Update 7 January, 2018

We have more parts made, including these two shown in the images below. These are tail parts that are part of the tail locking mechanism. There are so many tail metal parts that you may get tired of looking at all of them, so we will try to just give a few.

 

We also had the first mold made for the rear body parts in the ducted fan section. This mold had one small blemish on the lower left corner that is being fixed, but the part that will be made from this mold is the top of the rear body. It is designed to be removed to allow the engine to be hoisted out of the top of the rear for replacement or major repair, should that be necessary. Check out the image below to see Composite Universal Group’s handiwork – the beginning of the end of our carbon parts!!!

 

Also completed was the pitot tube mount. The pitot tube is used in all aircraft to measure the speed of the vehicle through the air. The pitot will be mounted to the lower left wing, and in the image below, Ron Burch is holding the pitot (inserted into the black colored mount) just below where it will be placed on the underside of the wing. The pitot tube collects air at it’s tip in a region where air is relatively undisturbed by the vehicle. The air pressure is measured, and gives us the ability to tell the pilot the speed at which the vehicle is travelling relative to the air. You can be flying into a headwind, or flying with a tailwind, at the same air speed, but your ground speed will be hugely different. Air speed is important in flying, and a pilot has to pay attention to how fast they are flying relative to the air surrounding the aircraft.

The two small tubes coming out of the right side of the pitot mount will be inserted into the wing, and connected to the avionics (flight instruments) that calculate and show air speed inside the cockpit.