New Community Amphibious LSA VAL-31 "Aquarius" a non commercial project

wing profile is different from the original, you have yours?

 

Yes it is slightly different meant to be LSA compliant

 

I'd like to share some progress for those who might be interested in working with us

 

Used an electric scissors for carbon tailoring

 

Performed some alteration on our nose configuration

 

And finally - we went to Walmart and purchased a few electric heated blankets to cover our composites and our epoxy

 

anvegger,

The plane looks great and I enjoy watching your progress. Seeing the hull built this way has been educational.

 

Will that black carbon hull be flown or displayed at Oshkosh 2018 unfinished? Or will it be sanded and filled to perfection first?
Does carbon sand easily?

 

Dear markaeric, it is a pleasure sharing that project with you. Our goal is to bring as many enthusiasts to the project as possible. We are very much willing to open all of our secrets (if anyone may think that we hiding some) to the audience - because foe us Experimental Aviation is nothing but educational stream . And the internet based sharing of that experimental approach is essential . So - I do my best to share all my tricks and all my techniques with everyone and will be inviting as many people as possible to do something of that nature. So - a few things from today's progress:

 

We do our best to bring the plane - as an EAB version registered and ready to get demonstrated to this OSH AirVenture 2018. But please keep in mind that the weather is extremely cold this year. We lost at least a week over this beginning of the year due to our first Noreaster and that won't be the last as I expect. As a worst case scenario we will bring the unfinished plane and demonstrate the progress during the show if such opportunity may come. But that is our intent for sure. Currently there are three of us in my team. One of the designers helps us remotely and two of us Igor and I we do everything to make that schedule happen. Will definitely continue sharing with you all about this development. The finishing of the hull will be very simple and will be no sanding. Will be using Vinyl Wrap Technology and special penetration resistant protection

 

One of the questions that we have is about the cost of prototyping. We try to keep our expenses very low and working hard to reuse as much materials as possible. Here is how we are reusing the sawdust

 

And for those of you who might be curious what this is about please think about the technology of molding the prototype the very inexpensive way An OSB mold is becoming a reality

 

Sorry, for the poorly worded question I meant to ask:
Will the black carbon hull skin be flown as is, or will it be sanded smooth and painted?
I was wondering how hard it is to grind or sand carbon skin.

 

We won't be doing any paint or sanding work. Instead - we are planning to use the Vinyl Wrap Technology

[video=youtube;m8pytbJmHfQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8pytbJmHfQ[/video]

And also planning use of penetration resistant material for safety protection

 

However a lots of sanding happened today - and here is the proof

 

30 pieces of an upper and another 30 pieces of a lower screed have been cleaned drilled sanded and bolted together in preparation for the most inexpensive way of wings mold production.

 

please note that each slice is also covered with the epoxy before bolting and test rib is used to adjust the surface

 

And here is a little video material of how we are planning to improve our penetration resistance by applying the special cover for our hull's bottom (sorry the audio is in Russian but I hope people can understand the video terms)

 

Another characteristics are shown in that video - especially look at the watermelon test - imagine the cabin is protected and applied with the same material . This is a new and improved polymer material - something we have been dreaming about

 

Here is the new and improved view of the Aquarius VAL-31. Many thanks to our remote SolidWorks designer, former member of Mr Annenkov's Design Bureau Mr Vladislav Vitowsky