This page is dedicated 

              to the people and toys               

                     that make up our little world,

                             and keep it ever interesting.

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Hello.    I'm Drew.   I am the guy that runs this website.

I am standing next to an experimental, homebuilt,  prototype aircraft.  I and a few buds designed and built it.   We call it  the " Raptor ".  That is short for "  Eos Raptor "   or   " Dawn Thief ".  

as you may have noticed from our wegpage name,  we seemed to have picked up the misleading title of " Mad Rocket Scientists ".   No matter how often we tell tell people that only Rocket Engineers build rockets, they still think scientist actually make stuff.  Go figure ???   

We build stuff like this all the time.   The team pretty well covers the full spectrum of technical and intellectual skills you would expect of rocket engineers.  Most any one of us can tell you about the Raptor aircraft,   but I am the point of contact for this web site.        

At any given time, there may be computers, telescopes, airplanes, racecars, particle beam weapons ( just kidding ) or spacecraft being built in " the hanger ".   So drop us a line or stop on by, we can always use somebody to sweep up the floor and put out the trash.   We will always be busy doing something.  You just never know when you are going to want to create that next great thing!!!   

Pictured (right), you see our prototype aircraft.  We think she is a one of a kind ting of beauty.  If you are thinking that that it looks a lot like a  Dragonfly Mark III,  well........ looks can be deceiving.   Let me assure you that any resemblance to the Dragonfly family is only superficial.   Our Raptor is more of a descendent of the dragonfly than she is a cousin.  That is a highly modified R1145 Canard you see just behind the cowling of the 145hp Lycoming we have powering our plane.  Dual, redundant, independent flight controls, 3 axis electric trim, electric reflexors, tri-gear, gull-wing doors and removable windscreens are just some of the tricks we packed into this bird.  Weighing in at 1650 lbs (gross) and cruising at 200 mph, we think we have taken the home built equal area tandem about as far down the evolutionary trail as you can go and still have two wings and no tail.  

The other half of the core team,  < seen  here >  is  Rich.  As you can see, he was caught in the act of physically building something.  These moments are always a scary time for us.  We try to keep him to the math and design side of the task,  but he is forever sneaking off and getting his paws dirty.   Being the disciplined professional rocket engineers that we are, we do not encourage non- productive wasting of time, but  sometimes you just got to go " up on top " and take a look around.    < Click here >   to see a team member about to get his #%%  kicked for going where where no man has gone before.   Note the worried look on his face as he checks out the strength of the safety cage that surrounds the pilot.  Try that on a regular D-fly plastic bubble top.  

The Raptor is the biggest and most complex project that we have ever tried.   We actually started out to build a slightly modified DragonFly Mark II.  But with all the mistakes and questionable engineering in the factory plans, we found it easier to start anew.  We designed and built from our own ideas.  For the most part, our project has been disowned by the Dragonfly factory and other scratch builders alike.  In our exile, we have chosen to make the most advanced tandem wing design we could think of.   Aside from some early shape and lay up planning, there is very little family affiliation left in our project.  Nearly every major design parameter of our Raptor is different from the plans built, D-Fly aircraft.     

Built to seat two :  6' - 4" x 250 lb aviators comfortably, its design cruise is 200 mph with top end conciderably higher.   Sprinkled with a few innovations like ram air fuel injection, dual (redundent) independent flight controls,  variable lift distribution system, conformal aerobrakes,  and  onboard structural analysis computer, this is a toy like few others.  Creature comforts include a 48" wide cockpit, 3 axis electric trim(s), intercom and passenger DVD movies (when the ships computers are not busy showing real-time stress analysis or GPS navigation maps).

Engineering found throughout the aircraft reflects our teams prime directive :  "Form Follows Function".   All primary (and most secondary)  systems have been analyzed for structural and aerodynamic capability, affects and functionality.  If it is in our machine, then its form is predicated on its function.   As a prototype, she is rather heavy (1055 lbs dry) at least twice as strong as it need be (+/- 9 g),  and a bit complex.   Oh well, that will teach us to build the plane then draw up the plans.  If nothing else,  you just got to love those gull wing doors.    Did we mentioned that all our polycarbonate windscreens are removable for maintenance / repair, or that they cost less than $100 ( for all of them......... including window tint ).  

The long nose on our Raptor is not just for good looks.  It takes a lot of cowling to hide a fuel injected, 145 hp, Lycoming I0-290-D2X aircraft engine from the wind (don't bother looking it up, it is a one-off).  The 6" prop extension didn't help shorten the nose up any.  To deliver the hp to the air, we used a  3 blade, carbon fiber, 60" diameter  Warp Drive prop.  We have 4 " of ground clearance ( slightly less with a flat nose gear) and rough field capabilities.   Working off our 3000 ft grass strip necessitated a strong landing gear.  So we designed and built our own.  The Raptor's main gear legs are 6" longer and much better connected to the fuselage than any other D-fly gear.   Actually we designed and built our own custom gear legs structural interconnects, fuselage, transom and engine mount as an integrated package.     

The cargo pod ( designed but not yet built ) is destined to go directly under the belly.  It will contain the fuselage boarding step and hold enough baggage for those weekend hops to the islands.   The keyless entry system is still up for debate, but pink window curtains have been voted down and banned from the cockpit.  All flight systems are ready for prim time.  

The toy is cool, but it is the people that created it that give it soul.   Click <  here  >  to see the rest of the unpaid, overworked, mad rocket scientist team.  Caught in a brief moment of rest ( we just finished the canard's upper skin lay-up ) this team can build anything.  For the most part, we all have very busy lives and only come together like this for special occasions. 

Not all the mad rocket scientist team are lost boys.   We have a seriously dedicated dudett  in the ranks.   The " Floxin Vixin " can be seen by  < clicking here > .  This picture was taken in the early days of the project when she was still just future ballast.   Now, many years of tolerating us and the project later, she is a full fledged member of the build team.  She is one mean little vixen when it comes to getting those airfoil foam core segments cut perfect.  She is also the self appointed graphics designer for the team and has informed us that the Raptor will have lots of " pink " on it.   Since she is my  better half, her opinions carry a lot of weight around the shop.  It is rumored that the the adjustable seats were created to avoid a strike on her part, but that is not confirmed.     We did however use red stained epoxy and white micro for the final surface overcoat.  When she saw the fuselage go from mottled yellow to stunning pink, she was very happy.  The pink lasted about a year till the (gray) primer went on.  

The mechanical and aerodynamics analysis of the Raptor was conducted to the best of our abilities (and we build man-rated spaceships for a living) and was adapted to take our our amateur construction skills into account.  No exotic material processes were counted upon for ultimate yield strength ( yea, like everybody has a vacuum autoclave in their garage ).   Homebuilter ( real world ) tolerances were assumed as the basis of construction and in determining the theoretical limits of operations.  The team has created a " state of the art " fully operational flight simulation that is 100% aerodynamic properties driven.  This simulation allows for changes to be reviewed on the math model long before any are implemented on an actual prototype.  Training on the flight characteristics of a still to be finished aircraft are possible from the comfort (and safety) of the ground based computer.  For reasons of liability ( and because we tend to get slammed a lot for our opinions ) only a small bit of the engineering available on our Eos Raptor is seen on the pages of this site.   

  < Fixed Base of Operations >  of the Mad Rocket Scientist team is  :  Blue Ridge Airpark,  Oak Hill,  Florida.