9 ms·

Synergy Aircraft Project

79 points by amalag 14y ago

amalag 14y ago
Interesting counterpoint to "forget about the lone inventor in a garage". He is aiming to be disruptive and his 25% scale model is impressive.
zizee 14y ago
Looks interesting, but I don't have time to dig deeper into it at the moment. Anyone in the know care to tldr; this? I'd be especially interested to hear what are the innovations that make this different from existing small aircraft.
twelvechairs 14y ago
More description (less sales pitch): http://synergyaircraft.com/faqs.html http://synergyaircraft.com/faqs.html
- gridspy 14y ago
  Yes! The kickstarter page needed a short video talking about each of these points. Not photos or just gubbins.
storborg 14y ago
"If airplanes are to re-connect with their potential customers- or their potential to society- they desperately need an update." Wait, what? Airplane travel is thriving more than ever. Passenger rail is dying, the FAA is forecasting a >4x increase in the number of general aviation pilots in the next 20 years [1], and it's increasingly more affordable for the upper middle class to fly charted jets [2]. [1] http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2010-2030/ http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast... [2] http://jetsuite.com/suitedeal http://jetsuite.com/suitedeal
- mahyarm 14y ago
  So when will pilots not be paid horribly?
  - noveltyaccount 14y ago
    I was thinking about this recently - piloting used to be a high skill job, but now pilots are largely relegated to takeoff and landing--a technician's job. I expect more of air travel to be automated in the future (like, why do pilots and ATC speak through a radio instead of using something automatic). More automation -> lower skill required -> less pay in the future.
    - gnaffle 14y ago
      ..except for the law of leaky abstractions, which is what get you accidents like AF447. Until the automation has situational awareness, you still need skilled pilots. Piloting is still a high skill job, it's just that there's a surplus of young people who really love flying and will accept a crappy salary to live their dream.
      - leoedin 14y ago
        AF447 was caused by a lack of systems understanding by the pilots. If they had simply done nothing, the natural stability of the aircraft would have kept it flying until the pitot tube de-icers had effect and the aircraft could return to autopilot. The triggering cause of AF447 was the icing of a pitot tube. The reason the aircraft flew into the ocean more or less fully stalled was poor pilot training and poor human interface design. I do agree with you that skilled pilots are a requirement. Systems are only as good as their sensors, and lack the flexibility that makes a manned system adaptable. However, AF447 is a fairly poor example of why we need pilots, as it was pretty much entirely pilot error which caused the crash.
        gnaffle 14y ago
        That's true, however I think it's a good example of why we need skilled pilots that maintain situational awareness. The accident reports mentions that the pilots did not have training in high altitude hand flying, and the common belief seemed to be that it wasn't necessary because of automation.
mkramlich 14y ago
I don't think the critical challenge here is how to design a small sexy "innovative" plane. I think the elephant in the room (I love metaphors) is solving the problem of (1) who we allow to pilot them, and/or (2) whether they can be designed to fly in a fail-safe manner. For those folks who've experienced on a daily basis what the average herp-derp car driver is like, you should, I hope, shudder to think what it would be like if there were millions of those kinds of folks flying small planes around you. In other words, in a world where everybody has a plane we probably want "planes on rails". Whether physically-enforced or software-enforced.
- cyrus_ 14y ago
  I'm guessing that building a self-driving car is a much harder problem than a self-driving airplane, and we seem to be making substantial progress on the car front.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    The self-driving airplane pretty much exists. Assuming perfect conditions, an airplane can climb to a desired altitude, follow a GPS course, switch to a nonprecision VOR/DME approach, and follow a precision ILS approach (and descent) to within a few hundred feet of the runway. And that's a Cessna 172 with a mildly recent avionics package -- a modern airliner can take you to the runway surface in zero visibility. (Taxiing and takeoff are still manual operations that require more than zero visibility, however.) The reason a self-flying plane is easier than a self-driving car is because there is much less stuff in the air than on the ground, and everything in the air has a transponder that tells you its exact location and speed. (Not true of small VFR planes, but transponders are becoming more common and if we really wanted to, we could make them mandatory.) Compare this to a car, where there are kids running into the street, traffic lights, other drivers, loads falling off the back of trucks, and so on. The number of things that can suddenly change the driving conditions are dramatic. In the air, that's not the case; the environment is very controlled and you have an extra dimension to navigate in. With that in mind, we're still a ways away from untrained people getting into an airplane, pressing a button, and arriving at their destination. But honestly, that's details and risk management rather than a fundamental lack of technology. (What happens if the engine fails? What happens if there's a thunderstorm? The corner cases are why you have trained pilots there to assist the computers. If you're willing to die because of a simple mechanical or software failure, then self-flying planes are a reality today. If you're more cautious, then not quite yet :)
rdl 14y ago
IMO they get at least 5x of their 10x by using a diesel engine, vs. a jet (inefficient at a range of powers) or avgas (expensive fuel, old designs, inefficient). Just putting a diesel SMA, Thielert, Deltahawk, etc. engine into a Cessna 172 would give you substantial fuel economy and cost savings vs. 100LL. 100LL is also taxed, while Jet-A (which a diesel can burn) has no excise taxes by international treaty (there are some other taxes, especially in the US). It's maybe 2x fuel economy improvement and 2.5x on per-BTU cost savings. So, it's actually kind of plausible -- the problem is the diesel aviation engines have been VERY slow in coming to market. The main market so far has been non certified use (military UAVs), where eliminating 100LL from the supply chain has huge savings on top of performance.
- hasker 14y ago
  You probably have a pretty valid point. One of my aspiration toys, the Diamond Star DA42 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_DA42 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_DA42) burns diesel or Jet-A in a internal combustion engines. I forget the economy figures, but I think this plane does quite well when throttled back.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I'm not a big fan of twins for infrequent pilots (just based on observing and talking to pilots, not actual flying myself except in a simulator) -- they seem to bring with them a lot of problems. You obviously have more cost and more potential maintenance downtime from two engines, and when one goes out, the asymmetric thrust and other issues often end up killing pilots who would otherwise have probably been able to deal with no power. There are exceptions like over water use, but I would have preferred a super reliable single engine (Cessna Caravan) to the less-reliable twins (King Airs and Shorts 330s) I was stuck on -- they had to use a twin for regulatory reasons, but even the pilots thought a single would be better. And those are professional (military) pilots; for someone who flies infrequently, the risks of an engine failure are lower, while the proficiency in dealing with engine out is probably lower as well. Single + ballistic parachute might be the best compromise, unless you're routinely operating over water.) Maybe with FADEC it makes more sense; eventually it will de-skill some of the engine management and you'll just pay the higher operations and maintenance costs of the twin engines, while getting the reliability benefit if ones goes down. I really want a CH-801 (extreme STOL, rough field, slow), or a Maule.
andrewcooke 14y ago
the three things that make this new, as far as i can see, are: - the configuration. i don't understand what the aerodynamic advantages of a "boxwing" are, but apparently this has those while avoiding problems with stalling. it's also stronger / more compact and places the engine closer to the centre of gravity than a traditional "propeller at the front" design. - the engine. initially, diesel, which is unusual for aircraft, and eventually electric. - suction of air through parts of the wing to give laminar flow (reduce turbulence) and so increase efficiency. a lot of the site reads like over-hyped snake oil, they don't have any published papers (never mind peer reviewed), and it sounds like they don't have good numerical results from full 3d simulations (but argue they are limited anyway). on the other hand, it doesn't seem to be complete bullshit - they have a working 1/4 scale model, for example, and seems to have been accepted into some kind of x-prize-like competition organised by nasa.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - ajross 14y ago
    Vortices generated by induced drag really aren't "horrendous" except in high angle of attack situations. In cruise, even with slow planes like this, most drag is parasite drag. Commercial jetliners have been deploying winglets to mitigate the same effect for decades now, and the effect is something like a 2% fuel savings. It's worth doing, but it's not a game changer.
- BenoitEssiambre 14y ago
  Yeah I'm not sure this project passes the smell test. I don't know much about airplanes but a few things seems off when I think of this design in terms of basic physics. The "boxwings" seem to be a worst of both world approach. It ads a lot of surface going across the air and thus a lot of drag, without providing the width which would usually make available the torque necessary for stability and control. Torque is (force * distance) and, for roll control, this distance is usually provided by wide wings. An airplane having shorter wings would probably go through the air more efficiently (provided you didn't add a second set of wings on top of the first one) but would not provide much control to enable safe flight in all possible conditions. Short wings don't provide much leverage on the roll axis. It also seems like in this design the top part of the "boxwings" plays the role of the tail of the plane. However, it looks like we get the same (force * distance) problem but on the pitch axis. In order for the tail to give a good amount of torque for pitch control, it has to be located away from the wings and the center of the aircraft. Again, I'm just guessing based on physics here but since there is no tail other than the one located near the bottom wings, it might be difficult to stop the plane from pitching up or down out of control. If we were to design planes for efficiency only, they would look like arrows or missile. They would have minimal wings or fins to slow them down. The reason, we have to have things sticking out far from their middle, is to add the ability to safely control them in a wide variety of conditions. This aircraft has both lots of wing, thus a lot of drag and yet the extra wingage doesn't get the wings positioned away from the center where they would add the most stability and control. Unless the "Laminar Flow", "Wake Propulsion", "Open Thermodynamics", "Subsonic Area Ruling" or the other technobably things mentioned on the website somehow compensate for this, it seems like a lose-lose design.
andrewflnr 14y ago
Why don't these projects offer a remote control, small scale version as one of their rewards? Or even just sell them.
- Ralith 14y ago
  Manufacturing, even on only moderate scale, a remote control airplane would be a whole 'nother affair, I expect.
savrajsingh 14y ago
They are raising money to build a prototype, and it looks like they will succeed with the raise. Congrats to them! The donor levels are mostly just about recognition. Icon Aircraft (among many others) has been working on the challenge of making flight a little bit more accessible for some time now. Check out the icona5 channel on YouTube.
mahyarm 14y ago
Airplanes seem to be the original vaporware at times. All sorts of interesting projects that seems to be getting somewhere and then stop and have no updates for years. Like the ElectraFlyer-X. Kudos to whoever makes the first affordable to fly airplane.
leoedin 14y ago
The issue isn't the airframe, it's the systems. Take the Cirrus SR22. A fast, modern, relatively efficient aircraft with a full avionics suite capable of instrument flying. It's even got a ballistic parachute so that if anything goes wrong you can simply float to the ground. It's really, really dangerous.[1] Cirrus SR22's crash something like 4 times more often than Diamond DA40s (a similar aircraft). [1]: http://sr22.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/general-aviation-safety-and-the-cirrus-sr22/ http://sr22.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/general-aviation-safety... Why? Pilot error. A combination of Cirrus marketing their aircraft as a transport solution (which attracts relatively inexperienced pilots) and the comparatively unforgiving airframe leads to high accident rates. What does this proposal do to solve that problem? It's a novel airframe, sure, but it's not that novel. I can't imagine that it will offer huge efficiency boosts over something like a Velocity XP (which has similar construction techniques and can probably be used with the same Diesel engines). This is solving the wrong problem. The issues are regulatory and electronic.
- amalag 14y ago
  The issue is cost. They are claiming an order of magnitude difference in price (1 /10th).
  - asynchronous13 14y ago
    Yes, claiming. I'll be shocked if they can hit a price point below $150,000 even as a kit airplane (which then takes 2-3 years to fully assemble). Maybe they're comparing themselves to something like a Cessna Citation, so yes 10% cost but not what I would call affordable.
    - amalag 14y ago
      The cessna citation is a business jet. I don't know what price point they are trying for, but they are aiming for more mass market. The design has no moving parts in the wings and they say the design is amenable for mass production.
Synergydesigner 14y ago
Good morning, everyone! Thank you for your interest. Synergy's premise is that direct air transport from smaller airstrips at lower-than-commercial speeds is presently inefficient, thus not profitable and therefore underserved. Targeted aerodynamic solutions are necessary and beneficial. Synergy is a double box tail aircraft that obtains high span efficiency by providing its stability and control through induced drag reduction. Since the tails push down, it is not a box wing, and the physics of this alone are worth your investigation. What's more, and this is the basis for all the hubbub, it provides powered drag reduction at very high speeds. Both natural laminar flow and boundary layer control are utilized in the wake immersed propulsive integration. This combination of strategies provide significant benefits but is outside the practical experience of much of the industry. Extensive discussion has been taking place for quite some time about this and some of that is linked here below. We look forward to completing our effort to provide flight test results that corroborate our results so far, which are promising. I am available to anyone via email or telephone if you have further questions. Thank you once again for your comments. John McGinnis, EAA 797858, AIAA 289792, john (~at~) synergy aircraft (dot) commercial. fourohsix, twofive0, twentytwo twenty. http://eaa.org/news/2011/2011-04-29_synergy.asp http://eaa.org/news/2011/2011-04-29_synergy.asp http://blog.cafefoundation.org/?tag=synergy http://blog.cafefoundation.org/?tag=synergy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UNzch0kuOA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UNzch0kuOA (flyby) http://youtu.be/MJIi0zIwdY8 http://youtu.be/MJIi0zIwdY8 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Synergy-Aircraft/112353422181543 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Synergy-Aircraft/1123534221815... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1435870654978.2056416.1179309664&type=1&l=cd5c3ad317 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1435870654978.20564... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2269305930339.2115716.1179309664&type=1&l=9655b74356 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2269305930339.21157... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqk7HUKMug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqk7HUKMug (Synergy OSH 11 pt1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVCISch7VU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVCISch7VU (Synergy OSH 11 pt2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT4V2r4Oz8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT4V2r4Oz8 (Synergy OSH 11 pt3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdaI4jQ8PA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdaI4jQ8PA (Synergy OSH 11 pt4) http://youtu.be/OC0itjCeGAA http://youtu.be/OC0itjCeGAA (synergy Osh 11 pt4B) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJ9C5570rY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJ9C5570rY (synergy OSH 11 pt5) http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id=1235&boardid=147&forumid=175&topicid=3339 http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id... http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/aircraft-design-aerodynamics-new-technology/10117-synergy-aircraft-22.html http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/aircraft-design-aer... http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id=1235&boardid=147&forumid=175&topicid=3339&page=15 http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id...
ricfulop 14y ago
I'm a tech entrepreneur and MIT grad who is an avid pilot and type rated on single pilot jets. I've personally visited John in Montana. This project is doing groundbreaking aerodynamic work in a garage. It's what America is all about. The science is sound and based on real designs and concepts that have been studied at places like NASA but never implemented due to the risk averse hyper conservative nature of incremental airframe design and certification barriers to entry inherent to the aviation industry. This project is worth backing. John has the goods.
turk5555 14y ago
Too much technical aeronautical jargon going on here. As a young lad, I built a box kite. I thought it would never fly, but guess what? It flew very well, thank you very much. I see a flying box kite in the synergy, so let it fly, let it fly, and just get out of my way. Case closed. prove me wrong.

79 points by amalag 14y ago

Interesting counterpoint to "forget about the lone inventor in a garage". He is aiming to be disruptive and his 25% scale model is impressive.

zizee 14y ago

Looks interesting, but I don't have time to dig deeper into it at the moment. Anyone in the know care to tldr; this? I'd be especially interested to hear what are the innovations that make this different from existing small aircraft.

twelvechairs 14y ago

More description (less sales pitch): http://synergyaircraft.com/faqs.html http://synergyaircraft.com/faqs.html

gridspy 14y ago
Yes! The kickstarter page needed a short video talking about each of these points. Not photos or just gubbins.

storborg 14y ago

"If airplanes are to re-connect with their potential customers- or their potential to society- they desperately need an update." Wait, what? Airplane travel is thriving more than ever. Passenger rail is dying, the FAA is forecasting a >4x increase in the number of general aviation pilots in the next 20 years [1], and it's increasingly more affordable for the upper middle class to fly charted jets [2]. [1] http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2010-2030/ http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast... [2] http://jetsuite.com/suitedeal http://jetsuite.com/suitedeal

mahyarm 14y ago
So when will pilots not be paid horribly?
- noveltyaccount 14y ago
  I was thinking about this recently - piloting used to be a high skill job, but now pilots are largely relegated to takeoff and landing--a technician's job. I expect more of air travel to be automated in the future (like, why do pilots and ATC speak through a radio instead of using something automatic). More automation -> lower skill required -> less pay in the future.
  - gnaffle 14y ago
    ..except for the law of leaky abstractions, which is what get you accidents like AF447. Until the automation has situational awareness, you still need skilled pilots. Piloting is still a high skill job, it's just that there's a surplus of young people who really love flying and will accept a crappy salary to live their dream.
    - leoedin 14y ago
      AF447 was caused by a lack of systems understanding by the pilots. If they had simply done nothing, the natural stability of the aircraft would have kept it flying until the pitot tube de-icers had effect and the aircraft could return to autopilot. The triggering cause of AF447 was the icing of a pitot tube. The reason the aircraft flew into the ocean more or less fully stalled was poor pilot training and poor human interface design. I do agree with you that skilled pilots are a requirement. Systems are only as good as their sensors, and lack the flexibility that makes a manned system adaptable. However, AF447 is a fairly poor example of why we need pilots, as it was pretty much entirely pilot error which caused the crash.
      - gnaffle 14y ago
        That's true, however I think it's a good example of why we need skilled pilots that maintain situational awareness. The accident reports mentions that the pilots did not have training in high altitude hand flying, and the common belief seemed to be that it wasn't necessary because of automation.

mkramlich 14y ago

I don't think the critical challenge here is how to design a small sexy "innovative" plane. I think the elephant in the room (I love metaphors) is solving the problem of (1) who we allow to pilot them, and/or (2) whether they can be designed to fly in a fail-safe manner. For those folks who've experienced on a daily basis what the average herp-derp car driver is like, you should, I hope, shudder to think what it would be like if there were millions of those kinds of folks flying small planes around you. In other words, in a world where everybody has a plane we probably want "planes on rails". Whether physically-enforced or software-enforced.

cyrus_ 14y ago
I'm guessing that building a self-driving car is a much harder problem than a self-driving airplane, and we seem to be making substantial progress on the car front.
- jrockway 14y ago
  The self-driving airplane pretty much exists. Assuming perfect conditions, an airplane can climb to a desired altitude, follow a GPS course, switch to a nonprecision VOR/DME approach, and follow a precision ILS approach (and descent) to within a few hundred feet of the runway. And that's a Cessna 172 with a mildly recent avionics package -- a modern airliner can take you to the runway surface in zero visibility. (Taxiing and takeoff are still manual operations that require more than zero visibility, however.) The reason a self-flying plane is easier than a self-driving car is because there is much less stuff in the air than on the ground, and everything in the air has a transponder that tells you its exact location and speed. (Not true of small VFR planes, but transponders are becoming more common and if we really wanted to, we could make them mandatory.) Compare this to a car, where there are kids running into the street, traffic lights, other drivers, loads falling off the back of trucks, and so on. The number of things that can suddenly change the driving conditions are dramatic. In the air, that's not the case; the environment is very controlled and you have an extra dimension to navigate in. With that in mind, we're still a ways away from untrained people getting into an airplane, pressing a button, and arriving at their destination. But honestly, that's details and risk management rather than a fundamental lack of technology. (What happens if the engine fails? What happens if there's a thunderstorm? The corner cases are why you have trained pilots there to assist the computers. If you're willing to die because of a simple mechanical or software failure, then self-flying planes are a reality today. If you're more cautious, then not quite yet :)

rdl 14y ago

IMO they get at least 5x of their 10x by using a diesel engine, vs. a jet (inefficient at a range of powers) or avgas (expensive fuel, old designs, inefficient). Just putting a diesel SMA, Thielert, Deltahawk, etc. engine into a Cessna 172 would give you substantial fuel economy and cost savings vs. 100LL. 100LL is also taxed, while Jet-A (which a diesel can burn) has no excise taxes by international treaty (there are some other taxes, especially in the US). It's maybe 2x fuel economy improvement and 2.5x on per-BTU cost savings. So, it's actually kind of plausible -- the problem is the diesel aviation engines have been VERY slow in coming to market. The main market so far has been non certified use (military UAVs), where eliminating 100LL from the supply chain has huge savings on top of performance.

hasker 14y ago
You probably have a pretty valid point. One of my aspiration toys, the Diamond Star DA42 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_DA42 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_DA42) burns diesel or Jet-A in a internal combustion engines. I forget the economy figures, but I think this plane does quite well when throttled back.
- rdl 14y ago
  I'm not a big fan of twins for infrequent pilots (just based on observing and talking to pilots, not actual flying myself except in a simulator) -- they seem to bring with them a lot of problems. You obviously have more cost and more potential maintenance downtime from two engines, and when one goes out, the asymmetric thrust and other issues often end up killing pilots who would otherwise have probably been able to deal with no power. There are exceptions like over water use, but I would have preferred a super reliable single engine (Cessna Caravan) to the less-reliable twins (King Airs and Shorts 330s) I was stuck on -- they had to use a twin for regulatory reasons, but even the pilots thought a single would be better. And those are professional (military) pilots; for someone who flies infrequently, the risks of an engine failure are lower, while the proficiency in dealing with engine out is probably lower as well. Single + ballistic parachute might be the best compromise, unless you're routinely operating over water.) Maybe with FADEC it makes more sense; eventually it will de-skill some of the engine management and you'll just pay the higher operations and maintenance costs of the twin engines, while getting the reliability benefit if ones goes down. I really want a CH-801 (extreme STOL, rough field, slow), or a Maule.

andrewcooke 14y ago

the three things that make this new, as far as i can see, are: - the configuration. i don't understand what the aerodynamic advantages of a "boxwing" are, but apparently this has those while avoiding problems with stalling. it's also stronger / more compact and places the engine closer to the centre of gravity than a traditional "propeller at the front" design. - the engine. initially, diesel, which is unusual for aircraft, and eventually electric. - suction of air through parts of the wing to give laminar flow (reduce turbulence) and so increase efficiency. a lot of the site reads like over-hyped snake oil, they don't have any published papers (never mind peer reviewed), and it sounds like they don't have good numerical results from full 3d simulations (but argue they are limited anyway). on the other hand, it doesn't seem to be complete bullshit - they have a working 1/4 scale model, for example, and seems to have been accepted into some kind of x-prize-like competition organised by nasa.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- ajross 14y ago
  Vortices generated by induced drag really aren't "horrendous" except in high angle of attack situations. In cruise, even with slow planes like this, most drag is parasite drag. Commercial jetliners have been deploying winglets to mitigate the same effect for decades now, and the effect is something like a 2% fuel savings. It's worth doing, but it's not a game changer.
BenoitEssiambre 14y ago
Yeah I'm not sure this project passes the smell test. I don't know much about airplanes but a few things seems off when I think of this design in terms of basic physics. The "boxwings" seem to be a worst of both world approach. It ads a lot of surface going across the air and thus a lot of drag, without providing the width which would usually make available the torque necessary for stability and control. Torque is (force * distance) and, for roll control, this distance is usually provided by wide wings. An airplane having shorter wings would probably go through the air more efficiently (provided you didn't add a second set of wings on top of the first one) but would not provide much control to enable safe flight in all possible conditions. Short wings don't provide much leverage on the roll axis. It also seems like in this design the top part of the "boxwings" plays the role of the tail of the plane. However, it looks like we get the same (force * distance) problem but on the pitch axis. In order for the tail to give a good amount of torque for pitch control, it has to be located away from the wings and the center of the aircraft. Again, I'm just guessing based on physics here but since there is no tail other than the one located near the bottom wings, it might be difficult to stop the plane from pitching up or down out of control. If we were to design planes for efficiency only, they would look like arrows or missile. They would have minimal wings or fins to slow them down. The reason, we have to have things sticking out far from their middle, is to add the ability to safely control them in a wide variety of conditions. This aircraft has both lots of wing, thus a lot of drag and yet the extra wingage doesn't get the wings positioned away from the center where they would add the most stability and control. Unless the "Laminar Flow", "Wake Propulsion", "Open Thermodynamics", "Subsonic Area Ruling" or the other technobably things mentioned on the website somehow compensate for this, it seems like a lose-lose design.

andrewflnr 14y ago

Why don't these projects offer a remote control, small scale version as one of their rewards? Or even just sell them.

Ralith 14y ago
Manufacturing, even on only moderate scale, a remote control airplane would be a whole 'nother affair, I expect.

savrajsingh 14y ago

They are raising money to build a prototype, and it looks like they will succeed with the raise. Congrats to them! The donor levels are mostly just about recognition. Icon Aircraft (among many others) has been working on the challenge of making flight a little bit more accessible for some time now. Check out the icona5 channel on YouTube.

mahyarm 14y ago

Airplanes seem to be the original vaporware at times. All sorts of interesting projects that seems to be getting somewhere and then stop and have no updates for years. Like the ElectraFlyer-X. Kudos to whoever makes the first affordable to fly airplane.

leoedin 14y ago

The issue isn't the airframe, it's the systems. Take the Cirrus SR22. A fast, modern, relatively efficient aircraft with a full avionics suite capable of instrument flying. It's even got a ballistic parachute so that if anything goes wrong you can simply float to the ground. It's really, really dangerous.[1] Cirrus SR22's crash something like 4 times more often than Diamond DA40s (a similar aircraft). [1]: http://sr22.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/general-aviation-safety-and-the-cirrus-sr22/ http://sr22.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/general-aviation-safety... Why? Pilot error. A combination of Cirrus marketing their aircraft as a transport solution (which attracts relatively inexperienced pilots) and the comparatively unforgiving airframe leads to high accident rates. What does this proposal do to solve that problem? It's a novel airframe, sure, but it's not that novel. I can't imagine that it will offer huge efficiency boosts over something like a Velocity XP (which has similar construction techniques and can probably be used with the same Diesel engines). This is solving the wrong problem. The issues are regulatory and electronic.

amalag 14y ago
The issue is cost. They are claiming an order of magnitude difference in price (1 /10th).
- asynchronous13 14y ago
  Yes, claiming. I'll be shocked if they can hit a price point below $150,000 even as a kit airplane (which then takes 2-3 years to fully assemble). Maybe they're comparing themselves to something like a Cessna Citation, so yes 10% cost but not what I would call affordable.
  - amalag 14y ago
    The cessna citation is a business jet. I don't know what price point they are trying for, but they are aiming for more mass market. The design has no moving parts in the wings and they say the design is amenable for mass production.

Synergydesigner 14y ago

Good morning, everyone! Thank you for your interest. Synergy's premise is that direct air transport from smaller airstrips at lower-than-commercial speeds is presently inefficient, thus not profitable and therefore underserved. Targeted aerodynamic solutions are necessary and beneficial. Synergy is a double box tail aircraft that obtains high span efficiency by providing its stability and control through induced drag reduction. Since the tails push down, it is not a box wing, and the physics of this alone are worth your investigation. What's more, and this is the basis for all the hubbub, it provides powered drag reduction at very high speeds. Both natural laminar flow and boundary layer control are utilized in the wake immersed propulsive integration. This combination of strategies provide significant benefits but is outside the practical experience of much of the industry. Extensive discussion has been taking place for quite some time about this and some of that is linked here below. We look forward to completing our effort to provide flight test results that corroborate our results so far, which are promising. I am available to anyone via email or telephone if you have further questions. Thank you once again for your comments. John McGinnis, EAA 797858, AIAA 289792, john (~at~) synergy aircraft (dot) commercial. fourohsix, twofive0, twentytwo twenty. http://eaa.org/news/2011/2011-04-29_synergy.asp http://eaa.org/news/2011/2011-04-29_synergy.asp http://blog.cafefoundation.org/?tag=synergy http://blog.cafefoundation.org/?tag=synergy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UNzch0kuOA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UNzch0kuOA (flyby) http://youtu.be/MJIi0zIwdY8 http://youtu.be/MJIi0zIwdY8 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Synergy-Aircraft/112353422181543 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Synergy-Aircraft/1123534221815... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1435870654978.2056416.1179309664&type=1&l=cd5c3ad317 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1435870654978.20564... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2269305930339.2115716.1179309664&type=1&l=9655b74356 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2269305930339.21157... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqk7HUKMug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqk7HUKMug (Synergy OSH 11 pt1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVCISch7VU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVCISch7VU (Synergy OSH 11 pt2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT4V2r4Oz8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT4V2r4Oz8 (Synergy OSH 11 pt3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdaI4jQ8PA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdaI4jQ8PA (Synergy OSH 11 pt4) http://youtu.be/OC0itjCeGAA http://youtu.be/OC0itjCeGAA (synergy Osh 11 pt4B) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJ9C5570rY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJ9C5570rY (synergy OSH 11 pt5) http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id=1235&boardid=147&forumid=175&topicid=3339 http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id... http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/aircraft-design-aerodynamics-new-technology/10117-synergy-aircraft-22.html http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/aircraft-design-aer... http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id=1235&boardid=147&forumid=175&topicid=3339&page=15 http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id...

ricfulop 14y ago

I'm a tech entrepreneur and MIT grad who is an avid pilot and type rated on single pilot jets. I've personally visited John in Montana. This project is doing groundbreaking aerodynamic work in a garage. It's what America is all about. The science is sound and based on real designs and concepts that have been studied at places like NASA but never implemented due to the risk averse hyper conservative nature of incremental airframe design and certification barriers to entry inherent to the aviation industry. This project is worth backing. John has the goods.

turk5555 14y ago

Too much technical aeronautical jargon going on here. As a young lad, I built a box kite. I thought it would never fly, but guess what? It flew very well, thank you very much. I see a flying box kite in the synergy, so let it fly, let it fly, and just get out of my way. Case closed. prove me wrong.