Skyflash, Jet Powered Glider

[team_skyflash]

We finally reached our first major goal: The pilot and the plane are connected for the first time!
The pilot is capable of walking, running, standing (for hours) and has a great feeling of the airframe and controlability. He says: "I feel like I have finally spread the wings I always wanted to have" :-)
We will now build in the first engine again to continue with rolling tests of the gamma-phase. This includes several speeds including the lift-off speed without mounted V-Tail so that the plane won´t climb. Slight hovering above the ground is the target of this phase.

Our website has also been updated with new pictures and more. Visit us there =)

[team_skyflash]

We finally reached the status were we could perform the very first taxi-runs. During calm weather and low winds we were able to reach 31mph without any problems. Controlability and stability is better than we could hope and I really had to work a bit to prevent the plane from hovering. The drive had been reworked a bit and should be able to work on gras-runways and up to 100mph without problems.
Weight is finally measured before the runs at 119kg or about 260lb including about one gallon of diesel and everything needed to fly. Because we still have only one engine installed (second one is finally in delivery by now) the plane has a steering to the right which I had to cope with (You can see that with increasing speed in the helmet-camera view). But that wasn´t really a problem.

My first impression is that we have a very managable and stable concept until yet. We can assume that, given a tendency to hover up without pilots interaction at 31mph with low AOA, the predicted V1 speed of 35mph will be realistic. Our predicted weight of 286lb will also be no problem even with more fuel and a second engine inside the plane :-)

Here you can find our videos from those latest tests:







Best regards from germany!

[team_skyflash]

Listed as Top 15 Innovation at Trendhunter =)
That motivates!

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/sk...-powered-human

[Frank Giger]

Gotta be a Swabian crew building this!



I'm completely impressed at the audacity and level of engineering involved.

[team_skyflash]

Well in fact its more a lower-saxony crew =)
Thanks!

[team_skyflash]

Today we reached the next milestone. The high-speed taxi tests were carried out and showed only minor problems. The Skyflashs hovering speed could be determined at about 32mph.
When the plane starts hovering the pilot has to work keeping the plane going straight because of the asymmetric thrust forces. You can see that when the plane passes the camera with one wing higher than the other.
Also we noticed that the pilot needs his elevator to be able to lift the planes nose and start climbing - just as planned. The controlability is as good as it has been on the last runs. The pilot slowly becomes more familiar with the handling.
Next steps will be the mounting of the second engine to see if any problems occur.

Our latest video showing some rough CG-Check and scenes from the test including the lifted wing:



We plan to bring a test-report on our homepage tomorrow explaining some of the results =)

Best regards!

[team_skyflash]

We just managed to get our first report online =)
We have established a new sub-site in the "Tech" section of our website. The first report has about one page of text and we will bring up new ones with every step we make.
I hope that this will answer some questions that are commonly asked.
If you have any questions or comments to it please just let me know. It´s a new section an we want to make the best of it:

http://skyflash.org/Slideshow/Home-E...t-reports.html

[team_skyflash]

This week discovery channels "Daily Planet" broadcasted a pretty entertaining TV report on our project. Although it is of course also entertaining it contains some nice pictures and facts on the project.
Would be great to hear how you like it =)

[team_skyflash]

My post in the "First Flight" corner of this forum is coming closer and closer =)

Yesterday we performed highspeed-tests at an local airport. After some slower runs I was sure that the gear was totally able to deal with the 1300m bumpy grass runway.
First we decided to go for speed without me trying to pitch the plane up. This led to almost 80kph speed on the grass runway - without any problems. Even the slight gusts from the side didn´t mean any problems to us.
A short time later I decided to try to pull up when I feel that the plane is just jumping from bump to bump - This resulted in a state of hover at 55kph. Unfortunately the wind direction had changed to crosswind from my right. This resulted in a drop to the left after hovering up so I had to reduce thrust and stabilize again. The windspeed was indicated to 4 - 6m/s in gusts from 95° right of my plane.
Even so it was a great experience to feel how the vibration of the wheels stop with this great power in my back only controlled by my body...

I hope the video can transfer at least an idea of this

[team_skyflash]

I have now finished my report on the 'First Hop' test day and published it right here:
http://www.skyflash.org/Slideshow/Pr...t-reports.html

Would be nice to have some Feedback. I hope there are not too many mistakes in it :-)