Technical Difficulties from on Top of the Mountain
2004-02-25
  Excitement in the air (jets)
The aeronautics fields is still a pretty exciting field. A few startups have surfaced in the last couple of years to build new commuter and executive jet type aircraft. Despite the setbacks, such as trying to use a low cost jet engine designed for cruise missiles (sorry, a MTBF of 50 hours isn't going to cut it), aircraft companies like Eclipse Aviation, Adam Aircraft, and Farnborough Aircraft are shaking things up and pushing the envelope of commercial aircraft.

Unfortunately, while each has managed to create a prototype and get it into the air, these guys have no track record or experience with creating a production line and turning hundreds or thousands of these things out. Even if I had $2-3MM these things are going to cost (which is a tenth what a private jet costs now adays), I'd still adopt a wait and see attitude. But then, another competitor entered the field, sort of. Back in December, Honda not only announced that they had been playing with engines and jets, but they had a public test flight of their jet. And the range of technological innovations was stunning.

This thing has the engines nacelles mounted up on pylons (kind of like the star ship enterprise), uses custom engines they designed themselves, and featured all kinds of novel structural engineering, from the large carbon composite cabin area, to the stiffened aluminum main wing. And the aircraft is far more efficient than its traditional counterparts.

At the time of the unveiling, Honda did not have any plans for a commercial roll out of any of this (plane or engine), and in fact was passing it off just as an intellectual exercise designed to keep their engineers happy. Yah, right.

This last week, Honda and GE announced they were forming a strategic alliance to build business jet engines. The engine itself has been in development for the last four years, and has more than 1,400 hours of run time (with 200 hours in the air); so its mostly a tooling and certification issue (something GE should be good at); and then its off and running.

Any bets on how long it is before the Honda CivicJet is announced? Or maybe they'll call it the Airlude. Personally, I'd be happy with commercial service out of Flagstaff to anywhere besides Phoenix, which is the only place AmericaWorstExpress goes.

I lay 3:1 odds that Honda ships something before the Moller Skycar ships its first craft.

[links]
Adam Aircraft, making a prop (A500) and jet based (A700) executive aircraft.
Eclipse Aviation, Eclipse 500 Jet
Farnborough Aircraft, turboprop F1.
Times Online industry analysis of Honda/GE partnership.

 
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home
Life in the middle of nowhere, remote programming to try and support it, startups, children, and some tinkering when I get a chance.

ARCHIVES
January 2004 / February 2004 / March 2004 / April 2004 / May 2004 / June 2004 / July 2004 / August 2004 / September 2004 / October 2004 / November 2004 / December 2004 / January 2005 / February 2005 / March 2005 / April 2005 / May 2005 / June 2005 / July 2005 / August 2005 / September 2005 / October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 / March 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 / November 2007 / December 2007 / January 2008 / May 2008 / June 2008 / August 2008 / February 2009 / August 2009 / February 2010 / February 2011 / March 2011 / October 2011 / March 2012 / July 2013 / August 2013 / September 2013 / October 2013 / November 2013 / December 2013 / December 2014 / February 2015 / March 2015 / July 2016 / September 2016 / December 2016 / April 2017 / June 2017 / July 2018 / November 2018 / January 2019 / February 2019 / April 2019 / December 2019 / March 2020 / April 2020 / May 2020 / September 2020 / November 2020 / March 2021 / May 2023 /


Blogroll
Paul Graham's Essays
You may not want to write in Lisp, but his advise on software, life and business is always worth listening to.
How to save the world
Dave Pollard working on changing the world .. one partially baked idea at a time.
SnowDeal
Eric Snowdeal IV - born 15 weeks too soon, now living a normal baby life.
Land and Hold Short
The life of a pilot.

The best of?
Jan '04
The second best villain of all times.

Feb '04
Oops I dropped by satellite.
New Jets create excitement in the air.
The audience is not listening.

Mar '04
Neat chemicals you don't want to mess with.
The Lack of Practise Effect

Apr '04
Scramjets take to the air
Doing dangerous things in the fire.
The Real Way to get a job

May '04
Checking out cool tools (with the kids)
A master geek (Ink Tank flashback)
How to play with your kids

Powered by Blogger