Quique has made several prototypes now and he is closing on on a final design which he is very excited about.
We can't wait to share with you Quique’s progress, which will happen in about a week’s time. So, that said we urge you to stay tuned, as we have some exciting things to share! Have a great weekend!
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OK,
The team was out in Florida for business last week and wow was it hot. We had a very productive time while on the east coast but boy, the humidity in Miami and Orlando was just over the top. You forget just how good you have it in California until you go to Florida in the summer.
After being gone for a week, it is time to get back to work here at home! We just received our new turbine FCU (fuel control unit), which was sent out for mods and spent today installing the new unit. It works perfectly and we'll plan on resuming some fun Flying later this week.
We are starting to work on much-anticipated video and air-to-air stills by the end of the week. Thanks for all your patience on that one. We have one last team member that is going to get checked out in the plane within a few weeks, that would be David. David will start to work on time to climb records as the weather starts to cool down a bit.
That is about it for the short term. Have a great week!
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Quique Sominzini’s just shared with me the third prototype of the first RC Turbine Toucan kit and all I can say is WOW. I think you all will be very pleased based on what I saw. Quique has had to make considerable mods to make the RC Toucan a good flyer, mostly CG related. He has been doing a great deal of work on it and I think it will really pay off.
I know that Quique is very grateful for your continued enthusiasm and patience. I for one am putting my order in now! That and a dust pan and I should be good! We’ll keep you posted when we here more about delivery dates for the kits.
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Greeting,
Monday’s flight represented our first flight out of and back to San Carlos (KSQL). It was another squawk free flight, which is what the entire team really needed. We are gaining considerable confidence in the aircraft and aircraft systems. We have one last system test which is our proprietary oil system for sustained vertical flight, we’ll be testing that as soon as we start to explore the vertical characteristics of the plane.
Both the oxygen system and bleed air heat performed flawlessly yesterday. So, that is now behind us. We also did performance and cruise profiling at FL155 to FL175.
Our last flight also brought home some realities with it as well. One thing is for sure; we are starting to hit the wall aerodynamically speaking at 15,500ft. We are producing so much drag with the blunt wing tips that we are fairly certain we’re not going to see anything near 215kt indicated at FL320. We’re simply producing way too much drag. And since this was not the fundamental mission of the airplane, we’re not going to make much changes airframe wise to clean things up.
We are still confident we can brake the 323mph record with a little clean up work around the aircraft. Gap seals, I strut fairings and all will help.
Next week we’re finally going to do some much needed photo shoots. We will be doing this the next 4-6 flights before we dive into building our air show routine for next year.
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All the final systems for the Turbine Toucan are now ready to go. Bleed Air heat, Oxygen and a variation in some fuel management totalled out the weeks work. The plane is now for a series of high altitude test flights which will start next week. This will be the conclusion of the test phase of flying before we get in to the aerobatic mode.
Yours truly will be jumping into the cockpit and start preparing for time to climb and airspeed records, which we'll go for before the end of the year. Have a great weekend all! dk
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As of Thursday night, we have all the systems just about installed and ready to be tested end of day Friday. The bleed air system was a lot of work and is now about 90% done, shouldn't be much more past noon on Friday and we can test the bleed air out. If all goes well, we'll button everything up and get it back in service by Saturday.
We've almost done an annual on the plane, inspecting all the various components at 40+ hours and everything looks very good. As soon as we get the systems complete and in the air for testing, we can start two thing; VIDEO and working on our 2008 Airshow routine.
Everyone has been hounding us for video, I promise you'll start to get some soon.
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Well, we mentioned yesterday was going to be a big day, and it was. The best possible senario, a non event. As soon as the plane was back, in the hangar it went and off came the wing root fairings and all the side panels. Time to get moving on the bleed air system and oxygen system. As of dinner time yesterday, the o2 was up and running, with on demand system working perfectly.
The rest of the week will be dedicated to getting the bleed air system designed and installed. Just waiting for parts and we should wrap this up by the end of the weekend for a high altitude run next monday.
This will be the last of the system check out and then we'll be focusing on learning to fly in the vertical.
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Greetings All,
We are getting ready to bring the Turbine Toucan home tomorrow. It is an emotional time for us, so much has had to happen to get to this stage of the game. We have a great deal to be thankful for. So many people have gone out of their way to provide support to the program. Our families have perhaps suffered the most, not seeing much of us in almost two years now.
Wonderful people at Hollister airport, people like Jerry Gabe who provided us tools, a hangar and emotional support when we had not so good days. Everyone at Hollister would do what they could to help out, and we are so grateful.
So, Monday we come back home. Back to all the familiar sights and sounds we'd been around everyday building the plane. I sure won't miss the long commutes down south. I can remember forgetting a much needed tool and not finding out til we got down to Hollister, so three hours later and half the day gone, I returned with the tool. And to boot, my darn truck gets a little better then 11mpg, just AWEFUL. I am thinking mini cooper now days.
I'm sure when we arrive, it will be like any other day to anyone else, but not to us. It is a day I have thought about for many, many months. To be able to just drive down the road a few miles, fuel the plane up and just go flying is a dream. To randomly come to the airport for a few hours after dinner to do little things seems so exciting (My wife would argue I need a life).
So, although the 13th means many things to many people, August 13th looks to be a good day for us.
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Here is one of several posters planned for next year. dk
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After over 4 months of being away from home, we are close to concluding the initial test phase of the Turbine Toucan. The plane will be back in San Carlos in less than one weeks time! We have waited a long time for this day, and it is quickly closing.
We still have a great deal of work to do but now we can do it from our home airport, which is only a few miles from home. We'll keep you posted as soon as we're home.
-Team Turbine Toucan
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Greetings Everyone!!
Exciting news from the Toucan Team; we have slowly started introducing aerobatics/unusual attitudes into our test regime. The airplane saw extreme angle of attack attitudes (75%+ deck angle) at very slow speeds. We then brought in the power and was able to accelerate out of high alpha to between 3500-4000fpm maintaining the same deck angle. This is all in an effort to work into hovering and accelerating out of the vertical, so we are on track.
Lots of traditional maneuvers have been explored, and the control harmony of the plane is better than we have expected. We’ve been as fast as 200kts straight and level cruise so we are creeping up on the speed.
We have had 12 squawk free flights and have now introduced the entire fuel system. The duration of flights is now well over an hour. Our next venture is to go up high and establish all the at altitude profiles for the plane before we close out the phase one test flights. We are quickly rounding up on 40 hours, so we’ll be able to return to SQL in about another week. Then it is off to exploring the potential of the aircraft.
We're really making some serious headway with the volume and length of flights and the plane has lived up to it "billing". Can't wait to come back home soon. -Have a great weekend!
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You know, it's always fun to put put a little perspective in life. In this case, a little perspective with regard to scale. You really don't have any idea how big the propeller is on the Turbine Toucan until you have something to compare to, so here you go. We just thought this was a fun photo.
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Today we are back in full swing after returning from Oshkosh. Another highly productive day, with a lot of great data. We have finally introduced both fuel tanks and have greatly increased our flying times. At the rate we are now going after today’s flights, we are very close to reaching our 40 hour test period, which will allow us to come back home to San Carlos (KSQL). We have no new squawks since about 10 or so flights ago, so we are really starting to see this plane settle out nicely.
As soon as we get back to San Carlos, we will be working on introducing our built-in oxygen to the program. We want to establish best cruise speed/burn at altitude (17,500), which will help us understand our exact range and capabilities for ferrying the aircraft. We are also working on max altitude for airspeed records, so it is all coming up fairly fast, should be a great fall for us.
We are also in the planning stages for shooting air-to-air, both still and HD, which is a ways out but non the less exciting. We’ll keep you posted.
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OK, so we’re not at Oshkosh but we did get a very uplifting story we thought we’d share with you. Dave Morss had just spent the better part of the week getting a Bearcat to Oshkosh, accompanied by a Sea Fury. After a long trip with several mechanicals, Dave and group finally make it to Oshkosh. Dave just getting out of the airplane and surrounded by $4 million dollars of war bird iron, was feeling pretty darn good, perhaps even manly.
Well the first words out of peoples mouth when Dave got out of the plane was…..Hey, your Dave Morss right? Tell me about the Turbine Toucan. Is it here yet? And I guess they went on about the plane. Staggering to think that two airplanes with so much history, are so extremely rare and valuable that someone would be more interested in the Toucan.
So Dave wonders over to the Epic booth (which he is also a part of their program) to say hello and check in, just to hear a similar story. “Hey Dave, how’s the Toucan doing, you have to tell me all about that plane…..”
So, we are at least at Oshkosh in spirit! If your going to Oshkosh, have a blast and let us know what’s out there and all the buzz. Have fun. David
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Yesterday morning we continue to make progress building more time on the aircraft. We calibrated the rear fuel tank and introduced more fuel to the test phase. We'll now be flying longer duration flights and setting up cross country profiles. We also finally removed paper checklists from the cockpit now that we have checklists that we think will serve is well.
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