Interesting numbers. Not hard to imagine scaling up to 4-6 seaters


[youtube]https://youtu.be/d-QODlotUqQ[/youtube]

It’s great to see innovative companies such as this in GA. I hope they succeed.

Most breakthrough innovation is applying techniques and solution from one industry to another. They have a manufacturing process working well in high-performance sailboats, then apply it to light aircraft. Similar complexity of curves and requirement for lightness and strength, similar low production numbers. This sounds like the kind of thing that can work.

The insurance market may be leery of this product, with only a few major pieces all bonded together, the plane may get totalled with a lower level of damage. If the wing and fuselage are each 1 piece, and both are damaged in a ground loop along with the motor and prop... easy to see how a smaller accident can doom the airframe. On the other hand, it may be easier to repair-in-place with the composites and not replace parts. They will need to have a plan for repairs and sell the insurance markets on it.

A long-term, looming issue in GA is that we have a fleet of airframes very expensively put together from thousands of rivets and small sheet metal parts. It doesn't pay to make new airframes, too expensive. So we all put new engines and avionics and interiors into the 50 year old airframes. I love the idea that a new manufacturing technology makes the airframe a simple and cheap part (hopefully??) so it makes sense to have new airframes again.

I disagree with them that airframe operating costs will go down. Nah. Their new carbon airframe will cost the same to operate as an old Cessna with rivets installed decades ago. People are not doing a lot of work to repair sheet metal (other than accidents) in GA. Ribs and stringers don't just fail randomly and have to be replaced. They're not cylinders. The place they WILL reduce operating cost is bringing Rotax to more airframes, those are good efficient engines with lower fuel flows.

I like the market segment of a trainer with a small NA Rotax engine, and then a traveling plane with the turbo 140hp Rotax.

I have always liked the idea that you can build a 2-seater with luggage room that is better / faster / more efficient for a traveling person or traveling couple than a 4-seater with back seats you never use. But so far I have been wrong about that, the 2+2 beats the 2+luggage in the market, see Liberty for a recent example of a failed 2+Luggage. I liked Liberty's argument that it was faster than a 172 on much less fuel, and nobody used the rear seats for anything but luggage... but they weren't ultimately successful.

I would like to learn more about the process and see their load testing

Wasn't one of the big deals about the Eclipse jet was the use of friction stir welding for fabrication, versus rivets?

The Vashon Ranger has taken many "Design for Manufacturing " steps. Good AvWeb video on it as I recall.

Eclipse was trying to do a lot of things at once:
*) Apply a new manufacturing technique with friction-stir welding
*) Invent a new class of integrated avionics
*) Be the first use of a new design Williams jet EJ-22 in a small (unusual) size and design
*) Design for high volume production, with numbers of airplanes beyond anything the whole biz-jet industry had ever produced.
*) Build a new aerospace company with the regulatory aspects, supply chain, end-user support, and other things their competitors already had nailed.

It's hard enough to do 1 revolution in your product. Trying to do 4 at once while building a company from scratch that can compete with Textron/Cessna, Gulfstream, Embraer, Lear, etc... that's pretty close to impossible.

They bit off more than they (or probably anyone) could chew.

At the low end of the market where Elixir and Vashon are competing, using standard powerplants and avionics, and just focusing on airframe manufacturability - - that's a reasonable challenge to take on.

I'd love to see this technology applied to a kit plane. Few, big pieces, the builder does 51% of not much work.

Yes, but - - - It would have to be "build at the factory" because an autoclave big enough to cure a whole wing or fuselage at once is really expensive.

Even better! Building with factory jigs, tools and supervision would produce a safer airplane, quicker. Some day, the 51% builder will be whoever pushes the "Go" button on the 3D printer.

Kidding aside, that might present a problem. I believe Epic's factory-build program provoked some pushback from the FAA over whether a plane that could only be built at the factory truly qualified as a "kit", only resolved when they demonstrated that building it away from the factory was possible, albeit ridiculously more difficult.

You can reserve a production slot for about $2,800 on the Elixir website. Cost of the trainer is a little over $200,000. The X-C version runs about $225,000. Not in the Cirrus price range but not exactly an airplane for Everyman.

Prices above are €2,500, €180,000 and €200,000, respectively. I converted at today’s exchange rate.

I was talking about this with my wife. If they can truly deliver this as a FAR-23 certified 2-seat airplane with 130-knot cruise speed, FADEC engine controls, state-of-the-art avionics (Garmin G3 Touch), well over 500 nm range in comfortable seats with a wide cabin, all for $200K - factory new - I think they will sell a lot of them. I can imagine 3 guys getting together and investing $75K each for the turbo model ($225,000), and cruising at 170 knots at altitude, burning less than half the fuel of any comparable airplane. Bonanza-like speeds with Champ-like fuel costs... If the sign-up list included the turbo model, I would sign up tomorrow!

I can also imagine flight schools buying the $200,000 model instead of nearly $350K Cessna 172s that are slower, burn more fuel, etc.

One thing that was glossed over in the AvWeb video was the fact that the fuel cells are filled with an anti-slosh "foam" material, and that it's a single fuel tank - no switching Left/Right. It's either ON or it's OFF.

Many of the flight schools buying new planes (ie, the larger schools doing ab-initio training for the airlines) have the philosophy of 3 people in the plane. Student flying left seat, instructor right seat, student observing back seat. The idea is that students learn a lot by observing, and the cost is approximately zero. The Elixer would not work for that.