Boeing Go-Fly Prize

I am an old man, I have been in an out of aviation most of my life. When Boeing came up with this Go-Fly prize for VTOL personal aircraft, how could i refuse? Using all my engineering and homebuilt aviation expertise i came up with a vehicle that was safe, inexpensive and guaranteed to fly, with 1 hour range. Not bad looking either.You can build it in your garage.
10 Winners were announced on the 14th, most of them were cherry picked colleges. The rest were who knows where they come from, science fiction looking devices that no way can fly for 20 minutes , with 10 minute reserve. More glitz then function. When selecting these submissions, Go-Fly didnt follow their own rules.
What ticks me off is there were no or next to no older aviation people considered to win. On a point system, I think i had more points then all of the selected winners. Does the established airccaft community know about this injustice. Shouldnt winning depend on the merit rather then the galmour of a design. I am not against young people participating, but winning should be decided on by how credable the design is. The old guys working in their garage making something magical are excluded from this competition.
EAA is one of the sponsors of the competition. I doubt if any one of us will be allowed to win anything.
Some one please tell me that i am wrong.
Jeff

I like. What was the power source?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waltermitty

I like. What was the power source?

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hi Walter,
this thing is easy to make, big motors in the middle are gas paramotors,500 pounds of lift. i upraded to 4 of them instead of the 2 shown,
it is surrounded by outrunner drone motors, 600 pounds of lift. total lift 1100 pounds for a 600pound craft with passenger . Gas engines
provide the heavy lifting, Drone motors supply control and safety if something fails. Estamted speed 50 MPH, range 1 hour. I want to land on the roof of walmart, avoid the traffic, joking,
Jeff

Hello all.

Hello Birdmann.

Comment for GoFly / BOEING contest:


On August 1, 2018,
GoFly / Herox deleted the Forum wherein the contestants of the GoFly / BOEING contest presented their opinions and their complaints.

In the deleted Forum, several contestants were complaining for lack of transparency and were threatening to sue BOEING for it.


Quote from the deleted Forum:

(July 9, 2018)

To put it simply, what I purchased with my 250 USD (paid to GoFly / Herox) is the following info:
“You are not in the ten winners of the Phase I. Period.”

Neither scoring, nor ranking, nor justification of the decision, nor a clue for the weak points the judges find in my solution, nothing at all.

Just that I am not in the ten winners of phase I. . .

And now they try to trap again the contestants with cheap “tricks” of the kind:

"Dear contestant, in order to get a REVIEW of your Phase I submission, you have first to register to phase II; and in order to register to phase II, you have, among others, to create a company, to pay insurance fee, to pay “team” fee and to give equity rights to GoFly.”

. . .


(22 June 2018)

BOEING, what is wrong with you?

Secrecy,

delays,

hiding of essential information (like analytical scoring and ranking),

publishing of highly misleading information (the “600+ innovators from 6 continents” turned it out to be 164 submissions),

breaking of basic rules (the 20 miles became 20 minutes),

selection of winners that beyond reasonable doubt do not comply with basic requirements (like the maximum size, the “vision cone”), etc.

Come on BOEING. You can better.

End of quote.


For more : http://www.pattakon.com/GoFly/index.html

Thanks
Manolis Pattakos

A lot of this is typical big company culture..... the fix is in to fit specific narratives.
But I'm sorry to hear about the way you treated.

Don't know if you could sue Boeing over this. Boeing is the *sponsor* of the program, and control is vested in Gofly The competition agreement is between the entrant and Gofly, Boeing's only mentioned as a sponsor and not as a controller of the competition.

Ford sponsors Airventure, but that doesn't mean you should be phoning-in your portapotty complains to Alan Mulally.

Ron Wanttaja

thanks for the support,
Looks like we are out of the competition 100%, I dont have the capital to go on, I hope something good come of this
but aviation is progressing rapidly towards VTOL technology. It is happening with or with out the Go-fly challenge.

Hello Ron Wanttaja.

You write:
“Don't know if you could sue Boeing over this. Boeing is the *sponsor* of the program, and control is vested in Gofly The competition agreement is between the entrant and Gofly, Boeing's only mentioned as a sponsor and not as a controller of the competition.”



Quote from http://www.pattakon.com/GoFly/Posts_to_GoFly_Forum.htm (it is my last message to the GoFly / Herox / BOEING Forum, then the Forum was deleted):


Hello all (August 1, 2018).

As it seems,
the “transparency” of the “Phase I Awards Issue” and the “clearly defined rules”,
continue in the phase II of the GoFly contest.

From the so far posts about the “equity”, it seems that nobody really knows what equity means here.

To be in the safe side, when you sign a paper / a contract, you have to consider the “worst case scenario”.

Flapping Flight’s scenario is an interesting one:
“When you sign the agreement doesn't matter if you are the winner in the competition or winner out of it
GoFly will be your "partner" ”

At first, the GoFly contest, with the BOEING involved as the big sponsor (remove the name “BOEING” from this contest and think if you would ever think to participate), was presented as a contest among thinkers and tinkers, with goal to make people fly.
Now it appears as a contest for lawyers.

Compare the GoFly / BOEING contest with Sikorsky’s contest for a human powered helicopter (more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_I...er_Competition ) wherein the first who achieved “a flight duration of 60 seconds, reaching an altitude of 3 meters, with the center point of the aircraft hovering over a 10-by-10-metre square, was immediately declared the winner and took the big prize.

A clear / honest / transparent contest against the GoFly / BOEING contest.

I wonder, nobody in BOEING reads this forum?

Thanks
Manolis Pattakos

End of Quote



As GoFly used the BOEING as their bait / teaser to attract and trap the 164 contestants of the Phase I,
the same way I use the same name BOEING to attract the interest of those who what to know the truth.

And to warn new potential contestants (they can immediately go to phase II without participating in Phase I) about the transparency / quality / credibility etc of the GoFly contest . . .

Thanks
Manolis Pattakos

I'd like others comments and thoughts.

I strongly believe this a Fraud. It looks like EAA is giving the GoFly team a green light from previous press releases.

With all the hand selected original teams flaming out in their competition, there is a new cycle starting. And I have a strong reason to believe this a fraud, using Boeing's name and $1M prize, to hijack inexperienced entrepreneurs companies and IP, with this equity hijacking fraud. Even startups have up front value, being forced to sell 8% of your company up front, is paying REAL VALUE in hoping to win. This should be in violation of "No Purchase Necessary" laws governing contests, not legal in Colorado where I live (but allowed in other places). It does however appear to be openly in violation of "Bait and switch" (false advertising) laws which is considered a fraud in many places.

On the GoFly web site, they state:
Do competitors keep their Intellectual Property?

Yes, Teams will keep all of their intellectual property, except that teams will grant limited media rights to GoFly so that GoFly can publicize and promote the Competition and the Teams

This is the reply I got from GoFly regarding registering a new team, and it's clear the above claim that teams keep their IP is a lie, when they demand an 8% equity grant in your company to GoFly:

======================== From GoFly ===============================================

On Monday, June 1, 2020, 5:33:15 AM MDT, GoFly Prize <info@goflyprize.com> wrote:

Thank you for your email, John.

You certainly do not need GoFly to pursue your flying endeavors, and it may be the right choice for you to continue on your own. That is entirely your decision.

Regarding your question about the equity grant requested by GoFly: the percentage of equity that GoFly seeks is determined by the stage of the particular company (i.e. has the company raised funding, is it a new start-up, is there a prototype, has the Company realized any revenue, etc.). As outlined below, all Teams fill out the Company Questionnaire so that Teams inform GoFly of their exact stage. For start-up companies, GoFly seeks 8%; for those who have already reached major milestones, the percentage is less. GoFly believes that 8% for a start-up is both typical and reasonable given the GoFly opportunity and benefits provided. As you know, GoFly offers a myriad of benefits to the Teams including Masters & Mentors, Global Media and Marketing, as well as all the Benefits listed in the Benefits Tab of the website.

Should you have additional questions, please let us know.

Stay safe and well.

Regards,
The GoFly Team


================================= end of GoFly email ========================================

My reply back to them was not answered, not a surprise:

Thank you for your response, and clarification of the equity requirement.

Most builders have access to extensive technical resources, marketing resources, and networking via professional and amateur organizations in their area. And clearly any business has access to professional consultants at a fee.

In the US, Contests are generally bound by the "no purchase necessary" requirement. Being forced to yield significant future income and IP rights, is at it's face a forced deferred purchase, which by intent violates the "no purchase necessary" requirement. Your legal staff has probably done it's best to avoid, or skirt this legal requirement, but I do believe it merits a formal FTC complaint, along with vocal call outs in social media for the $1M prize hype, while actually scamming for a significant equity raid targeting inexperienced entrepreneurs.

Especially when $1M is a minor giveaway, while you raid future income of dozens of companies that may go on to actually entering a trillion dollar market that never received significant value for the costs.

If you believe I've mistakenly seen your campaign as a fraud, please correct me.

Hi Manolis ... read your gofly complaints in your pattokon.com/GoFly posts ... I agree with many of your points, including the equity demand is more of a scam than any reasonable requirement for a legitimate contest. John

An alternative may be the recently announced Agility Prime competition sponsored by the United States Air Force.

Agility Prime

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WHAT IS AGILITY PRIME
The Air Force recently launched Agility Prime, a non-traditional program seeking to accelerate the commercial market for advanced air mobility vehicles (i.e., "flying cars").

Leveraging unique testing resources and revenue generating government use cases for distributed logistics and disaster response, the government plans to mitigate current commercial market and regulatory risks.

Agility Prime also aims to bring together industry, investor, and government communities to establish safety and security standards while accelerating commercialization of this revolutionary technology.

The Innovative Capabilities Opening, below, establishes a rapid contracting mechanism beginning in 2020 with a “Race to Certification” series to drive government procurement of operational capability by 2023.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scooper

An alternative may be the recently announced Agility Prime competition sponsored by the United States Air Force.

Agility Prime

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Thank you .... that is a really exciting project

We passed on GoFly mostly because it was obvious that no one was going to be able to meet the criteria, some of which had to be met to avoid disqualification. The rules didn't make any sense given the state of the current battery technology. I also see a trend of ignoring individual or very small groups without deep industrial or academic support. The Wright Brothers wouldn't stand a chance in today's technology grand prize competitions.

We did apply for the Agility Prime in spite of their absolute focus on electric VTOL. At this time battery technology precludes success of a useful vehicle without adding a hybrid feature. Also, there are possible ultraSTOL possibilities that require far less installed horsepower to get off the ground than with propeller lift alone.

I strongly suspect we will continue or research on our own dime.

Vince Homer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vince

We passed on GoFly mostly because it was obvious that no one was going to be able to meet the criteria, some of which had to be met to avoid disqualification. The rules didn't make any sense given the state of the current battery technology. I also see a trend of ignoring individual or very small groups without deep industrial or academic support. The Wright Brothers wouldn't stand a chance in today's technology grand prize competitions.

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Well...shoot, they didn't NEED to, did they? They funded their experimentation, prototypes, and travel from the profits of their own small business, built their successful invention quietly, hired lawyers to sew up the rights to their IP, and changed the world without a "technology grand prize competition." Didn't take government money until they delivered an aircraft compliant with a government RFP.

Developing a vehicle that exceeds the GoFly criteria WITHOUT being a formal competitor will shame the organization more than complaining about them on aviation forums.


Ron Wanttaja

I agree with you.winning depend on the merit rather then the galmour of a design.