Synergy Aircraft Project

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/launchsynergy/synergy-aircraft-project

by amalag • 14 years ago

79 51 14 years ago

amalag5• 14 years 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• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

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

gridspy• 14 years ago

Yes!

The kickstarter page needed a short video talking about each of these points. Not photos or just gubbins.

storborg• 14 years 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_forecast...

[2] http://jetsuite.com/suitedeal

mahyarm2• 14 years ago

So when will pilots not be paid horribly?

noveltyaccount• 14 years 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.

mkramlich• 14 years 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_• 14 years 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• 14 years 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 :)

aaroneous• 14 years ago

http://verticalpower.com/vp-400/ In an emergency it'll automatically calculate the best airport to land at (factoring in rwy length, winds, terrain & distance), fly the approach and land the plane - all at the press of a button.

The software was written by the same team that make the X-Plane flight sim (http://x-plane.com/)

run4yourlives• 14 years ago

I think point 1 (and by extension point 2) is a little overstated. Many, many people wouldn't set foot in a small aircraft, be it a Cessna or this. This idea is for those individuals that would easily obtain (or use) a PPL if it wasn't such a daunting financial commitment to fly.

It actually is quite challenging to design an aircraft that is efficient, capable (as in 4+ people) and cheap to operate.

The Pipistrel Panthera and the Icon A5 are about as close as it comes, but both have serious shortcomings. Panthera is fricken expensive to buy and unproven, and A5 is that and not very capable. The average Cessna and/or Piper cub is still the easiest way to get into the sky in something useful for more than a lap around the airport.

I'd love to see something that isn't going to cost the price of a house to buy and the average salary to fly before we look to make everyone a pilot, because that challenge alone is a long, long way off.

sokoloff• 14 years ago

I have one of the cheapest practical family airplanes, and it's so far from affordable on the average salary that the gulf is insurmountable, IMO. And mine is 1/5 or less the likely acquisition cost of this one. That difference in capital cost will take 2000 hours of operation (more than 20 years for most private pilots) to make up in nominal dollars.

If people today can't afford a Skylane (or even Warrior or Skyhawk), they will be able to afford this even less.

Putting the "everyman" in the air is better done with a partnership or club owning 60s/70s/80s metal airplanes, IMO, and that's not even that achievable in days of $6 avgas and $75/hour "dry rental" (everything other than gas).

rbanffy• 14 years ago

The avionics they plan to use are very impressive. As long as the pilots don't touch the controls and don't try to fly the plane themselves, we're safe.

amalag5• 14 years ago

I don't think those are elephants in the room, those will happen. The elephant in the room is cost. Can he make a plane with a order of magnitude difference in price.

rdl2• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

You probably have a pretty valid point. One of my aspiration toys, the Diamond Star 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.

rdl2• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

BenoitEssiambre2• 14 years 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.

Scramblejams3• 14 years ago

IAAAE (I am an aerospace engineer). Actually, long (or wide, to use your term) wings tend to be more efficient. The term you're looking for is "high aspect ratio," which efficient airplanes (see the Global Flyer, for example) have in abundance. It is the ratio of wing span squared to wing area (viewed from above, not the front). The explanation for why this is true is complicated, but this gives a good overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(wing)

geon• 14 years ago

Long wings doesn't give more controll. The increased radius gives a higher inertia when rolling. It would make it more stable, but also slower. Acrobatic aircraft usually have short wings for this reason.

asynchronous132• 14 years ago

The box-wing is actually a really old design - contemporaries of the Wright brothers were experimenting with it. The main advantage is reduced drag. Airflow doesn't like points, and wingtips contribute a lot to the overall drag. Closed wing means no tip, and therefore less drag.

Of coarse box-wing has its problems, too. They claim to have solved some of those issues. I'll remain skeptical until the flight test proves their claims.

The 1/4 scale model means almost nothing. A colleague put an electric motor on an 8-ft chunk of foam and flew that around. The power to weight ratio of small r/c aircraft is ridiculous, and it does not scale to full sized aircraft.

amalag5• 14 years ago

Well the question is if they scaled everything in the 1/4 scale model, including power. They say it is flying since 2007 so we have to assume they did their homework before trying to make the current full scale prototype.

andrewflnr• 14 years ago

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

Ralith• 14 years ago

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

savrajsingh• 14 years 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.

mahyarm2• 14 years 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.

leoedin2• 14 years 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...

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.

amalag5• 14 years ago

The issue is cost. They are claiming an order of magnitude difference in price (1 /10th).

asynchronous132• 14 years 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.

Synergydesigner• 14 years 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://blog.cafefoundation.org/?tag=synergy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UNzch0kuOA (flyby)

http://youtu.be/MJIi0zIwdY8

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Synergy-Aircraft/1123534221815...

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1435870654978.20564...

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2269305930339.21157...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqk7HUKMug (Synergy OSH 11 pt1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVCISch7VU (Synergy OSH 11 pt2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT4V2r4Oz8 (Synergy OSH 11 pt3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdaI4jQ8PA (Synergy OSH 11 pt4) http://youtu.be/OC0itjCeGAA (synergy Osh 11 pt4B) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJ9C5570rY (synergy OSH 11 pt5)

http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id... http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/aircraft-design-aer...

http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id...

ricfulop• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

Synergy Aircraft Project

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