Someone shared it before on HBA, but can't trace it back. Anybody who knows more, especially about the prop bearing/drive?
Unique Brand of design set to reach new heights | Geelong, VIC, Australia
Unique Brand of design set to reach new heights | Geelong, VIC, Australia
ROLF Brand will be disappointed if the plane taking shape in his basement doesn't top 320km/h in the air.
He's designed and made it to break barriers and he says as long as anything has a wing and a tail it can be made safe to fly.
Mr Brand should know. After all he's a builder by trade who became a GP and then returned to building.
Along with a succession of houses, he has constructed half a dozen planes to fulfil a passion for flight, innovation and design and now, at 78, and slowed by Parkinson's disease, he is within sight of completing the craft he believes might shift boundaries in aviation.
"It will also translate into a whole new line of aircraft," Mr Brand said.
It will also point to an extraordinary life of innovation.
[h=2]Your Say[/h]"can't wait for him to design and fit the wings on,it looks very well designed, and being an Auto technician by trade it took me awhile to work out the propeller setup.The wings will be a challenge, but this man's knowledge, surely will overcome any problems, that i am sure of. well done mate."
Mr Brand calls the craft the JB1M and says it has been 30 years in the dreaming and four months in construction.
Its principal point of design distinction is having the single propeller between the pilot capsule and the craft's tail.
The concept is not entirely new but his version is distinct and comes with unique curved carbon fibre propeller blades.
Mr Brand designed and made them to be "super efficient" in minimising conflict between blade and air. He's never seen the like in six decades of flying and aviation research.
"The sound of my propeller is less noise, which indicates less disturbance of energy," he said.
He outlines scientific theory in support, all pointing to an extraordinary capacity to design and problem-solve.
He hasn't only designed and made the elements of his plane, he designed and made the moulds.
"I'm good at imagining shapes. I can imagine it and do it ... three-dimensional thinking," he said.
He won't put a timeline on completing his craft, due to his health. The wings still need to be crafted but it won't be far away. It will weigh about 340kg and he says it could be commercially produced to sell for the same price as a top-end motorcycle.
Mr Brand's accent points to his German upbringing where he left school at 14 and was one of his country's youngest to gain his building trade masters degree, at 17.
He migrated to Australia in 1956, worked as a bricklayer and then sensing new possibilities in his new country studied through to year 12 at night school and graduated into six years studying medicine at Monash University.
He graduated as a GP with honours and spent decades working in Canada and the US.
Flying has been central to his life since he became a glider pilot in the 1950s and his lust for design and flight took wing as a member of the US Experimental Aircraft Association.
