quickly as possible, he should start flying right after sunrise and try to at least complete multiple flights each day, if he has to keep them under an hour each.
 
My thought is that the new company is just waiting for him to deliver the plane, pull everything aft of the firewall and toss it in the garbage. Then put in a turbo IO-540, maybe even make it lighter in the process and jack up the price, if it makes it to production. All this is of course contingent on him ever making it to California.
 
My bet is the new company is just as clueless as he is about aircraft, but they'll use it as a prop to raise capital and use the capital to pay themselves to do nothing much.
 
231TC said:
My bet is the new company is just as clueless as he is about aircraft, but they'll use it as a prop to raise capital and use the capital to pay themselves to do nothing much.
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That raises a question... is the new company actually just the guy who made the YouTube video back in October, entitled "How I'm Buying A Raptor Aircraft With Life Insurance"? (I think the video was linked earlier in this thread.)
 
iamtheari said:
... is the new company actually just the guy who made the YouTube video back in October, entitled "How I'm Buying A Raptor Aircraft With Life Insurance"?
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Does that mean he is buying the Raptor and life insurance? Or perhaps it means life insurance is included with the purchase of a Raptor?

Either way, bundling the two seems prudent.
 
A guy named Kevin Halverson is involved with the new company on the west coast. I have an opinion about him that I removed, but you can Google him and his company RPR Aero if you're interested in doing some speculating of your own. Not much info out there but enough to get an idea.

Word is Peter will still be involved after the new company takes over, not selling it outright and walking away as many have guessed.
 
231TC said:
A guy named Kevin Halverson is involved with the new company on the west coast. I have an opinion about him that I removed, but you can Google him and his company RPR Aero if you're interested in doing some speculating of your own. Not much info out there but enough to get an idea.

Word is Peter will still be involved after the new company takes over, not selling it outright and walking away as many have guessed.
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Thank you for that. The censorship on the other forum is just too much.
 
aftCG said:
There's another forum?
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Yes it is a much longer one and is at homebuiltairplanes.com They will only allow you to comment on "technical" aspects of the project. You are not allowed to have an opinion on Peter's personality or "ethics". For instance if you called him the world's most hated airplane builder you would be banned. Same thing if you called him a con artist. Obviously saying he ****s in your cereal is also verboten.
 
pilotrick said:
Yes it is a much longer one and is at homebuiltairplanes.com They will only allow you to comment on "technical" aspects of the project. You are not allowed to have an opinion on Peter's personality or "ethics". For instance if you called him the world's most hated airplane builder you would be banned. Same thing if you called him a con artist. Obviously saying he ****s in your cereal is also verboten.
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I hung out over there for a little while and never took any personal shots but my posts were being removed by the moderators anyway. POA is perhaps too lenient at times but HBA is totally too far the other direction.
 
.

We are the peasants
Engineers and designers are the intelligent

Generally speaking that is the mindset of an engineer ... and my point is not to fault them .... rather to explain them.
Most have a high IQ .... gifted and intelligent .... but sometimes cannot grasp the most obvious (things obvious to us peasants)
For that reason when we point out problems in their design it goes in one ear and out the other. Peter M. may be an example .

I have worked with many engineers , consider them friends , and often jokingly tell them they are from another planet.
Here is an example .... small manufacturer .... one engineer .... designed two adjacent brackets which had 6 holes for bolts to join them together .... but on the assembly line the holes did not line up properly and the worker had to ream the holes which tripled his assembly time.

As foreman I went to the engineer and told him .... he pulled the brackets up on his computer (CAD), checked them ... and replied .... "they fit" .... next I checked with the punch and brake metal man to make sure he followed the blueprints (he did) .... I even took the engineer right to the assembly line ... showed him the misalignment .... and guess what his reply was .... "they fit" .... true story .... he simply could not grasp it.

As it turned out the blueprints are one dimensional (flat) ... holes and bend locations were precise ..... but CAD software automatically makes accommodation for bending radius which tend to alter hole position after bending .... and the engineer had set his CAD for 3/16" material instead of 1/4" material .

Most likely Peter M. is caught up in a similar scenario ... all his computerized calculations have given him the performance figures he advertises and he is sticking with them .... even though the surrounding peasants have pointed out real-life facts to him they go in one ear and out the other.
 
A Martin said:
.

We are the peasants
Engineers and designers are the intelligent

<snip>

Most likely Peter M. is caught up in a similar scenario ... all his computerized calculations have given him the performance figures he advertises and he is sticking with them .... even though the surrounding peasants have pointed out real-life facts to him they go in one ear and out the other.
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Peter isn't an engineer. He's a software developer. It shows. Instead of doing what an engineer does, which is building from a base of knowledge and proven technology, he reinvents the wheel a lot. In square form.
 
kyleb said:
Peter isn't an engineer. He's a software developer. It shows. Instead of doing what an engineer does, which is building from a base of knowledge and proven technology, he reinvents the wheel a lot. In square form.
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Hey now! Don't throw all of us software guys in the same bucket!
 
A Martin said:
.

We are the peasants
Engineers and designers are the intelligent

Generally speaking that is the mindset of an engineer ... and my point is not to fault them .... rather to explain them.
Most have a high IQ .... gifted and intelligent .... but sometimes cannot grasp the most obvious (things obvious to us peasants)
For that reason when we point out problems in their design it goes in one ear and out the other. Peter M. may be an example .

I have worked with many engineers , consider them friends , and often jokingly tell them they are from another planet.
Here is an example .... small manufacturer .... one engineer .... designed two adjacent brackets which had 6 holes for bolts to join them together .... but on the assembly line the holes did not line up properly and the worker had to ream the holes which tripled his assembly time.

As foreman I went to the engineer and told him .... he pulled the brackets up on his computer (CAD), checked them ... and replied .... "they fit" .... next I checked with the punch and brake metal man to make sure he followed the blueprints (he did) .... I even took the engineer right to the assembly line ... showed him the misalignment .... and guess what his reply was .... "they fit" .... true story .... he simply could not grasp it.

As it turned out the blueprints are one dimensional (flat) ... holes and bend locations were precise ..... but CAD software automatically makes accommodation for bending radius which tend to alter hole position after bending .... and the engineer had set his CAD for 3/16" material instead of 1/4" material .

Most likely Peter M. is caught up in a similar scenario ... all his computerized calculations have given him the performance figures he advertises and he is sticking with them .... even though the surrounding peasants have pointed out real-life facts to him they go in one ear and out the other.
Click to expand...
Don't throw all of us manufacturing engineers in the same bucket either.
 
kyleb said:
Peter isn't an engineer. He's a software developer. It shows. Instead of doing what an engineer does, which is building from a base of knowledge and proven technology, he reinvents the wheel a lot. In square form.
Click to expand...
UngaWunga said:
Hey now! Don't throw all of us software guys in the same bucket!
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I don't think agile development methodologies are a good way to develop a new airplane...
 
Datadriver said:
I hung out over there for a little while and never took any personal shots but my posts were being removed by the moderators anyway. POA is perhaps too lenient at times but HBA is totally too far the other direction.
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HBA has its rules. You join, you agree to follow the forum rules. You don't like the rules, start your own forum. It might be a little harsh, but if someone else is paying the bills, they get to set the rules.
 
kyleb said:
HBA has its rules. You join, you agree to follow the forum rules. You don't like the rules, start your own forum. It might be a little harsh, but if someone else is paying the bills, they get to set the rules.
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Or....just follow along on HBA and when you get feel the need to call Peter a con artist do it right here!
 
DaleB said:
I don't think agile development methodologies are a good way to develop a new airplane...
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Actually, Boeing and Saab applied agile as part of a broader digital engineering process for the T-7. Not just to software but to the whole design process- modeling and simulation let's them iterate designs quickly at the system level.
 
Spacedoc said:
Actually, Boeing and Saab applied agile as part of a broader digital engineering process for the T-7. Not just to software but to the whole design process- modeling and simulation let's them iterate designs quickly at the system level.
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Which is great if you’re doing simulation and wind tunnel testing. Maybe not quite so good an idea if you’re actually flying the plane.
 
..this may be a cheap shot but Boeing has had 6 straight quarterly losses and has had quite a few "egg on face" moments recently even if we ignore certain Max pilots' inability to arrest an errant trim wheel (and no, it's not all pandemic related, this started with the 787).. I would not be looking to them for business acumen at this point

Agile sounds nice in theory, but in my experience the practical applications of it, at least on the software side, have been nothing short of excruciatingly painful.. teams of people droning on in endless scrums only to lead to crappy releases that don't work as intended and aren't useful to the end user.. granted this may be more related to how its implemented vs the method itself..

this article basically shows exactly how I feel: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/08/23/the-end-of-agile/?sh=539a5bb92071
 
Tantalum said:
..this may be a cheap shot but Boeing has had 6 straight quarterly losses and has had quite a few "egg on face" moments recently even if we ignore certain Max pilots' inability to arrest an errant trim wheel (and no, it's not all pandemic related, this started with the 787).. I would not be looking to them for business acumen at this point

Agile sounds nice in theory, but in my experience the practical applications of it, at least on the software side, have been nothing short of excruciatingly painful.. teams of people droning on in endless scrums only to lead to crappy releases that don't work as intended and aren't useful to the end user.. granted this may be more related to how its implemented vs the method itself..

this article basically shows exactly how I feel: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/08/23/the-end-of-agile/?sh=539a5bb92071
Click to expand...
It’s also an insult to call the place Boeing. It’s not anymore. Just like American Airlines is really America West.
 
A Martin said:
.

We are the peasants
Engineers and designers are the intelligent

Generally speaking that is the mindset of an engineer ... and my point is not to fault them .... rather to explain them.
Most have a high IQ .... gifted and intelligent .... but sometimes cannot grasp the most obvious (things obvious to us peasants)
For that reason when we point out problems in their design it goes in one ear and out the other. Peter M. may be an example .

I have worked with many engineers , consider them friends , and often jokingly tell them they are from another planet.
Here is an example .... small manufacturer .... one engineer .... designed two adjacent brackets which had 6 holes for bolts to join them together .... but on the assembly line the holes did not line up properly and the worker had to ream the holes which tripled his assembly time.

As foreman I went to the engineer and told him .... he pulled the brackets up on his computer (CAD), checked them ... and replied .... "they fit" .... next I checked with the punch and brake metal man to make sure he followed the blueprints (he did) .... I even took the engineer right to the assembly line ... showed him the misalignment .... and guess what his reply was .... "they fit" .... true story .... he simply could not grasp it.

As it turned out the blueprints are one dimensional (flat) ... holes and bend locations were precise ..... but CAD software automatically makes accommodation for bending radius which tend to alter hole position after bending .... and the engineer had set his CAD for 3/16" material instead of 1/4" material .

Most likely Peter M. is caught up in a similar scenario ... all his computerized calculations have given him the performance figures he advertises and he is sticking with them .... even though the surrounding peasants have pointed out real-life facts to him they go in one ear and out the other.
Click to expand...
 

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