Raptor Aircraft

[...] If I am building the aircraft and over a series of months the pilots are telling me the airport is not suitable, then it is not suitable. Drop in the bucket cash wise to move it. [...]

Yes, but that's the thing: They themselves clearly state in the video above that they only raised general concerns about the airport's location during their past visits and only checked out the terrain and made the final call after their third and last visit. Since then, Peter has actually moved to a different airport. If they would have evaluated the terrain during one of their previous visits (particularly if they were supposedly already concerned), he could have moved it in advance of their last visit. I don't even want to know how much they are charging him in travel cost for each visit and how many weeks will again be lost.
Check out the video above and go to 59:10. That's when they start talking about the airport location and are breaking the news to him.

Again, after watching the video my opinion of them has improved, but I still think that the sequence of their evaluations leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.
 
Isn’t the Raptor an attempt to copy & improve the Velocity XL but pressurized? Everything looks the same from the silhouette to the landing gear:

All of the canards have similarities. If you wanna put 4-5-6 people in one of them, they look even more the same. But Peter wanted a turbocharged diesel, pressurization, etc. He is gonna reinvent personal flying. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I don't think there is a deliberate effort to "improve" the Velocity, but the planform lead him to a similar looking airplane.
 
And as was previously stated in this thread, you're making a lot of assumptions based only off the videos you've seen and the small part of the conversations between all involved.
 
I don’t really have a problem with Peter’s attitude. So many engineers, programmers and other professionals are so frequently constrained by the existing rules and perceptions which is where visionaries come into play. Visionaries are generally neither easy to deal with nor particularly patient- I’ve been in the startup world long enough to meet or work for more than a few.

You have so many naysayers, critics and others who would otherwise derail you or feel like you’re taking money out of their pocket if you succeed. That’s why the payout on success is as good as it should be.

Peter will run of money or stubbornness.one of those will lead to his success and the other not. I’ll root for both him and the wasabi guys to come together and figure it out- we all need a $130k 300 knot bird, right?screw those cirrus guys!!! :)
 
I don’t really have a problem with Peter’s attitude. So many engineers, programmers and other professionals are so frequently constrained by the existing rules and perceptions which is where visionaries come into play.

You can be a visionary and still follow sound engineering principles. Peter hasn't done a good job of that.
 
Frankly, I find it somewhat troubling how apparently quite a few people seem to have a ball hating on Peter, while not accepting any criticism of the Wasabi guys.

Tell me, how is it possible that the Wasabi guys are on one hand so great experts that they are above any criticism, but that they are on the other hand still willing to fly such a deathtrap (according to all the internet experts in this thread)? Isn't this a contradiction?

Peter does get a ton of hate, some deserved and some not. But that's as it should be. It's his design and up to him to change that image by making a safe and effective airplane. So far it seems as though he's had difficulty doing that.

I'm still trying to figure out what the Wasabi guys should be criticized for. If you watch the video they found a list of 37 action items that needed to be fixed before first flight and talked to him about the issues with the airport itself. They offered to stay and help with the issues (at additional cost I'm sure) and Peter sent them home. They came out a second time and the majority of the 37 action items still hadn't been resolved. They also had a conversation about the airport issues. So they come out a third time to make a solid effort to get the bird in the air. Did you hear the conversation about how Peter fixed the shimmy in the gear? He rotated the bolt, which was bent, in order to put pressure in another direction. That's something Wasabi didn't know until that moment. As Elliot says in the video, all of these questions were designed to give them confidence in the rest of the airframe that they aren't able to inspect. Doesn't inspire confidence at all! Every thing they checked pointed to a no-fly condition. When you add the terrain it goes from being No, to Heck No!

Maybe instead of criticizing the Wasabi guys for not being able to drive home the point about terrain issues to Peter on the first visit we should take a look at Peter's proven inability to listen to outside suggestions?
 
You can be a visionary and still follow sound engineering principles. Peter hasn't done a good job of that.

His attitude is that any criticism of the aircraft, no matter how well founded, is an attack and must be resisted and/or ignored.

A perfect example of this is the revelation that roughly half of the 37 items on the deficiency list generated by an earlier visit had not been addressed by the third. Clearly Peter decided those squawks were, in his opinion, just piling on by overzealous critics, rather than legitimate concerns generated by a professional test pilot.
 
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Yes, but that's the thing: They themselves clearly state in the video above that they only raised general concerns about the airport's location during their past visits and only checked out the terrain and made the final call after their third and last visit. Since then, Peter has actually moved to a different airport. If they would have evaluated the terrain during one of their previous visits (particularly if they were supposedly already concerned), he could have moved it in advance of their last visit. I don't even want to know how much they are charging him in travel cost for each visit and how many weeks will again be lost.
Check out the video above and go to 59:10. That's when they start talking about the airport location and are breaking the news to him.

Again, after watching the video my opinion of them has improved, but I still think that the sequence of their evaluations leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.
Improvement in how they handle things or improving your understanding of how things were handled? I’m leaning towards the latter...
 
Tell me, how is it possible that the Wasabi guys are on one hand so great experts that they are above any criticism, but that they are on the other hand still willing to fly such a deathtrap (according to all the internet experts in this thread)? Isn't this a contradiction?

my takeaway is that they have had concerns since the very beginning (choice of airport, engine, etc) and have tried to work with Peter and get answers to reduce the risks. They just aren't there yet.
 
Isn’t the Raptor an attempt to copy & improve the Velocity XL but pressurized? Everything looks the same from the silhouette to the landing gear:
https://www.velocityaircraft.com/xl

I still think that one of the biggest mistakes made was designing the plane with a new engine. I wish he would have installed the diesel in a Velocity, and sold that engine package before designing his plane. In spite of the challenges he would have faced with W/B on the Velocity, separating the two would have increased the likelihood of success.

The clearly defensive nature of the builder to their thoughts and critiques is highly detrimental to the program.Again, if you are paying professionals to oversee this program, take their advice and get it done. I have no doubt Wasabi will work with him to either get the airplane in the air, or the relationship won't work out and there is no telling what will happen.

The attitude he exhibits in videos that he edits and presents worries me more than any one specific issue on the plane's design or testing so far.
 
I still think that one of the biggest mistakes made was designing the plane with a new engine. I wish he would have installed the diesel in a Velocity, and sold that engine package before designing his plane. In spite of the challenges he would have faced with W/B on the Velocity, separating the two would have increased the likelihood of success.



The attitude he exhibits in videos that he edits and presents worries me more than any one specific issue on the plane's design or testing so far.
I'd rather have a PT6 option. That's what he'll need to hit his performance targets anyway.
 
My takeaway is that they have had concerns since the very beginning (choice of airport, engine, etc) and have tried to work with Peter and get answers to reduce the risks. They just aren't there yet.

Your observation is undoubtedly correct. German Guy is unwilling to admit his strident criticism of the test pilots is unwarranted, and he equivocates in an effort to downplay his repeated opprobrium. It's clear they voiced uneasiness about the airport on their first and second visits, which he calls "general concerns", a minimization unsupported by the video. In fact, we have no idea of exactly what they said to Peter during visits one and two, or the degree of their discomfort at that time regarding the prospect of flight from the 5,000' runway.

However, an evaluation of the terrain surrounding the airport on their third visit, which Justin and Elliot relate in the video with exacting specificity, resulted in a decision that the airport was unsuitable for the first flights of an aircraft whose construction has deviated from the original design by a qualified engineer, is significantly heavier than its projected design weight, and has fundamental powerplant deficiencies which cannot be corrected.

Inspection of the terrain from the air, which included flying the offset required to perform a landing on the nearby freeway, an assessment of the topography off the end of Runways 5/23, and the realization the tree cover was significantly denser than expected, all became apparent from the low altitude observations made possible by their PA-30.

The combination of these shortcomings resulted in the decision that initial flight operations from KCNI would be unreasonably dangerous. German Guy has repeatedly claimed that decision has resulted in costs and delays which could have been avoided had Justin and Elliot pulled the plug on an earlier trip.

That supposes Justin and Elliot possessed a measure of clairvoyance. While they could have rented an airplane to inspect the terrain on an earlier visit, the airport surroundings weren't the only reason for the decision. The determination was intertwined with the taxi tests, which were done to assess the aircraft's acceleration capabilities and control responses. German Guy has repeatedly pointed to the numerous videos made by Peter, which he feels were an adequate display of its sluggishness and therefore made Justin's analysis by actual testing superfluous. This is a seriously uninformed position for several reasons.

Justin had no idea of the parameters in place during Peter's so called 'tests'. There was no documentation made by Peter of the multiple changes to the aircraft during the period in which the videos were filmed. These included 'tuning' the ECM. Where did he get the knowledge to do that? He has repeatedly changed the initial propeller pitch and the mechanism stop settings. The redrive has been endlessly fiddled with, and inspection by Justin revealed unexplained wear on the belts and grooving on the pulleys.

That the airplane's engine died on the taxiway (along with a dead battery) was an ominous occurrence and certainly did nothing to inspire confidence. When a test pilot is told 'If you jiggle the throttle the wrong way, yeah, the engine is gonna die', it has to be a bit disconcerting.

Finally, German Guy's assertion that GoPro videos are acceptable as a substitute for actual testing is simply ludicrous. The observations listed above are reason enough, but the simple fact the videos were made months ago in conditions radically different than the 95° temperatures of late July amply illustrates their invalidity.

His assertion that the added costs resulting from disassembly, relocation, and reassembly would have been less expensive if done at an earlier date is curious to say the least. I can't divine a reason why it would be less expensive to perform the operation in March as opposed to August.

The totality of aircraft deficiencies and the inadequacies of KNCI revealed over three inspections and a period of several months resulted in the decision by Justin and Elliot to require the aircraft be moved to another airport. It wasn't because of a sudden realization in late July that the runway was too short.
 
Your observation is undoubtedly correct. German Guy is unwilling to admit his strident criticism of the test pilots is unwarranted, and he equivocates in an effort to downplay his repeated opprobrium. It's clear they voiced uneasiness about the airport on their first and second visits, which he calls "general concerns", a minimization unsupported by the video. In fact, we have no idea of exactly what they said to Peter during visits one and two, or the degree of their discomfort at that time regarding the prospect of flight from the 5,000' runway.

However, an evaluation of the terrain surrounding the airport on their third visit, which Justin and Elliot relate in the video with exacting specificity, resulted in a decision that the airport was unsuitable for the first flights of an aircraft whose construction has deviated from the original design by a qualified engineer, is significantly heavier than its projected design weight, and has fundamental powerplant deficiencies which cannot be corrected.

Inspection of the terrain from the air, which included flying the offset required to perform a landing on the nearby freeway, an assessment of the topography off the end of Runways 5/23, and the realization the tree cover was significantly denser than expected, all became apparent from the low altitude observations made possible by their PA-30.

The combination of these shortcomings resulted in the decision that initial flight operations from KCNI would be unreasonably dangerous. German Guy has repeatedly claimed that decision has resulted in costs and delays which could have been avoided had Justin and Elliot pulled the plug on an earlier trip.

That supposes Justin and Elliot possessed a measure of clairvoyance. While they could have rented an airplane to inspect the terrain on an earlier visit, the airport surroundings weren't the only reason for the decision. The determination was intertwined with the taxi tests, which were done to assess the aircraft's acceleration capabilities and control responses. German Guy has repeatedly pointed to the numerous videos made by Peter, which he feels were an adequate display of its sluggishness and therefore made Justin's analysis by actual testing superfluous. This is a seriously uninformed position for several reasons.

Justin had no idea of the parameters in place during Peter's so called 'tests'. There was no documentation made by Peter of the multiple changes to the aircraft during the period in which the videos were filmed. These included 'tuning' the ECM. Where did he get the knowledge to do that? He has repeatedly changed the initial propeller pitch and the mechanism stop settings. The redrive has been endlessly fiddled with, and inspection by Justin revealed unexplained wear on the belts and grooving on the pulleys.

That the airplane's engine died on the taxiway (along with a dead battery) was an ominous occurrence and certainly did nothing to inspire confidence. When a test pilot is told 'If you jiggle the throttle the wrong way, yeah, the engine is gonna die', it has to be a bit disconcerting.

Finally, German Guy's assertion that GoPro videos are acceptable as a substitute for actual testing is simply ludicrous. The observations listed above are reason enough, but the simple fact the videos were made months ago in conditions radically different than the 95° temperatures of late July amply illustrates their invalidity.

His assertion that the added costs resulting from disassembly, relocation, and reassembly would have been less expensive if done at an earlier date is curious to say the least. I can't divine a reason why it would be less expensive to perform the operation in March as opposed to August.

The totality of aircraft deficiencies and the inadequacies of KNCI revealed over three inspections and a period of several months resulted in the decision by Justin and Elliot to require the aircraft be moved to another airport. It wasn't because of a sudden realization in late July that the runway was too short.

You could have saved all of those rich and chewy five-dollar words, and communicated the exact same thing, by just posting "German Guy is a doodiehead".
 
For all the criticism passed to Peter and Wasabi Team, does it really matter?

If the end, the feds will either give him a glorious thumbs up or a gladiator thumbs down. We can knit pick till the cows come home but with all the egg the feds have on their face regarding 737-max, along with quite a few other curious debacles, I don’t see certification or even experimental as a pass getting a smidge easier.

Short of that, it’s like an English speaking version of a soap opera with a peanut gallery and many a popcorn-grease covered screens as a byproduct.


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[...] German Guy is unwilling to admit his strident criticism of the test pilots is unwarranted [...]

You are burning way too many calories on this. I have absolutely no stake in this game, maybe you do considering how wound up you are apparently getting. :rolleyes:

All I'm saying is that
  • The lack of performance was obvious from the GoPro footage alone, AFAIK the G3X also records data. The guy (Elliot?) in the video clearly says that it is not sufficient for a test flight to just get of the ground. This is a statement they should have made during their very first visit. He however also admitted that they told Peter only during their last visit that they will not fly it out of his airport and that they previously only raised some concerns.
  • Many of the items that came up over the course of several visits could have been handled more efficiently with better planning. The evaluation of the airfield just being one of them.
The fact alone that some of Peter's work can be rightfully criticized, doesn't automatically mean that the Wasabi guys are perfect.
 
You are burning way too many calories on this. I have absolutely no stake in this game, maybe you do considering how wound up you are apparently getting. :rolleyes:

All I'm saying is that
  • The lack of performance was obvious from the GoPro footage alone, AFAIK the G3X also records data. The guy (Elliot?) in the video clearly says that it is not sufficient for a test flight to just get of the ground. This is a statement they should have made during their very first visit. He however also admitted that they told Peter only during their last visit that they will not fly it out of his airport and that they previously only raised some concerns.
  • Many of the items that came up over the course of several visits could have been handled more efficiently with better planning. The evaluation of the airfield just being one of them.
The fact alone that some of Peter's work can be rightfully criticized, doesn't automatically mean that the Wasabi guys are perfect.

You continue to beat the drum about YouTube videos, and make suppositions about what was and was not said during three evaluations of the aircraft and the airport. So let's be clear about this. Do you actually believe YouTube videos are a proper substitute for a test card?

You've made it clear you think the Wasabi guys have engaged in fraud and deception so they could bill Peter for more hours, which is just silly. I believe they have done the best they could with a client that ignores reality, and their professionalism has prevented them from stating what is really going on. If you view Peter's videos made after Wasabi's first two visits, his petulance and dismissiveness are obvious. He believes he is smarter than they are, and thinks very little of their opinions.

But at the end of the day, it's not his ass in the seat when it comes time to fly the airplane.
 
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So glad the test pilots released that video. I'm concerned about the power plant. The part where it's dumping black smoke upon full acceleration indicates the "tuning" is not done correctly, it's dumping fuel and the black smoke in a diesel is unburnt/un-combusted fuel. It could also maybe be an in injector stuck in the open position which could be catastrophic. Did Peter do any upgrades to the standard VAG 3.0 TDI?

I really think this thing could be good or at least better with a true aero powerplant.
 
I really think this thing could be good or at least better with a true aero powerplant.

This was brought up on one of his videos a long time ago. If I remember correctly he stated it didn't fit his 'vision' for the Raptor. He essentially built everything around this auto-conversion.
 
For all the criticism passed to Peter and Wasabi Team, does it really matter?

If the end, the feds will either give him a glorious thumbs up or a gladiator thumbs down.

A DAR has already inspected the airplane and granted it ts certificate.

The real test is if it flies, and how well. That’s the tough one.
 
One thing’s for certain, if Len Fox tried to fly this thing when Peter brought him out last year, that surely would’ve ended in disaster. Even with all the upgrades since then, it’s debatable whether or not this thing is safe to fly at all. Forget off site landing area in case of power plant failure. The issues that they have with the flight controls would’ve ended the flight long before the engine had a chance to die.

And to me I just find it astonishing that with someone as smart as Peter and with the designing / engineering tools at his disposal, that this thing wasn’t completed and flying years ago. I’ll say it again, over 30 years ago, you had Danny Maher, a boat builder, design, build and fly the first Velocity prototype within a year. Had kits shipping the following year. Outside of a flat stall problem that was quickly rectified, they had no real issues with the design. And while the Raptor is a more complex design, they still have the benefit of copying the basics of a Velocity XL. Just doesn’t make sense to me.
 
You continue to beat the drum about YouTube videos, and make suppositions about what was and was not said during three evaluations of the aircraft and the airport. So let's be clear about this. Do you actually believe YouTube videos are a proper substitute for a test card?

You've made it clear you think the Wasabi guys have engaged in fraud and deception so they could bill Peter for more hours, which is just silly. I believe they have done the best they could with a client that ignores reality, and their professionalism has prevented them from stating what is really going on. If you view Peter's videos made after Wasabi's first two visits, his petulance and dismissiveness are obvious. He believes he is smarter than they are, and thinks very little of their opinions.

But at the end of the day, it's not his ass in the seat when it comes time to fly the airplane.

If you wouldn't have been in this forum for so long, I would think you're just trolling me. Maybe you still are, who knows.

I never accused them of fraud, but stated that, particularly if the business is going slow, a few paid trips to check out the Raptor might be a welcome opportunity to pay the bills.
I however also admitted, that after watching Wasabi's yesterday's video, I now at least think that they actually have the intention to eventually fly the Raptor.

As for the YouTube videos: Most people in this thread are apparently having zero issues to tell that the Raptor is a death trap and that Peter disregarded any professional advice, while at the same time I'm not allowed to criticize the Wasabi guys for the things they said themselves in their own video? :rolleyes:

I also never said that a YouTube video is a proper replacement for a a test card or whatever they are using to check of test items.
What I'm saying is that if it is obvious from videos and the G3X data that the Raptor eats up over half of the runway length to barely get to rotation speed, what is the point of travelling there three times until you finally tell your customer that the runway doesn't meet their minimum requirements for the test flight of any (again according to their own video) new aircraft?

I'm not blaming them for not flying out of his airport. Heck, I wouldn't even fly our little kitplane, of which thousands are already flying, out of a runway that is barely long enough to get in the air. They however should have made this call much earlier.

I actually agree with you on that they are probably using some kind of test-flight checklist.
I'm thinking, though, that they should have moved a few items around in order to make the process more efficient.

Just for the record: I don't like the engine at all and think that he wasted too much time on the pressurized cabin and creature comforts. He would have IMHO been way better off to build the first prototype with a conventional engine and without the pressurized cabin and things like a/c.

This being said, I don't think that its fair to keep beating (from the anonymity of the internet) on a guy who is trying to build something new and who already invested years of his life and most likely all of his financial resources into this project. :(
This entire thing doesn't make anybody look good. Neither Peter nor the Wasabi guys.



So, this is still the big question: Will the Wasabi guys fly the Raptor the next time they show up or will they find new items that need to be addressed? o_O
 
So, this is still the big question: Will the Wasabi guys fly the Raptor the next time they show up or will they find new items that need to be addressed? o_O

New items? How about the already identified items? If they don't find any new items, but old ones are still present, do you expect them to ignore that and fly anyway?
 
New items? How about the already identified items? If they don't find any new items, but old ones are still present, do you expect them to ignore that and fly anyway?

What open items?
If you go to 57:04 one the Wasabi guys (Elliot?) states that figuring out W&B 'was sort of one of the last critical things that we're sort of clicking off trying to get read to fly'.
At 57:44 in the video, the other Wasabi guy (Justin?) is saying that Peter and Mark (the designer?) are updating some performance Excel sheet with the actual data they acquired and that 'we are getting close'.

Next, they are walking away due to their concerns with the airport. They are not mentioning any other open topics.
 
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As for the YouTube videos: Most people in this thread are apparently having zero issues to tell that the Raptor is a death trap and that Peter disregarded any professional advice, while at the same time I'm not allowed to criticize the Wasabi guys for the things they said themselves in their own video? :rolleyes:

Peter has documented the build of this airplane since the beginning. For those of us that have watched all of the videos he's put out it's not difficult to see the myriad of issues that have been created. Peter deemed the aircraft ready for flight and hired test pilots when you could still move the aileron to the left stop while hold full right rudder "without much force."

Sure, it would've been great if Wasabi could've come in the first time and said the airport is no good so move the airplane. However, the first time they came in they spent their time evaluating the airplane and came back the second time to find most of it hadn't been resolved. They were working on the things directly in front of their face that could kill them and not putting too much attention on the 40th thing down the line that could kill them. They weren't hired to just come in and fly the aircraft. They were hired to evaluate it from top to bottom and deem it ready for testing, then complete the tests.

Just out of curiousity, how many of the Raptor videos have you watched?
 
[...] it's not difficult to see the myriad of issues that have been created. [...]

Do you have some examples, besides of the engine? He had some issues, like the nose wheel shimmy, which are IMHO not surprising for a new design, which I think have been properly addressed by him.


[...] Just out of curiousity, how many of the Raptor videos have you watched?

Most of them, as well as the Wasabi video.

I'm probably alone with this opinion, but if the Raptor would be available with a traditional aircraft engine and flight testing would check out ok, I would consider it as our next project.
While I am thinking that his performance claims and cost estimates are outlandish, I still believe that he would have a winner if he could come up with something like a super-fast to build, pressurized, turbocharged, 200kts cruise Velocity in the $200k - $300k range.
 
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So glad the test pilots released that video. I'm concerned about the power plant. The part where it's dumping black smoke upon full acceleration indicates the "tuning" is not done correctly, it's dumping fuel and the black smoke in a diesel is unburnt/un-combusted fuel. It could also maybe be an in injector stuck in the open position which could be catastrophic. Did Peter do any upgrades to the standard VAG 3.0 TDI?

I really think this thing could be good or at least better with a true aero powerplant.

nearly every single diesel I can think of will emit black smoke when full power is applied in that manner. New stuff has particulate filters which make is much less visible. Maybe tuning questions remain, but smoke alone doesn’t indicate a problem.

Now the engine cutoff issue they had is a real problem.
 
Do you have some examples, besides of the engine? He had some issues, like the nose wheel shimmy, which are IMHO not surprising for a new design, which I think have been properly addressed by him.

The aileron issue was a big one. As he started doing taxi testing you could watch the ailerons flop about as he went over bumps. Also, he's mounted the pulleys for the redesigned control system to the skin of the airplane without any structural additions. He was pressure testing and didn't reach the correct pressure but said it was good enough. He never finished flight testing the model after several issues were uncovered. The fixes were designed and then implemented on the prototype build. I haven't built an airplane, yet, but even I catch things all the time in his videos that make me cringe. Not to mention that he completely lost control of the weight.

I had hoped he would get this thing going. Like you said, his performance claims are a bit outlandish, but I think it's a beautiful update on a classic design. I just wish he had relied on expert help through the process.
 
nearly every single diesel I can think of will emit black smoke when full power is applied in that manner. New stuff has particulate filters which make is much less visible. Maybe tuning questions remain, but smoke alone doesn’t indicate a problem.

Now the engine cutoff issue they had is a real problem.
The Cummins in my dodge was straight piped, had all emissions equipment removed and had a custom tune. It never smoked any visible smoke. Got 10mpg better fuel economy too...
 
The aileron issue was a big one. As he started doing taxi testing you could watch the ailerons flop about as he went over bumps. Also, he's mounted the pulleys for the redesigned control system to the skin of the airplane without any structural additions. He was pressure testing and didn't reach the correct pressure but said it was good enough. He never finished flight testing the model after several issues were uncovered. The fixes were designed and then implemented on the prototype build. I haven't built an airplane, yet, but even I catch things all the time in his videos that make me cringe. Not to mention that he completely lost control of the weight. [...]

I agree on the weight issue, besides of the engine this is the other big thing that troubles me. Then again, going to a conventional engine would probably take care of much of the excess weight.
I agree on the pulley issue and was actually surprised that he went with such a rather flimsy design in the first place. I would however consider this a relatively easy fix for a later series production. For now, the Wasabi guys seem to be satisfied with it.

He posted a videos about the controls, I don't see how the ailerons could flop about, assuming the pulleys are solid and the cables have been properly tensioned. I don't recall seeing a video showing aileron issues - maybe the cables weren't tightened yet or he was unintentionally making control inputs, as he went over bumps?

This is the control video:

Not sure about the testing of the model, this seems to only be hearsay, stated by somebody in this thread. Who knows if this is true, to what extend and what other measures Peter took (e. g. simulation, testing of the model with another pilot, etc.) to validate his design.
 
The aileron system was redesigned after the Wasabi crew made their first visit and said the original system wouldn't work. You can see the slop in several videos, but go to 11:20 of this one and you'll see what I'm talking about.



A homebuilder's forum that I frequent has been discussing Raptor for a while now. One of the builders Peter had helping posted a comment mentioning the model issues and the lack of resolution before building the prototype.
 
The aileron system was redesigned after the Wasabi crew made their first visit and said the original system wouldn't work. You can see the slop in several videos, but go to 11:20 of this one and you'll see what I'm talking about. [...]

Interesting. It also appears as whether he didn't have his hand on the stick. Do you know how he managed to satisfy Wasabi? The only change I recall, in this regards, is that he changed how the pulleys are mounted.
 
Interesting. It also appears as whether he didn't have his hand on the stick. Do you know how he managed to satisfy Wasabi? The only change I recall, in this regards, is that he changed how the pulleys are mounted.

He originally used sleeved aileron cables without pulleys. The pulley system was the redesign after Wasabi came out. He also had to redesign the pitch control after the second visit when they found that slight pressures in roll would bind the pitch system badly.
 
Also, I was incorrect in the model statement. It wasn't made by one of the builders, it was made by the guy who built and flew the model itself. Here's the quote

The model I built was quarter scale at 8 foot span,give or take,and weigh approx 30 pounds. It flew with plenty authority with a 2300 watt electric brushless motor. It also ended up flying quite well after I corrected all the aero mistakes present in the original design. But bear in mind I had only made 4 flights,IIRC, and he shut down model test program. He was convinced that everything needed in terms of flight characteric investigation was accomplished in those few flights. Never got to investigate stall characteristics,,rudder authority, rudder/roll coupling, aileron/ yaw coupling,slow flight control authority,etc,etc,etc. Many more flights should have been executed to at least get a reasonably representative indication of the platforms dynamic flight characteristics .
 
The Cummins in my dodge was straight piped, had all emissions equipment removed and had a custom tune. It never smoked any visible smoke. Got 10mpg better fuel economy too...

Dad's bone stock 1989 cummins with 80k miles on since new smokes when you smash the throttle... Also puffs some smoke when it fires when starting. This truck would look like new with a good wash, buff and wax.
 
Interesting. It also appears as whether he didn't have his hand on the stick. Do you know how he managed to satisfy Wasabi? The only change I recall, in this regards, is that he changed how the pulleys are mounted.

There's over a hundred pounds of tension on the aileron cables. Peter had to keep increasing it to stop the aileron slop. That's rather alarming to me, because the pulley brackets were fabricated from .090 carbon fiber sheet. The brackets are epoxied to the structure, and I doubt any load to yield testing was done.

He also used a trial and error method to determine the size of the weights on the counterbalance spades. I think he ended up with 6 lbs of lead on each side. At one point, he was considering tungsten as a counterweight material.
 
He originally used sleeved aileron cables without pulleys. The pulley system was the redesign after Wasabi came out. He also had to redesign the pitch control after the second visit when they found that slight pressures in roll would bind the pitch system badly.

Are you sure? The controls video I posted above is from 2017, Wasabi however became involved only late last year.

Wasabi posted a video about their first visit:

I also just looked up Marc Zeitlin, the designer of the Raptor, who participated in the visit by Wasabi. He is a A&P and has a Master's degree in aeronautical engineering:
https://www.burnsideaerospace.com/resume

I just went back to his videos, the only other item I found, regarding the ailerons, was that they wanted to have stops installed:
 
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