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  1. T

    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    I use a variety of homemaking tools, and for sheet metal on a shopbot for entire wing skins, ribs, and spars, several specialized piloted tools work perfectly at 12krpm to 20krpm and plunges of up to 100 in/min through .028-.086. Drill bits add tolerances considerably wider than machine...
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    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    Again. This works. It also works to martensitize most drill bits after a week in the LN2 Dewar. I treat all the cheaper jobber bits I buy.
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    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    The acid bath person was me, and it is a standard practice that you are simply not familiar with. Every anodized, alodined, etc part out there is cleaned or descaled with acid. I'm not deaf to it, just to your self-asserted knowledge about hydrogen embrittlement of aluminum. Those I do not...
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    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    The 4-5 weeks on the water from Shanghai, plus the 1-2 weeks sitting on the dock in Shanghai, plus the 20 days in customs clearance all add up to about 8-10 weeks of lost capital turnover per order. Repeat that in a year and you have shortened your ability to recover profits by 30% to 40% on...
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    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    The issue with overseas outsourcing is you pays your money, and you gets your goods 4.5-6 months later. Your capital turnover is 2x rather than 4x. Your recourse risks are enormous. Your ability to pivot for QC and supply chain issues is like swimming in molasses. These things conspire to make...
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    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    I regularly treat laser cut aluminum (6061, 7075, and 2024) in LN2. The literature on the process is enormous, it's easy, it's cheap, and it seems like none of the vendors are familiar enough with the process to attempt it. It changes the S-N characteristics dramatically for stress concentration...
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    Eviation

    That's some people who made a mediocre website and are selling empty dreams. The real meat of.thos problem is finding a corner for which the mass of batteries, aerostructure, aeropropulsion, crew, and a sustainable payload can be configured to meet actual business needs. Why aren't their...
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    Eviation

    The 5% to 8% number has been true for a while. But this is a number based on the development of fundamentally new chemistries to make leaps. These are breakthroughs. Individual chemistries don't exhibit those exponential growth curves...they are really incrementally linear. So yes, while new...
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    Eviation

    The incremental improvements in battery performance (density, safety, longevity) are very far away from practical electrification of all but a tiny corner of today's aeropropulsion missions. The improvements required to make the physical range curve achieve practical levels are in the "stunning...
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    Eviation

    So a demand for a few dozen aircraft, then?
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    Eviation

    Even including the subsidized EAS conundrums and boondoggles, a claimed 250 mile VFR range (that might actually only turn out to be a 150 mile VFR range in real operations) doesn't seem viable. The drive time equivalence radius pretty much overlaps for most routes. 45 minute wait before, 30...
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    Eviation

    The L/D at cruise is the gating factor...drag force times velocity is power required, divided by propulsive system efficiency (prop and electric efficiency) and integrated over flight segment times for energy stored. There is no magic to it, and it can be done for everything from a J3 to a 787...
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    Eviation

    https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/eviation-sells-50-evtols-to-german-startup/ I can't get the numbers on this one to work. One has to either ratchet the battery density up to more than 300Wh per kg, raise L/D (cruise) up well into the upper teens, or assume the batteries make up nearly 3/4 of...
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    EPA Declares Leaded Plane Fuel a Public Health Threat, Paving Way for Limits

    But why? It isn't clear that lead is required for any powerplant in the system. Should people be allowed to buy the right to pollute with lead? I certainly don't think so. The long existence of lead in aviation fuel has nothing to do with need at this point. The market for an additive with less...
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    The Modern Tool Crib - A Poll

    Those are amazingly high membership fees. Here, access to a fully equipped CNC metal shop, CNC router and fully equipped wood shop, foundry, forge, welding shop, industrial sewing, ceramics, glass works, silversmithing, electronics lab, PCB fab, and more is $65 a month. I always felt a fully...
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    The Modern Tool Crib - A Poll

    I have a CNC machine shop, plasma table, laser cutter, a 3D printer, foundry, etc. I've had entire sheets punched out for entire wings at a local sheet metal shop (skins, ribs, spar blanks), and another set from a cnc router table. Access to equipment is one of preference and habit, not of...
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    EPA Declares Leaded Plane Fuel a Public Health Threat, Paving Way for Limits

    The 'Approved Model List' for G1000UL covers every spark ignition piston engine and every airframe using a spark ignition piston engine in the FAA’s Type Certificate database. I suppose some will refuse to for reasons best known to them, and that leaves the problem as one they get to solve for...
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    EPA Declares Leaded Plane Fuel a Public Health Threat, Paving Way for Limits

    Yes, you can. It's pretty easy. Just needs tedious time, and extra $$, and you need to know the resulting formulation meets your RON requirement. I did it for a while for non-airplane stuff, it was a hassle. Then the discount fuel stop started selling alcohol free fuel for a small premium.
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