Learn how Sam Bousfield and the team’s strategy of using motion to win is creating great things for Samson Sky in the UAE, Central Asia and the U.S.
“Using motion to win has been a good strategy.”
CEO & Founder
Introduction
I just recently made another trip through Dubai and into Central Asia to meet with interested businesspeople and governments regarding using the Switchblade to increase General Aviation in their countries. It was very successful, and we made several new agreements. While I was gone, the R&D Team continued to make progress. Let’s talk about that now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhMtcBEdVU
Front Suspension
Check out the design of the front suspension. This has to perform many separate functions, including allowing the front wheel to rotate sufficiently to give a small turn radius similar to a car. This is harder than it may seem as the Switchblade has the wheelbase (distance from front to rear wheels) of a F150 pickup.
In the video above you can see the light grey front swing arms, shock absorber, a dark grey knuckle that provides the pivoting of the front wheel, and of course the wheel and tire. As the video plays you can see the wheel and tire rotating as if turning and then moving up and down as if reacting to road bumps. The design of the swing arms is time consuming as you have to run an optimization program to find the simplest shape that can work, and then finalize the shape and run a special calculation program that analyzes it for strength.
Engines
We have had some good luck with the gas engine for the generator in that we can now bulk order the engines with a minimum order of 20. At first this seemed like a negative, but it signals the commitment from the engine maker, and could make our larger purchases of the engine possible into the future. We are also keeping close tabs on the Kawasaki 6-cylinder generator engine being certified by that company for hybrid electric aircraft use. It is a bigger and stronger engine, but nearly the same weight as the automobile sourced engine we have now.
We also have identified a cryogenic (freezing) treatment for metal that prolongs life and reduces wear for engine parts significantly. This process will be tested with the current motor as a parallel R&D effort, and as we find that the results are worth the trouble to include it, we would change over to assembling our own engines from base parts sourced from the engine maker and treating the metal parts to toughen them for longer life and less maintenance.
This also should completely relieve the engine maker from liability, as we are modifying each of the parts they send us. We will truly have our own engine. For places like the Middle East where sand in the air is a significant detriment to engines and metal parts of any kind, we may extend the treatment to any wearing metal surfaces. The cryogenic treatment tends to bring carbon atoms to the surface from within the metal to concentrate that very tough (think diamonds) material on the wear surfaces. Tests by others show wear reduced by at least half, doubling the life of the engine. Higher fuel economy is also a benefit from this treatment.
We cannot yet determine when we would bridge over to this option, or for sure that we will. But we will do the testing with several of our own test vehicles to determine both the cost and benefit of this as we produce vehicles with the stock engine while including some modifications for flight use including a new computer and engine program, dual electric water pumps, and the generator setup. An image of one of the generators is shown below from Asruk out of Slovenia. We can import their parts and assemble the motors here if needed to address trade barriers.
Fancy Finances are Finalizing
Yes! We have good progress on the funding side and are now well into the due diligence phase and developing the contract for the $100MM funding deal. This is for our first production facility, which as you know will be in the U.S. The funding is from a Dubai-based private funding group.
Lemonade from Lemons
About a week ago, we were handed what would appear to be a set-back by a Congressman from Wisconsin seeking to re-write the definition of Motorcycle. This legislation could eliminate our ability to be classed as a motorcycle and make it more difficult to get the Switchblade built and registered.
But within 24 hours I had contacted and engaged a professional lobbyist to turn this to our favor. He is a longtime Switchblade supporter and Depositor who in the past has successfully lobbied for a three-wheel car company – perfect guy for the job! We are taking this as a way to strengthen and isolate us from changes in the rules by including an extra definition of a three-wheel multi-mode vehicle having an FAA flight registration as being a motorcycle. The lobbyist has already crafted proposed wording for our changes to the bill and has generated agreement from the bill’s originator to include changes, including ours.
When there is motion in lawmaking, it is easier to make changes to a proposed rule change than to start a rule change all by yourself. Sometimes this can be a detriment to you and me by allowing all sorts of junk to be buried in the fine print and made into law. In this case, it would allow us to add our changes to the overall change and use the motion from others to win the day. If they do future changes to the motorcycle definition as part of this ongoing battle for motorcycle sales in the U.S., we will be outside of that by having our own subsection including us under motorcycles. I will keep you posted on this as we progress.
My February Trip to Central Asia
This trip met with success in many countries, including the UAE, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding to utilize the Switchblade to increase the use of General Aviation (small planes for business or pleasure) in that country. Similar to what we have done with Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, Samson will provide flight training assistance and advanced flight simulators to train new pilots, plus help to establish a maintenance and parts center, in exchange for assistance in getting the Switchblade in use within the countries.
Historically, it is interesting to note that when Cessna first started selling their jets, they established Cessna Jet Centers around the world so that people knew they had a place to go to get service and parts. It was a smart move, and one we are emulating by getting with countries and places around the U.S. to work out starting such centers as we roll out the Switchblade. It paves the way for future expansion.
Below is an image of a sunset in Dubai from my hotel balcony. There is dust in the air almost year-round, so the sunsets can look pretty wild.
Yours,
Sam Bousfield
Captain, Switchblade Team
Switchblade in the News
We had great pickup from media sources around the world from our recent Central Asia trip.
Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/samson-sky-air-tashkent-strike-135600417.html?guccounter=1
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