When a raindrop falls,
does it come down
pointy end first ?
Taken from the book of truly annoying questions.
Unless you were graced by God with feathers and muscle powered wings, you are condemned by gravity to use mechanical means to stay in the air. Our Raptor is powered by Lycoming. Well, it is mostly a Lycoming. Our powerplant is a modified Lycoming 0-290 Ground Power Unit (GPU) that has been converted for flight usage. We call it an IO-290-GX (A1A). It is configured with a Bendix mechanical fuel injection system, two Bendix magnetos (with dual impulse), a wet vacuum pump , starter and alternator. The starter and alternator are custom designed and built for the front of the engine and come from the automotive world. An aluminum 6" prop extension serves to give some working area up at the nose and clean up the aerodynamics. Attached to the business end of the crank is a Warp Drive, 3 blade, 60" diameter, carbon fiber propeller.
Click here to see the Raptor's powerplant .
Click here to see the IO-290-GX performance charts.
The nose of the aircraft is kept out of the dirt by a "home grown" nose gear. Originally from the first production run of the 235 Lancair, our nose gear now keeps or Raptor's beak out of the dirt. It is a 4130 welded steel tube, trailing link, full castering wheel assembly with tapered roller bearings, Lamb 3.5 x 5 tire, and an all aluminum wheel. During testing, we have loaded the gear to 750 pounds (static) and recorded the deflection of the structure at 1/8". The gear loads are delivered to the airframe through an integrated engine mount and re-enforced attachment points. The gear is part of the overall welded structure and avoids putting any loads of the firewall.
It is said that "Practice makes perfect". Actually, however, "Perfect practice makes perfect". So, after practicing on trying various cowlings and cowling creation methods, we have decided that we would get it right this time. Starting from the engine and a bunch of raw foam, this, our fourth, cowling will be the one we fly with. This time, we will make a male plug of the shape we want, then female molds, and finally, the cowling. The overall shape will have ram pressure cooling inlets, side-off-side installation and removal and exit venting from the sides. To this end, we made a plug. Made female molds. Made male copies from the molds and are shaping the cowlings to fit the aircraft .
To date, we have about a 4 years into this latest cowling. But now we have molds !!!!!
framing the shape view # 1
foaming it out view # 2
making it look good in foam view # 3
still a long way to go in foam view # 4
first taste of micro view # 5
top half nearly sanded down view # 6
Top half, done and wet sanded view # 7
Cowling ( years later ) nearly done and installed view # 10
Cowling ( years later ) nearly done and installed view # 20
Cowling, done and installed view # 20
