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The potentially revolutionary Celera 500L aircraft

490 points by tomohawk 6y ago

Animats 6y ago
It's a Diesel. The engine is made by RED in Germany.[1] Almost the same Diesel powers the YAK-152 trainer.[2] Celera avoids the term "Diesel", but that's what it is. It runs on Diesel fuel, or JET-A, which is much the same thing. The base engine has been flying for several years. This is the turbocharged model. So it's an engine design with some flight experience. [1] https://red-aircraft.com/ https://red-aircraft.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-152 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-152
- gregschlom 6y ago
  Ok, but so what? Is there something bad about diesel engines?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Stevvo 6y ago
    Not at all, without question it's a superior fuel to leaded avgas.
    - KMag 6y ago
      It has higher energy density, higher flash point (less prone to fire or explosion), less volatile (doesn't evaporate as quickly), and less toxic. However, it's difficult to make a diesel that gets as much power/weight or power/volume as a comparable petrol engine. There are trade-offs. It's not a universally superior fuel.
  - msandford 6y ago
    Nothing is inherently bad but diesels tend to be heavier for the power they make. And there's a fairly well understood weight vs reliability tradeoff. Light an unreliable is bad for airplanes and so is heavy and reliable. You want light and reliable, ideally.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      It is a V12. Historical military V12s had a feature of two bank redundancy. One row of 6 cylinders can be shut down along with its pumps, cooling, etc. And I have a big suspicion that they use two of these engines inside.
      - davidgould 6y ago
        V* engines share a common crankshaft with both banks, that's the V part. Please cite any specific V12 aircraft engine that can have one bank of cylinders shut down. I don't believe one exists.
        baybal2 6y ago
        Of course the crankshaft is shared. It is oil, fuel, and cooling that can be shut down to prevent leaks.
        ledauphin 6y ago
        I don't know much about aircraft engines, but in fact straight-6 engines are inherently balanced, and a V12 is fundamentally two straight sixes, so at least in theory it would be quite possible to stop using one bank of cylinders if some of their cylinders suffered some form of non-catastrophic failure.
        akrain 6y ago
        Although I can't find a reference to an aircraft engine, Chrysler did have a variable displacement tech on its third gen Hemi engines that could turn off one bank of the V8. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Displacement_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Displacement_System
        desdiv 6y ago
        >Please cite any specific V12 aircraft engine that can have one bank of cylinders shut down. The RED A03 Engine[0], which is what this sub-thread is about. >Two cylinder-bank redundancy concept for high safety. >Robustness and safety are incorporated into the engine design. The two 6-cylinder banks are capable of independent operation. All critical engine sub-systems are mutually-independent. [0] https://red-aircraft.com/ https://red-aircraft.com/
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    They weigh more but have lower fuel consumption. More complex than gasoline aero engines. Usually more reliable but making them light probably impacts that. I think the lower fuel consumption compensates for the higher weight for longer flights. Big reason for switching to them after 100 years of using gasoline is aviation gas is expensive and concerns about lead. Big picture I think refineries and distributors don't want to supply aviation gasoline anymore.
  - Neil44 6y ago
    BSFC as in horsepower generated per unit of fuel tends to be better in Diesel engines, but they’re heavier because the combustion events are more violent, requiring a stronger block and pistons.
- rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  Interesting trivia: the CTO of RED and part of the staff used to work for and build Toyota F1 engines in Cologne.
geokon 6y ago
Is there a reason why small aircraft don't just use a car engine (with some appropriate gearing I guess)? Those have had so much R&D in them and they're pretty much as efficient as you can get - plus much easier to maintain and repair
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  Reliability would be my first concern. Power to weight is likely an issue as well. Here is some more info I found: https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/do-car-engines-make-good-airplane-engines/ https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/do-car-engines-make-good-...
- Stevvo 6y ago
  Efficiency at sea level does not equal efficiency at altitude. That said, there are some very impressive experimentals that do use auto engines.
- Czarcasm 6y ago
  Automotive engines are designed to produce power at a wide range of operating speeds, at the detriment of peak power output and peak efficiency. Aircraft engines can take advantage of the fact that they will be operating at a single RPM range for most of their life, which allows you to optimize every single aspect of the system for that speed. Aircraft engines also have much, much higher reliability, lifecycle, and quality control requirements than automotive engines. For these reasons and a few others, you would basically end up redoing most of the engineering work on an automotive engine to repurpose it for aerospace applications, thus negating the savings of reusing the existing design.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    But you can do it the other way around, resulting in the M4 Sherman. :-)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
Stevvo 6y ago
It seems a bit dishonest to compare it to a jet, when the obvious competition is a single engine Turboprop like a TBM or PC-12. On paper it beats those aircraft, but by a far less impressive margin when you consider engine TBO, which is currently 1250 hrs on the EASA cert. With the inherent unreliablilty of piston engines, a PT-6 might look more appealing. I'd love to see this aircraft come to market, but I fear it may go the way of many innovative aircraft; the company underestimated the cost and complexity or certification and goes bankrupt.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Big guesstion, do they have one, or two engines? A combiner gearbox does not fare well in aviation, as history show. I have a hard time believing they can get to such speed with just 500hp.
  - karlkatzke 6y ago
    One engine, a turbocharged V-12.
    - sirk1882 6y ago
      And as others have mentioned, it's taken advantage of newer technology that allows six of pistons to be turned off. The engine basically sounds like two in-line six cylinder engines that share many common single engine features but with the ability to shut off one side and use power from the remaining side. So hypothetically, you fly up to altitude and climb using all 12 cylinders, then cruise on six. That could be where the fuel efficiency is being notched up versus burning all 12 cylinders at all times. Kinda like how people are still amazed variable displacement engines took them from 10mpg to 18-20mpg. It's also likely the engine has a number of other more recent innovations included too. Variable valve timing, etc, etc. A lot of new rather exciting new engine technology has come out in the last 20 years. It's much like when we went from naturally aspirated aka carbs to electronic fuel injection/ignition.
      - Toutouxc 6y ago
PowerfulWizard 6y ago
The fuel mileage sounds incredible, it's in the same range as an F150. The pilot must be a major part of the expense, meaning it could also be well positioned for an autonomous shuttle future, if those are ever fully trusted, bringing the cost down even further. Obviously they still have a long way to but they are saying the right things to get me excited, even though my knowledge of aircraft efficiency is pretty minimal. edit: It looks like the Yak-152 mentioned elsewhere in the thread can do about 14 mpg if wikipedia & my math is right.
- kbenson 6y ago
  > It looks like the Yak-152 mentioned elsewhere in the thread can do about 14 mpg if wikipedia & my math is right. Isn't the MPG highly dependent on what it's paired with? You can't expect a Honda Civic to hit it's stated MPG either if you overload the car or tow something, but if you replace a lot of parts with lighter equivalents (or put the engine in a lighter car) you would expect it to get a higher MPG. One of the major points of this plane is that it's supposed to be extremely aerodynamic.
scarier 6y ago
For some perspective, the Scaled Composites Catbird (powered by a 210-hp V6) achieved just over 20 mpg at 200 mph with close to 1000 lbs of payload (it could carry a pilot and four passengers) in the late '80s and early '90s. Amateur-built experimentals have achieved upwards of 50 mpg in realistic flying conditions, but they generally tended to be tandem-seat designs with minimal frontal area and low-powered engines. More recently, the Pipistrel Taurus G4 (a highly modified sailplane with an electric motor between twin fuselages, designed to carry a pilot and three passengers) achieved just over 100 mpg at ~107 mph. I eagerly await proof that the Celera--a significantly larger, heavier, and faster aircraft than Rutan's Catbird--actually achieves similar fuel economy. If true, it would be a pretty incredible leap for an industry that's been largely stagnant for decades, but these sorts of claims have a long history of being either sadly mistaken or outright fraudulent.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- qzw 6y ago
  Definitely some extraodinary claims that will require extraordinary evidence to prove. Especially getting 20+ mpg for 4500 miles, while flying at 450mph, which is near the top end of what piston/propeller aircraft are capable of. For reference, the P51 (one of the fastest fighters of WWII) had a comparable top speed. The Piaggio Avanti [0] has a somewhat similar design and top speed (460 high speed cruise), but has twin turboprops and a far shorter range and far lower claimed mpg. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti
  - Retric 6y ago
    The Piaggio II (https://www.aircraftcompare.com/aircraft/piaggio-p180-avanti-ii/ https://www.aircraftcompare.com/aircraft/piaggio-p180-avanti...) is missing several modern aerodynamic and efficiency features like winglets and gets 15MPG and has a 1600 Mile range. Significantly beating it’s fuel efficiency at similar speeds seems reasonable just eyeballing the two designs. Getting the full 20MPG at 450MPH might be a stretch, but it’s not all that unreasonable. Also, higher aerodynamic efficiency means lower HP requirements. Moving that weight savings to fuel can boost range even further. PS: Winglets are actually really old technology. It’s making the trade offs worth it including significantly increased weight at the wing tip that’s new.
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
It's not real until it's in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
- Stevvo 6y ago
  As awesome as the new Flight Simulator is, as an avgeek the Flight model is very disappointing. X-Plane can, and has, been used to design real world aircraft because you input the aircraft geometry and it simulates how it should fly based on that. MSFS extrapolates a lookup table over the input geometry, making it useless for real-world aerodynamic predictions. From the consumer perspective, both models are capable of outputting accurate results, but from the developer perspective, MSFS is no better than FS 98.
  - nikitaga 6y ago
    Which aircraft were actually designed with X-plane, and why? I've heard this several times but that never made sense to me. I wouldn't be surprised if their blade element theory approach is superior to whatever Microsoft is doing (not familiar), but still both of those are optimized for realtime simulation, not for correctness. When I wanted to analyze performance of a hypothetical rigid wing hang glider I went with XFLR5. That isn't a perfect tool by any means either but its algorithms should be miles ahead of X-Plane. Though of course you can't actually fly the plane in XFLR5, just do the math.
    - Stevvo 6y ago
      Beta eVTOL. https://www.beta.team/ https://www.beta.team/
    - 0xffff2 6y ago
      I don't know about production aircraft, but NASA uses X-Plane pretty extensively for all kinds of research, including modeling flight dynamics for small UAVs. It's used often enough that several years ago I developed (and released on NASA's GitHub) a tool to simplify programmatic interaction with the X-Plane simulation engine. It's not nearly popular enough to make maintaining it a full time job (thankfully), but I do get pretty regular comments from NASA researchers and members of the public. I have never heard of anyone using MS Flight Sim in the same way, although another fairly common use case for my library is to disable the X-Plane physics completely and just use if as a visualization tool. If someone developed a library that made that equally easy for MSFS, I can see it taking over that role. It certainly looks better the X-Plane IMO.
zaroth 6y ago
This is super neat. Wish them the best of luck trying to get this commercialized! One thing which was a bit surprising was actually how small the whole craft is. Scroll down the page and they show a human for scale. Looks like you can barely stand up in the center of it. But I’m sure as a private craft they will come up with some incredible interior designs nonetheless.
alfalfasprout 6y ago
It's still a GA aircraft though... so you still have to deal with all the BS. If you don't own it yourself then you need to pay a pilot (though with the recent downturn there's no shortage of pilots). There is absolutely no way many people will try and get their pilot's license. The FAA written test for a PPL may be easy compared to IR but it's still not a walk in the park. The checkrides are very strict nowadays too. So if you're paying a pilot, FBO costs (or dealing with a commercial operator of the planes), etc. at the end of the day it's never going to be as cheap as commercial airlines. This certainly would make it affordable. But not that affordable.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  I think the point is more that this kind of tech could be scaled up to make commercial airliners more fuel efficient too?
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    A big part of the "tech" is the engine and its turbocharger. That doesn't really scale.
  - branko_d 6y ago
    From https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology "The design of the Celera fuselage takes advantage of an optimum length-to-width ratio to maximize laminar flow. These benefits will not scale for large jet transports and are therefore well suited for an aircraft like the Celera."
- skykooler 6y ago
  That said, it would definitely be cheaper to certify a pilot on this than on a business jet, since the flight hours for the aircraft cost much less.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    If I had to guess, the certification and training process on this would best be compared to advanced single engine expensive aircraft like a Pilatus PC-12. Or a Cessna Caravan. Anything else out there in the single engine turboprop PT6 (or competing engine) category.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Not gonna lie, this week I've read two HN postings about dope planes for rich people (boom, now this)......and news articles detailing a crisis of austerity for the NYC subway. It's really sad to me that we can VC these wild bets on inefficient transport for the few, meanwhile perhaps the most efficient people-mover ever devised for the many is on an entirely politically-caused death bed.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  NYC is a very rich city. NYC can definitely afford a better subway. People come to the voting stations and pick the candidate with the most important agenda for them. Obviously, the NYC subway does not seem to be the largest issue. If you want to blame rich people for that, well, welcome to the USSR.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    The subway that benefits the city is controlled by the state of New York. The state of New York that would like to spend counter-cyclically is constrained by laws and the inability to issue currency, and thus has a budget that is controlled by the feds. At every level, the political power is structured poorly to make the subway (and regional infra in general) a low priority.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Privatize it and it will improve dramatically in a very short time.
- dx034 6y ago
  If the design works there's no reason it shouldn't work on a A320/B737 size. But without a small prototype, the billions for developing a completely new plane and engine are not worth it. I'm sure Airbus & Boeing are following this closely. A large turboprop (even at sizes of a A220) would further reduce ticket costs for budget airlines.
haecceity 6y ago
MPG*person is probably a better measure.
Sebb767 6y ago
It looks like the view range is pretty limited based on the images, especially in the front. Can a pilot chime in and explain how important this is?
paulsutter 6y ago
Huge if true: - 450 miles per hour, range of over 4,500 miles - 18 to 25 miles per gallon (vs 2-3 mpg for jet) - per-hour flight cost of just $328 (vs $2100 for light jet)
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
Big if true. The claimed performance on this is wild, especially since the pusher propeller configuration is usually less efficient than the puller configuration and its top speed is up there with the fastest piston engine aircraft (which are designed for speed not fuel efficiency).
travisgriggs 6y ago
Nice and all, but I just got my private pilots wings a month and a half ago. I've looked at planes. I could buy an fleet of old pipers and burn 9gallons an hour throwing a plane away a year for what just one of these will probably cost. The tech is cool, but I would love to have something robust and cheep for the private pilots out there.
- dx034 6y ago
  It won't make sense to buy for any individual. But if you run it close to 24/7 renting it out, fuel efficiency matters much more. You could have it on some kind of a scheduled service but sell out flights as a whole for businesses or families. That way you still get a private jet experience but at a much lower price due to lower flexibility. Still appealing for most.
hindsightbias 6y ago
Bill Lear did it first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan Success is dependent on the gearbox.
- KMag 6y ago
  > Success is dependent on the gearbox. This uses a single V12 Diesel engine. The Lear Fan used dual turboshaft engines.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    It is not clear yet: https://the-drive.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fthe-drive-cms-content-staging%2Fmessage-editor%252F1559926122712-before.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&ixlib=js-1.2.1&s=cb2187a8c3bff915c858175126ed48d3 https://the-drive.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazo... And the speed figures are hard to believe for just 500hp, and an aircraft of this size. What is on the photo make me think they have 2 of them, mounted at 120 degrees.
    - KMag 6y ago
      Ahh, that makes much more sense. Upvoted.
    - hindsightbias 6y ago
      It is in fact registered as a single-engine[1], but I am also suspicious. There is wiggle-room in a twin with single drive train. If the engine were also turbo/supercharged and could do closer to 1000shp, might be possible. But if really only 500hp I think it's more 450 mph with a single pilot and no load at 45K. Same with range and field length. [1] https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=818WM https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?N...
hyko 6y ago
Where are the windows? Human payloads need windows.
dx034 6y ago
Another point that doesn't get mentioned in the article is noise. Laminar flow with a 59% reduction would make the aircraft much quieter, especially during approach. Aerodynamic drag is the primary source of landing planes, reducing that can greatly help communities around airports and avoid curfews.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  But planes need that to decelerate / reduce both kinetic and gravitational potential energy though, don't they? I suppose air should always be able to do that even at higher efficiency.
anovikov 6y ago
OK, at least they are not claiming 10x increases in fuel economy anymore, it reduced to the more reasonable 5x, which is sorta believable, especially since most of the affordable jets are not using latest generations of jet engines. Let me guess: the catch is the high maintenance cost of the piston engine.
pontifier 6y ago
Uber for airplanes coming soon!
rm445 6y ago
With a supposedly 10x improvement in an important metric (fuel consumption, together with reasonable speed and carrying enough fuel for range), there must surely be a big idea driving the change. Something that stands out. I can't quite follow what specifically makes this aircraft special. I mean, it's an odd shape, and it has a piston engine. But what's driving the huge improvements? Improvements in CFD software driving aerodynamic design? Automotive technology bringing engine efficiencies? Some trade-off of stability that has previously been avoided but new avionics have overcome? The comparisons are all against business jets - is it in some way a well-designed propeller aircraft sitting in the space where the utility of jets versus propeller craft starts to cross over and small jets become inefficient? I suppose it's not impossible that it sits in an unexplored area of the design space - a clever designer starting from a clean sheet of paper and ending up with something that works really well. But it would be extremely unusual after a century-plus of innovation. I don't like that breathless articles are written about this plane without any attempt to describe what the special sauce may be.
- fluffything 6y ago
  > had a maximum cruising speed of at least 450 miles per hour and a range of over 4,500 miles Given the shape of the airplane, I'd guess the 4,500 miles range is not at 450 miles per hour, but much much less. Also, it needs to fly very high, so you need to correct the time it takes to travel with this with the longer take off and landing times. It wouldn't surprise me if the "effective" velocity of this plane for long distances was more like 200 mph. I hope I'm wrong.
redis_mlc 6y ago
I read this article threads, and once again HN comes up short on aviation knowledge. Here's some actual facts: - Germany is always producing diesel piston-engine companies. The previous one was Thielert, which folded in 2008, and is now owned by China (Avic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thielert_Centurion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thielert_Centurion - diesel engines are popular ideas because most of the world doesn't have avgas available (including Africa, Far North, etc.) - jet engines work most efficiently at high altitude (thermo equation), but pistons generally work best low density altitude. Pistons are generally twice as efficient as jet engines historically. A key method of boosting power in WW2 was cooling combustion with combinations of water and alcohol, which is how they approached and exceeded 2000 HP. - Scaled Composites made mostly military prototypes, so irrelevant for civil uses. Sold to Northrop Grumman in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites - regarding "jokes about German companies' fuel efficiency claims" - all auto makers fake efficiency and emissions results to get around government regulations, or blend results from one model with another to average it down. Volkswagen just got caught. - regarding "planes for rich people", I doubt if this engine will be used outside charter operations, IOW for commercial revenue use, like a tractor. Boom will never see the light of day - it's just a vanity project for the designers. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
nabla9 6y ago
The revolutionary part is to use V12 turbo-diesel piston engine for high cruise altitude instead of turboprop or jet engine. Aerospace experts are skeptical https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-weird-plane-could-be-the-prius-of-the-skies https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-weird-plane-could-be-the-... >Juan Alonso, a professor in the Department of Aeronautics at Stanford University, has his doubts. A 30 percent improvement in fuel-efficiency is possible in an airplane with a new, more aerodynamic wing design, an ultra-light airframe made from high-tech composite materials and a super-efficient engine. >But an 800 percent improvement? “Unlikely,” Alonso told The Daily Beast. The Celera 500L’s rear-mounted propeller is a good choice for a more fuel-efficient plane, Alonso said. But the egg-like fuselage probably is less fuel-efficient than the narrower fuselages on planes such as the PC-12, he pointed out. >Mark Drela, an MIT aeronautical engineer, is equally skeptical. “The 500L looks fairly well-designed,” Drela told The Daily Beast, “but I cannot say whether it’s close to optimum, or whether the diesel engine makes sense.” > To say for sure, Drela said he’d need to know how much the Celera 500L weighs and how efficient its engine is. Since Otto isn’t talking, Drela can only guess. And he’s guessing that the Celera 500L isn’t nearly as efficient as Otto hopes it will be.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
> This and aircraft's other notable performance characteristics are made possible in large part due to its highly aerodynamic overall laminar flow shape, which produces approximately 59 percent less drag than existing similar-sized, more conventionally-shaped aircraft. Wait, if the shape is that much more efficient, why don't we already see this sort of shape for commercial jets? Are there other compromises involved?
greatNespresso 6y ago
What's fun also is that "Celera" sounds just like "scélérat" in french, which is an old word for criminal.
Giorgi 6y ago
Looks like engine is 90% to blame for that economy
rob74 6y ago
Ok... lifting body, clean efficient wing, rear-mounted propeller to avoid disturbing the laminar flow - I get all of that. But what are the two gizmos mounted on the top of the fuselage between wing and tail? They look a bit big to just be the air intake for the engine?!
- clucas 6y ago
  Presumably air intake and exhaust for the piston engine.
NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
Hmmm, a complex V-12 turbocharged piston single - sign me up, as long as I don't have to fly over water or mountains.
scott31 6y ago
That aircraft is extremely risky, it is designed by amateurs who are not even using metric system. Pretty much guaranteed that FAA won't let it fly
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  by "that aircraft" do you mean the Celera 500L?
mzs 6y ago
All of this is lifted from from https://www.ottoaviation.com/ https://www.ottoaviation.com/ which seems geared for investors.
ahelwer 6y ago
Large parts of this article read as though they were lazily & uncritically copied straight out of a press release.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Welcome to The Drive.
  - lvs 6y ago
    Or any industry blog/magazine.
- woozyolliew 6y ago
  It does sound a bit too good to be true. But I’d love it to be true!
- yodon 6y ago
  It sounds like a pretty seriously amazing plane. Even allowing for a positive spin this seems like a pretty big deal for the market it's in.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  Yeah it's pretty breathless.
dmitrygr 6y ago
> A03 V12 piston engine there's why it is cheaper! turbines are expensive, pistons are cheap.
- virtue3 6y ago
  Sort of. Yes yes development costs. They are claiming the plane is also cheaper to fly dramatically, and having a similar airspeed to modern jets. That's not easy. Modern jetliners use "turbo-fans" which are just jets powering giant fans. This allows them to be -incredibly- efficient. The complexity of the piston based engine is in the superchargers and how they get air into the engine at high speeds. You can read about it from the highly famous WWII engine the Rolls-Royce Merlin _- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharge...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Judgmentality 6y ago
The idea of being stuck in a plane for hours with no windows is...odd.
- jtchang 6y ago
  On the face of it but then I think back to star trek and the giant screen they have on the bridge.
- tonymet 6y ago
  I've seen similar concepts that cover the walls with hi-res lcd to simulate sky & landscape
  - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
    It's frightening to think what the ultra low cost airlines would do with such video walls. I doubt it would involve showing the passing landscape but instead would be advertisements the entire flight.
    - mizzao 6y ago
      Reminds me of Fifteen Million Merits from Black Mirror...
    - tonymet 6y ago
      You nailed it
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  There's a rendering further down showing windows. It may just be the prototype lacking them.
  - dx034 6y ago
    Probably because while private jet sounds great, the actual money will come from the military and cargo. A small plane at the efficiency of large cargo planes that can fly between most US airports would be a game changer for Fedex & UPS. They would save massive amounts with more direct routings, current small planes are just very limited and inefficient. Also, cargo planes could be unmanned much earlier than passenger flights.
karlkatzke 6y ago
It seems to require a pretty seriously long runway to take off. On a warm day, we’re talking international airport length runway. While pistons are cheaper than turbines, that’s because almost all of the approved pistons on the market use 1940s or earlier technology. They are very, very, very simple machines. They are still extremely expensive. This engine is very complicated, even for an automotive engine. It’s got some revolutionary attributes, but it also has a bunch of single points of failure that would mean traveling in this airplane over long distances and large bodies of water isn’t a good idea. I’m frankly not holding my breath. While they’ve got a bunch of buzz around them, that and a working example are like 1/10 the battle in the aircraft industry. Wish them the best for trying to advance the art but many more established and better funded folks have tried and gone bankrupt before them.
- flak48 6y ago
  Since this plane is intended to compete with other business jets, don't owners of typical business jets mostly travel to (international) airports with long enough runways anyway?
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    Half the point of a business jet is flying to more convenient (but smaller) airports.
- _uy6i 6y ago
  3,300 feet in not a long runway - it means you can access ~80% of the ~5,000 runways in the US. On the the other hand A 777 needs 8,000-10,000 feet meaning it can only access <10% of US runways.... https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/380.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200LR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200LR
  - karlkatzke 6y ago
    3300 feet in balanced density conditions. You’d better not bet on 3300 feet in Phoenix during the day time most of the year. Or Denver for that matter.
donw 6y ago
You don't see a lot of pusher-configuration aircraft. I wonder if they plan on using the same design for a military UAV? Having a multi-fuel capable engine is a pretty clever design choice, and I imagine the improved aerodynamics come from the combination of the pusher configuration and the lack of windows (the latter enables a lighter, stronger, and more streamlined fuselage). Fuel consumption looks to be about double a Cessna 182 (18-25 gal/hour), but that's rather good for an aircraft of this type. One question did spring to mind: why have they styled it after a vibrator?
- charliemil4 6y ago
  > One question did spring to mind: why have they styled it after a vibrator? “It’s all about the laminar flow”[0] [0] https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology
  - tyingq 6y ago
    I was reminded of those water pressure rocket toys: https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0812/07/parks-plastics-toy-water-rocket_1_accc416bea0904ba50b8b85cbc41acd3.jpg https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0812/07/parks-p...
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > I wonder if they plan on using the same design for a military UAV? A mockup of a UAV version is shown in the article.
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  it is much faster than a C182. if it flew at Cessna speeds it might be about even
bigtones 6y ago
Speed seems to be almost comparable to a turbine aircraft in cruising speed if you go by their numbers, despite it being V12 piston prop driven. Cruising speed of the 500L is 450 mph and the cruising speed of a Gulfstream IV is 520 mph. This air frame looks uncannily like the failed Planet Satellite in 1948 though.
- enjeyw 6y ago
  If anything the Planet Satellite plane looks more modern - its wings are nicely blended into the base of the fuselage. In contrast the Celera looks like someone got lazy on CAD an just intersected a bullet shape with a wing shape.
jdhn 6y ago
I'm kind of curious as to why they went with the engine that they did instead of something based off of Chevrolet's LS engine architecture, but tuned for the unique demands of planes. Seems that they place efficiency as a high standard, and the LS series of engines are pretty efficient in terms of how much power they generate vs how much space the engine takes up.
- AmVess 6y ago
  The engine in the Celera is designed for aircraft use. It is a turbocharged turbodiesel. In order to get the Chevrolet V-8 to work at altitude, you'd need to put a turbocharger on it which would destroy the fuel economy, especially in this application. Also, automotive engines are not designed to withstand the heavy duty cycle that this aircraft requires.
  - 55873445216111 6y ago
    Actually, the Chevrolet LS series small block V8 has been used in airplanes and helicopters. The only automotive engine series I am aware of that used in aviation. http://www.v8seabee.com/ http://www.v8seabee.com/. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Hummingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Hummingbird
    - scarier 6y ago
      There have been a number of experimentals running Mazda rotary engines, air-cooled VWs, Subaru boxers, and Corvair engines. I think there's a company that fairly recently started making some good-looking Suzuki engine conversions, as well. Probably a ton I'm missing, as well.
    - KMag 6y ago
      There are plenty of automotive engines that have been converted for use as aircraft engines. Subaru EA81 flat-4s, for one. I've also seen VW Beetle engines and Mazda rotaries converted for experimental aircraft use. Snowmobiles and jetskis aren't automobiles, but many ultralight engines are based on snowmobile/jetski engine designs. (Rotax is very common, though I've seen at least one BD-5 with a Polaris snowmobile engine converted for aircraft use.)

490 points by tomohawk 6y ago

It's a Diesel. The engine is made by RED in Germany.[1] Almost the same Diesel powers the YAK-152 trainer.[2] Celera avoids the term "Diesel", but that's what it is. It runs on Diesel fuel, or JET-A, which is much the same thing. The base engine has been flying for several years. This is the turbocharged model. So it's an engine design with some flight experience. [1] https://red-aircraft.com/ https://red-aircraft.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-152 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-152

gregschlom 6y ago
Ok, but so what? Is there something bad about diesel engines?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Stevvo 6y ago
  Not at all, without question it's a superior fuel to leaded avgas.
  - KMag 6y ago
    It has higher energy density, higher flash point (less prone to fire or explosion), less volatile (doesn't evaporate as quickly), and less toxic. However, it's difficult to make a diesel that gets as much power/weight or power/volume as a comparable petrol engine. There are trade-offs. It's not a universally superior fuel.
- msandford 6y ago
  Nothing is inherently bad but diesels tend to be heavier for the power they make. And there's a fairly well understood weight vs reliability tradeoff. Light an unreliable is bad for airplanes and so is heavy and reliable. You want light and reliable, ideally.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    It is a V12. Historical military V12s had a feature of two bank redundancy. One row of 6 cylinders can be shut down along with its pumps, cooling, etc. And I have a big suspicion that they use two of these engines inside.
    - davidgould 6y ago
      V* engines share a common crankshaft with both banks, that's the V part. Please cite any specific V12 aircraft engine that can have one bank of cylinders shut down. I don't believe one exists.
      - baybal2 6y ago
        Of course the crankshaft is shared. It is oil, fuel, and cooling that can be shut down to prevent leaks.
      - ledauphin 6y ago
        I don't know much about aircraft engines, but in fact straight-6 engines are inherently balanced, and a V12 is fundamentally two straight sixes, so at least in theory it would be quite possible to stop using one bank of cylinders if some of their cylinders suffered some form of non-catastrophic failure.
      - akrain 6y ago
        Although I can't find a reference to an aircraft engine, Chrysler did have a variable displacement tech on its third gen Hemi engines that could turn off one bank of the V8. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Displacement_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Displacement_System
      - desdiv 6y ago
        >Please cite any specific V12 aircraft engine that can have one bank of cylinders shut down. The RED A03 Engine[0], which is what this sub-thread is about. >Two cylinder-bank redundancy concept for high safety. >Robustness and safety are incorporated into the engine design. The two 6-cylinder banks are capable of independent operation. All critical engine sub-systems are mutually-independent. [0] https://red-aircraft.com/ https://red-aircraft.com/
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  They weigh more but have lower fuel consumption. More complex than gasoline aero engines. Usually more reliable but making them light probably impacts that. I think the lower fuel consumption compensates for the higher weight for longer flights. Big reason for switching to them after 100 years of using gasoline is aviation gas is expensive and concerns about lead. Big picture I think refineries and distributors don't want to supply aviation gasoline anymore.
- Neil44 6y ago
  BSFC as in horsepower generated per unit of fuel tends to be better in Diesel engines, but they’re heavier because the combustion events are more violent, requiring a stronger block and pistons.
rad_gruchalski 6y ago
Interesting trivia: the CTO of RED and part of the staff used to work for and build Toyota F1 engines in Cologne.

geokon 6y ago

Is there a reason why small aircraft don't just use a car engine (with some appropriate gearing I guess)? Those have had so much R&D in them and they're pretty much as efficient as you can get - plus much easier to maintain and repair

Skunkleton 6y ago
Reliability would be my first concern. Power to weight is likely an issue as well. Here is some more info I found: https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/do-car-engines-make-good-airplane-engines/ https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/do-car-engines-make-good-...
Stevvo 6y ago
Efficiency at sea level does not equal efficiency at altitude. That said, there are some very impressive experimentals that do use auto engines.
Czarcasm 6y ago
Automotive engines are designed to produce power at a wide range of operating speeds, at the detriment of peak power output and peak efficiency. Aircraft engines can take advantage of the fact that they will be operating at a single RPM range for most of their life, which allows you to optimize every single aspect of the system for that speed. Aircraft engines also have much, much higher reliability, lifecycle, and quality control requirements than automotive engines. For these reasons and a few others, you would basically end up redoing most of the engineering work on an automotive engine to repurpose it for aerospace applications, thus negating the savings of reusing the existing design.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  But you can do it the other way around, resulting in the M4 Sherman. :-)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

Stevvo 6y ago

It seems a bit dishonest to compare it to a jet, when the obvious competition is a single engine Turboprop like a TBM or PC-12. On paper it beats those aircraft, but by a far less impressive margin when you consider engine TBO, which is currently 1250 hrs on the EASA cert. With the inherent unreliablilty of piston engines, a PT-6 might look more appealing. I'd love to see this aircraft come to market, but I fear it may go the way of many innovative aircraft; the company underestimated the cost and complexity or certification and goes bankrupt.

baybal2 6y ago
Big guesstion, do they have one, or two engines? A combiner gearbox does not fare well in aviation, as history show. I have a hard time believing they can get to such speed with just 500hp.
- karlkatzke 6y ago
  One engine, a turbocharged V-12.
  - sirk1882 6y ago
    And as others have mentioned, it's taken advantage of newer technology that allows six of pistons to be turned off. The engine basically sounds like two in-line six cylinder engines that share many common single engine features but with the ability to shut off one side and use power from the remaining side. So hypothetically, you fly up to altitude and climb using all 12 cylinders, then cruise on six. That could be where the fuel efficiency is being notched up versus burning all 12 cylinders at all times. Kinda like how people are still amazed variable displacement engines took them from 10mpg to 18-20mpg. It's also likely the engine has a number of other more recent innovations included too. Variable valve timing, etc, etc. A lot of new rather exciting new engine technology has come out in the last 20 years. It's much like when we went from naturally aspirated aka carbs to electronic fuel injection/ignition.
    - Toutouxc 6y ago

PowerfulWizard 6y ago

The fuel mileage sounds incredible, it's in the same range as an F150. The pilot must be a major part of the expense, meaning it could also be well positioned for an autonomous shuttle future, if those are ever fully trusted, bringing the cost down even further. Obviously they still have a long way to but they are saying the right things to get me excited, even though my knowledge of aircraft efficiency is pretty minimal. edit: It looks like the Yak-152 mentioned elsewhere in the thread can do about 14 mpg if wikipedia & my math is right.

kbenson 6y ago
> It looks like the Yak-152 mentioned elsewhere in the thread can do about 14 mpg if wikipedia & my math is right. Isn't the MPG highly dependent on what it's paired with? You can't expect a Honda Civic to hit it's stated MPG either if you overload the car or tow something, but if you replace a lot of parts with lighter equivalents (or put the engine in a lighter car) you would expect it to get a higher MPG. One of the major points of this plane is that it's supposed to be extremely aerodynamic.

scarier 6y ago

For some perspective, the Scaled Composites Catbird (powered by a 210-hp V6) achieved just over 20 mpg at 200 mph with close to 1000 lbs of payload (it could carry a pilot and four passengers) in the late '80s and early '90s. Amateur-built experimentals have achieved upwards of 50 mpg in realistic flying conditions, but they generally tended to be tandem-seat designs with minimal frontal area and low-powered engines. More recently, the Pipistrel Taurus G4 (a highly modified sailplane with an electric motor between twin fuselages, designed to carry a pilot and three passengers) achieved just over 100 mpg at ~107 mph. I eagerly await proof that the Celera--a significantly larger, heavier, and faster aircraft than Rutan's Catbird--actually achieves similar fuel economy. If true, it would be a pretty incredible leap for an industry that's been largely stagnant for decades, but these sorts of claims have a long history of being either sadly mistaken or outright fraudulent.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
qzw 6y ago
Definitely some extraodinary claims that will require extraordinary evidence to prove. Especially getting 20+ mpg for 4500 miles, while flying at 450mph, which is near the top end of what piston/propeller aircraft are capable of. For reference, the P51 (one of the fastest fighters of WWII) had a comparable top speed. The Piaggio Avanti [0] has a somewhat similar design and top speed (460 high speed cruise), but has twin turboprops and a far shorter range and far lower claimed mpg. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti
- Retric 6y ago
  The Piaggio II (https://www.aircraftcompare.com/aircraft/piaggio-p180-avanti-ii/ https://www.aircraftcompare.com/aircraft/piaggio-p180-avanti...) is missing several modern aerodynamic and efficiency features like winglets and gets 15MPG and has a 1600 Mile range. Significantly beating it’s fuel efficiency at similar speeds seems reasonable just eyeballing the two designs. Getting the full 20MPG at 450MPH might be a stretch, but it’s not all that unreasonable. Also, higher aerodynamic efficiency means lower HP requirements. Moving that weight savings to fuel can boost range even further. PS: Winglets are actually really old technology. It’s making the trade offs worth it including significantly increased weight at the wing tip that’s new.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

It's not real until it's in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Stevvo 6y ago
As awesome as the new Flight Simulator is, as an avgeek the Flight model is very disappointing. X-Plane can, and has, been used to design real world aircraft because you input the aircraft geometry and it simulates how it should fly based on that. MSFS extrapolates a lookup table over the input geometry, making it useless for real-world aerodynamic predictions. From the consumer perspective, both models are capable of outputting accurate results, but from the developer perspective, MSFS is no better than FS 98.
- nikitaga 6y ago
  Which aircraft were actually designed with X-plane, and why? I've heard this several times but that never made sense to me. I wouldn't be surprised if their blade element theory approach is superior to whatever Microsoft is doing (not familiar), but still both of those are optimized for realtime simulation, not for correctness. When I wanted to analyze performance of a hypothetical rigid wing hang glider I went with XFLR5. That isn't a perfect tool by any means either but its algorithms should be miles ahead of X-Plane. Though of course you can't actually fly the plane in XFLR5, just do the math.
  - Stevvo 6y ago
    Beta eVTOL. https://www.beta.team/ https://www.beta.team/
  - 0xffff2 6y ago
    I don't know about production aircraft, but NASA uses X-Plane pretty extensively for all kinds of research, including modeling flight dynamics for small UAVs. It's used often enough that several years ago I developed (and released on NASA's GitHub) a tool to simplify programmatic interaction with the X-Plane simulation engine. It's not nearly popular enough to make maintaining it a full time job (thankfully), but I do get pretty regular comments from NASA researchers and members of the public. I have never heard of anyone using MS Flight Sim in the same way, although another fairly common use case for my library is to disable the X-Plane physics completely and just use if as a visualization tool. If someone developed a library that made that equally easy for MSFS, I can see it taking over that role. It certainly looks better the X-Plane IMO.

zaroth 6y ago

This is super neat. Wish them the best of luck trying to get this commercialized! One thing which was a bit surprising was actually how small the whole craft is. Scroll down the page and they show a human for scale. Looks like you can barely stand up in the center of it. But I’m sure as a private craft they will come up with some incredible interior designs nonetheless.

alfalfasprout 6y ago

It's still a GA aircraft though... so you still have to deal with all the BS. If you don't own it yourself then you need to pay a pilot (though with the recent downturn there's no shortage of pilots). There is absolutely no way many people will try and get their pilot's license. The FAA written test for a PPL may be easy compared to IR but it's still not a walk in the park. The checkrides are very strict nowadays too. So if you're paying a pilot, FBO costs (or dealing with a commercial operator of the planes), etc. at the end of the day it's never going to be as cheap as commercial airlines. This certainly would make it affordable. But not that affordable.

CydeWeys 6y ago
I think the point is more that this kind of tech could be scaled up to make commercial airliners more fuel efficient too?
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  A big part of the "tech" is the engine and its turbocharger. That doesn't really scale.
- branko_d 6y ago
  From https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology "The design of the Celera fuselage takes advantage of an optimum length-to-width ratio to maximize laminar flow. These benefits will not scale for large jet transports and are therefore well suited for an aircraft like the Celera."
skykooler 6y ago
That said, it would definitely be cheaper to certify a pilot on this than on a business jet, since the flight hours for the aircraft cost much less.
- walrus01 6y ago
  If I had to guess, the certification and training process on this would best be compared to advanced single engine expensive aircraft like a Pilatus PC-12. Or a Cessna Caravan. Anything else out there in the single engine turboprop PT6 (or competing engine) category.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Not gonna lie, this week I've read two HN postings about dope planes for rich people (boom, now this)......and news articles detailing a crisis of austerity for the NYC subway. It's really sad to me that we can VC these wild bets on inefficient transport for the few, meanwhile perhaps the most efficient people-mover ever devised for the many is on an entirely politically-caused death bed.

lightgreen 6y ago
NYC is a very rich city. NYC can definitely afford a better subway. People come to the voting stations and pick the candidate with the most important agenda for them. Obviously, the NYC subway does not seem to be the largest issue. If you want to blame rich people for that, well, welcome to the USSR.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  The subway that benefits the city is controlled by the state of New York. The state of New York that would like to spend counter-cyclically is constrained by laws and the inability to issue currency, and thus has a budget that is controlled by the feds. At every level, the political power is structured poorly to make the subway (and regional infra in general) a low priority.
valuearb 6y ago
Privatize it and it will improve dramatically in a very short time.
dx034 6y ago
If the design works there's no reason it shouldn't work on a A320/B737 size. But without a small prototype, the billions for developing a completely new plane and engine are not worth it. I'm sure Airbus & Boeing are following this closely. A large turboprop (even at sizes of a A220) would further reduce ticket costs for budget airlines.

haecceity 6y ago

MPG*person is probably a better measure.

Sebb767 6y ago

It looks like the view range is pretty limited based on the images, especially in the front. Can a pilot chime in and explain how important this is?

paulsutter 6y ago

Huge if true: - 450 miles per hour, range of over 4,500 miles - 18 to 25 miles per gallon (vs 2-3 mpg for jet) - per-hour flight cost of just $328 (vs $2100 for light jet)

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

Big if true. The claimed performance on this is wild, especially since the pusher propeller configuration is usually less efficient than the puller configuration and its top speed is up there with the fastest piston engine aircraft (which are designed for speed not fuel efficiency).

travisgriggs 6y ago

Nice and all, but I just got my private pilots wings a month and a half ago. I've looked at planes. I could buy an fleet of old pipers and burn 9gallons an hour throwing a plane away a year for what just one of these will probably cost. The tech is cool, but I would love to have something robust and cheep for the private pilots out there.

dx034 6y ago
It won't make sense to buy for any individual. But if you run it close to 24/7 renting it out, fuel efficiency matters much more. You could have it on some kind of a scheduled service but sell out flights as a whole for businesses or families. That way you still get a private jet experience but at a much lower price due to lower flexibility. Still appealing for most.

hindsightbias 6y ago

Bill Lear did it first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan Success is dependent on the gearbox.

KMag 6y ago
> Success is dependent on the gearbox. This uses a single V12 Diesel engine. The Lear Fan used dual turboshaft engines.
- baybal2 6y ago
  It is not clear yet: https://the-drive.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fthe-drive-cms-content-staging%2Fmessage-editor%252F1559926122712-before.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&ixlib=js-1.2.1&s=cb2187a8c3bff915c858175126ed48d3 https://the-drive.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazo... And the speed figures are hard to believe for just 500hp, and an aircraft of this size. What is on the photo make me think they have 2 of them, mounted at 120 degrees.
  - KMag 6y ago
    Ahh, that makes much more sense. Upvoted.
  - hindsightbias 6y ago
    It is in fact registered as a single-engine[1], but I am also suspicious. There is wiggle-room in a twin with single drive train. If the engine were also turbo/supercharged and could do closer to 1000shp, might be possible. But if really only 500hp I think it's more 450 mph with a single pilot and no load at 45K. Same with range and field length. [1] https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=818WM https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?N...

hyko 6y ago

Where are the windows? Human payloads need windows.

dx034 6y ago

Another point that doesn't get mentioned in the article is noise. Laminar flow with a 59% reduction would make the aircraft much quieter, especially during approach. Aerodynamic drag is the primary source of landing planes, reducing that can greatly help communities around airports and avoid curfews.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
But planes need that to decelerate / reduce both kinetic and gravitational potential energy though, don't they? I suppose air should always be able to do that even at higher efficiency.

anovikov 6y ago

OK, at least they are not claiming 10x increases in fuel economy anymore, it reduced to the more reasonable 5x, which is sorta believable, especially since most of the affordable jets are not using latest generations of jet engines. Let me guess: the catch is the high maintenance cost of the piston engine.

pontifier 6y ago

Uber for airplanes coming soon!

rm445 6y ago

With a supposedly 10x improvement in an important metric (fuel consumption, together with reasonable speed and carrying enough fuel for range), there must surely be a big idea driving the change. Something that stands out. I can't quite follow what specifically makes this aircraft special. I mean, it's an odd shape, and it has a piston engine. But what's driving the huge improvements? Improvements in CFD software driving aerodynamic design? Automotive technology bringing engine efficiencies? Some trade-off of stability that has previously been avoided but new avionics have overcome? The comparisons are all against business jets - is it in some way a well-designed propeller aircraft sitting in the space where the utility of jets versus propeller craft starts to cross over and small jets become inefficient? I suppose it's not impossible that it sits in an unexplored area of the design space - a clever designer starting from a clean sheet of paper and ending up with something that works really well. But it would be extremely unusual after a century-plus of innovation. I don't like that breathless articles are written about this plane without any attempt to describe what the special sauce may be.

fluffything 6y ago
> had a maximum cruising speed of at least 450 miles per hour and a range of over 4,500 miles Given the shape of the airplane, I'd guess the 4,500 miles range is not at 450 miles per hour, but much much less. Also, it needs to fly very high, so you need to correct the time it takes to travel with this with the longer take off and landing times. It wouldn't surprise me if the "effective" velocity of this plane for long distances was more like 200 mph. I hope I'm wrong.

redis_mlc 6y ago

I read this article threads, and once again HN comes up short on aviation knowledge. Here's some actual facts: - Germany is always producing diesel piston-engine companies. The previous one was Thielert, which folded in 2008, and is now owned by China (Avic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thielert_Centurion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thielert_Centurion - diesel engines are popular ideas because most of the world doesn't have avgas available (including Africa, Far North, etc.) - jet engines work most efficiently at high altitude (thermo equation), but pistons generally work best low density altitude. Pistons are generally twice as efficient as jet engines historically. A key method of boosting power in WW2 was cooling combustion with combinations of water and alcohol, which is how they approached and exceeded 2000 HP. - Scaled Composites made mostly military prototypes, so irrelevant for civil uses. Sold to Northrop Grumman in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites - regarding "jokes about German companies' fuel efficiency claims" - all auto makers fake efficiency and emissions results to get around government regulations, or blend results from one model with another to average it down. Volkswagen just got caught. - regarding "planes for rich people", I doubt if this engine will be used outside charter operations, IOW for commercial revenue use, like a tractor. Boom will never see the light of day - it's just a vanity project for the designers. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

nabla9 6y ago

The revolutionary part is to use V12 turbo-diesel piston engine for high cruise altitude instead of turboprop or jet engine. Aerospace experts are skeptical https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-weird-plane-could-be-the-prius-of-the-skies https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-weird-plane-could-be-the-... >Juan Alonso, a professor in the Department of Aeronautics at Stanford University, has his doubts. A 30 percent improvement in fuel-efficiency is possible in an airplane with a new, more aerodynamic wing design, an ultra-light airframe made from high-tech composite materials and a super-efficient engine. >But an 800 percent improvement? “Unlikely,” Alonso told The Daily Beast. The Celera 500L’s rear-mounted propeller is a good choice for a more fuel-efficient plane, Alonso said. But the egg-like fuselage probably is less fuel-efficient than the narrower fuselages on planes such as the PC-12, he pointed out. >Mark Drela, an MIT aeronautical engineer, is equally skeptical. “The 500L looks fairly well-designed,” Drela told The Daily Beast, “but I cannot say whether it’s close to optimum, or whether the diesel engine makes sense.” > To say for sure, Drela said he’d need to know how much the Celera 500L weighs and how efficient its engine is. Since Otto isn’t talking, Drela can only guess. And he’s guessing that the Celera 500L isn’t nearly as efficient as Otto hopes it will be.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

> This and aircraft's other notable performance characteristics are made possible in large part due to its highly aerodynamic overall laminar flow shape, which produces approximately 59 percent less drag than existing similar-sized, more conventionally-shaped aircraft. Wait, if the shape is that much more efficient, why don't we already see this sort of shape for commercial jets? Are there other compromises involved?

greatNespresso 6y ago

What's fun also is that "Celera" sounds just like "scélérat" in french, which is an old word for criminal.

Giorgi 6y ago

Looks like engine is 90% to blame for that economy

rob74 6y ago

Ok... lifting body, clean efficient wing, rear-mounted propeller to avoid disturbing the laminar flow - I get all of that. But what are the two gizmos mounted on the top of the fuselage between wing and tail? They look a bit big to just be the air intake for the engine?!

clucas 6y ago
Presumably air intake and exhaust for the piston engine.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago

Hmmm, a complex V-12 turbocharged piston single - sign me up, as long as I don't have to fly over water or mountains.

scott31 6y ago

That aircraft is extremely risky, it is designed by amateurs who are not even using metric system. Pretty much guaranteed that FAA won't let it fly

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
by "that aircraft" do you mean the Celera 500L?

mzs 6y ago

All of this is lifted from from https://www.ottoaviation.com/ https://www.ottoaviation.com/ which seems geared for investors.

ahelwer 6y ago

Large parts of this article read as though they were lazily & uncritically copied straight out of a press release.

throwanem 6y ago
Welcome to The Drive.
- lvs 6y ago
  Or any industry blog/magazine.
woozyolliew 6y ago
It does sound a bit too good to be true. But I’d love it to be true!
yodon 6y ago
It sounds like a pretty seriously amazing plane. Even allowing for a positive spin this seems like a pretty big deal for the market it's in.
jschwartzi 6y ago
Yeah it's pretty breathless.

dmitrygr 6y ago

> A03 V12 piston engine there's why it is cheaper! turbines are expensive, pistons are cheap.

virtue3 6y ago
Sort of. Yes yes development costs. They are claiming the plane is also cheaper to fly dramatically, and having a similar airspeed to modern jets. That's not easy. Modern jetliners use "turbo-fans" which are just jets powering giant fans. This allows them to be -incredibly- efficient. The complexity of the piston based engine is in the superchargers and how they get air into the engine at high speeds. You can read about it from the highly famous WWII engine the Rolls-Royce Merlin _- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Supercharge...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Judgmentality 6y ago

The idea of being stuck in a plane for hours with no windows is...odd.

jtchang 6y ago
On the face of it but then I think back to star trek and the giant screen they have on the bridge.
tonymet 6y ago
I've seen similar concepts that cover the walls with hi-res lcd to simulate sky & landscape
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  It's frightening to think what the ultra low cost airlines would do with such video walls. I doubt it would involve showing the passing landscape but instead would be advertisements the entire flight.
  - mizzao 6y ago
    Reminds me of Fifteen Million Merits from Black Mirror...
  - tonymet 6y ago
    You nailed it
ceejayoz 6y ago
There's a rendering further down showing windows. It may just be the prototype lacking them.
- dx034 6y ago
  Probably because while private jet sounds great, the actual money will come from the military and cargo. A small plane at the efficiency of large cargo planes that can fly between most US airports would be a game changer for Fedex & UPS. They would save massive amounts with more direct routings, current small planes are just very limited and inefficient. Also, cargo planes could be unmanned much earlier than passenger flights.

karlkatzke 6y ago

It seems to require a pretty seriously long runway to take off. On a warm day, we’re talking international airport length runway. While pistons are cheaper than turbines, that’s because almost all of the approved pistons on the market use 1940s or earlier technology. They are very, very, very simple machines. They are still extremely expensive. This engine is very complicated, even for an automotive engine. It’s got some revolutionary attributes, but it also has a bunch of single points of failure that would mean traveling in this airplane over long distances and large bodies of water isn’t a good idea. I’m frankly not holding my breath. While they’ve got a bunch of buzz around them, that and a working example are like 1/10 the battle in the aircraft industry. Wish them the best for trying to advance the art but many more established and better funded folks have tried and gone bankrupt before them.

flak48 6y ago
Since this plane is intended to compete with other business jets, don't owners of typical business jets mostly travel to (international) airports with long enough runways anyway?
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Half the point of a business jet is flying to more convenient (but smaller) airports.
_uy6i 6y ago
3,300 feet in not a long runway - it means you can access ~80% of the ~5,000 runways in the US. On the the other hand A 777 needs 8,000-10,000 feet meaning it can only access <10% of US runways.... https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/380.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200LR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200LR
- karlkatzke 6y ago
  3300 feet in balanced density conditions. You’d better not bet on 3300 feet in Phoenix during the day time most of the year. Or Denver for that matter.

donw 6y ago

You don't see a lot of pusher-configuration aircraft. I wonder if they plan on using the same design for a military UAV? Having a multi-fuel capable engine is a pretty clever design choice, and I imagine the improved aerodynamics come from the combination of the pusher configuration and the lack of windows (the latter enables a lighter, stronger, and more streamlined fuselage). Fuel consumption looks to be about double a Cessna 182 (18-25 gal/hour), but that's rather good for an aircraft of this type. One question did spring to mind: why have they styled it after a vibrator?

charliemil4 6y ago
> One question did spring to mind: why have they styled it after a vibrator? “It’s all about the laminar flow”[0] [0] https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology https://www.ottoaviation.com/technology
- tyingq 6y ago
  I was reminded of those water pressure rocket toys: https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0812/07/parks-plastics-toy-water-rocket_1_accc416bea0904ba50b8b85cbc41acd3.jpg https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0812/07/parks-p...
ceejayoz 6y ago
> I wonder if they plan on using the same design for a military UAV? A mockup of a UAV version is shown in the article.
metalliqaz 6y ago
it is much faster than a C182. if it flew at Cessna speeds it might be about even

bigtones 6y ago

Speed seems to be almost comparable to a turbine aircraft in cruising speed if you go by their numbers, despite it being V12 piston prop driven. Cruising speed of the 500L is 450 mph and the cruising speed of a Gulfstream IV is 520 mph. This air frame looks uncannily like the failed Planet Satellite in 1948 though.

enjeyw 6y ago
If anything the Planet Satellite plane looks more modern - its wings are nicely blended into the base of the fuselage. In contrast the Celera looks like someone got lazy on CAD an just intersected a bullet shape with a wing shape.

jdhn 6y ago

I'm kind of curious as to why they went with the engine that they did instead of something based off of Chevrolet's LS engine architecture, but tuned for the unique demands of planes. Seems that they place efficiency as a high standard, and the LS series of engines are pretty efficient in terms of how much power they generate vs how much space the engine takes up.

AmVess 6y ago
The engine in the Celera is designed for aircraft use. It is a turbocharged turbodiesel. In order to get the Chevrolet V-8 to work at altitude, you'd need to put a turbocharger on it which would destroy the fuel economy, especially in this application. Also, automotive engines are not designed to withstand the heavy duty cycle that this aircraft requires.
- 55873445216111 6y ago
  Actually, the Chevrolet LS series small block V8 has been used in airplanes and helicopters. The only automotive engine series I am aware of that used in aviation. http://www.v8seabee.com/ http://www.v8seabee.com/. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Hummingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Hummingbird
  - scarier 6y ago
    There have been a number of experimentals running Mazda rotary engines, air-cooled VWs, Subaru boxers, and Corvair engines. I think there's a company that fairly recently started making some good-looking Suzuki engine conversions, as well. Probably a ton I'm missing, as well.
  - KMag 6y ago
    There are plenty of automotive engines that have been converted for use as aircraft engines. Subaru EA81 flat-4s, for one. I've also seen VW Beetle engines and Mazda rotaries converted for experimental aircraft use. Snowmobiles and jetskis aren't automobiles, but many ultralight engines are based on snowmobile/jetski engine designs. (Rotax is very common, though I've seen at least one BD-5 with a Polaris snowmobile engine converted for aircraft use.)