20% intake efficiency, whatever that means. That’s a minor thing, they can easily create any shape using their composite process. The difficult part is to determine the best shape, that requires either extensive flight testing or sophisticated computer modelling.
The biggest part of the speed/fuel improvements of the TBM 900 were due to a redesigned inlet.
A saw a brand new Caravan a couple of months ago. It also had a completely new design of the inlet compared with the older ones. Maybe P&W finally have seen the light or something? 
Anyway, I wonder what is meant by 20% increase in efficiency in this respect.
LeSving wrote:
Hmm, how is this to be interpreted. 2% would be a huge improvement IMO, but 20? That’s no improvement, that’s a re-design from something that’s way off, to something that works.
A 20% increase of “intake efficiency” (whatever that is) would not translate to a 20% increase in engine efficiency.
Airborne_Again wrote:
A 20% increase of “intake efficiency” (whatever that is) would not translate to a 20% increase in engine efficiency.
I agree (for no other reason than a 20% increase in engine efficiency would be an insane number), but what is this inlet efficiency? Efficiency is defined as “real and measured property of some kind” divided by “the theoretical max property”.
Sales people like to boast with x % improvement, part of every pitch. It’s just marketing bla bla.
Also projects with difficulties like to use the strategy to tell people that they’re behind because it’s even going to be better. A kind of doubling down. Sounds much better than “we don’t have money, nothing is happening”.
Well, we have to ask ourselfs how many US airplane manufacturers in the last 20 or so years have actually managed to get a plane certified, as opposed to how many have had to give up?
In GA, the Cirrus Jet is the only really brand new design I recall in recent history, possibly a couple of LSAs as well.
ALL the others have gone bancrupt trying or had to sell out during certification because none of the new companies have that much spending money to see a full certification through.
So what is wrong? Obviously in older times it WAS possible and properly feasible to certify new airplanes pretty much, today it appears the hurdle is way beyond normal financial means for just about anyone short of a Chinese megabucks conglomerate. That can’t be right?
Maybe instead of putting insane import taxes on competing foreign products, the Trump government should try to find out why 99% of all begun FAA certifications fail and do something to correct this, preferrably at the same time correcting the long standing abuse of product liability laws. The two combined might finally get us back on track in development of new airplanes at affordable prices.
I think there are fairly straightforward reasons why these companies fail e.g.
Obviously they will blame it on everybody else, especially product liability.
* I say this from experience of actual dealings with them; they are picky (fussy) in the most extreme ways, rejecting things on the most trivial grounds e.g. one pilot submitted blood test data in mmols and they threw it out, because they won’t use a calculator to convert it to the units used in the USA
The Epic is reportedly (from a pilot who flew one across the Atlantic, and has TBM experience) a very good plane in terms of performance and handling. He said he totally outclasses the TBM.
So what is wrong? Obviously in older times it WAS possible and properly feasible to certify new airplanes pretty much, today it appears the hurdle is way beyond normal financial means for just about anyone short of a Chinese megabucks conglomerate. That can’t be right?
I can see no difference between now and 30 or 40 years ago (which is about as long as I follow what is going on in this sector) in that respect. I have seen countless companies coming up with new planes only to fail the hurdle of certification. Usually because their capital cover was way below “insufficient”. The companies forget that during the period it takes to certifiy the aeroplane (1 … 3 years depending on complexity and quirks needed to be fixed) they have to pay their staff and hangar rent for nothing.
One of the most prominent such projects being the LearFan which was almost certified when the company ran out of money and willing investors. That was 30 years ago and it would not be different today.
What doesn’t help is that everybody who has come up with a clever way to design a power lever thinks he now needs to build a whole aircraft around his minuscule invention.
New aircraft designers almost certainly have good engineers. It is just about money. Having the funds to survive the process. I don’t think much has changed to be honest in the past 40 years.
And obviously you have to make sure you have a market after certification.
