Jeff Kerlo of Revelaero basically built the whole airframe. His son and maybe a couple other helpers were also involved. I don't know if it ended badly or he was just done with the part he was hired for, but Jeff has said some not-so-great things about the project and doesn't seem to like being associated with it.
Thanks, I remember his old videos seemed to have a small team there
But maybe not something good
Indeed. At face value it's a cool project, you'd think he'd have a pretty strong support base outside of a cultivated YouTube community. At the minimum I'd have thought the first flight would have *some* fanfare
That it's flown this many times at all has blown my mind and frankly impressed me given all the bandaids I've seen
Indeed. Although we've seen other backyard inventions fly and achieve momentary flight. Heck the people on junkyard wars made their little flying contraptions. But it does show his commitment to the project, however misguided it may be
It would appear there wasn't one. From what we can see from the outside looking in his own worst enemy appears to be his ego. Why would something bad happen? Outside of a cooling issue the Raptor is perfect. He cycled the gear on the ground, why wouldn't it work in the air?? /S
But the desire is there. And he does recognize that the flight envelope is currently limited by heat
Indeed. I am very eager to see what the final iteration of the Raptor will be. He seems to have all the time he needs, and for now at least some money. If he continues to chip away at this he'll incrementally improve the thing. The unconventional powerplant is his biggest obstacle at this point. If he moves beyond that he's still got a lot to work out with the plane itself. Would a craft like this require any sort of load testing or certification? The Wasabi guys found portions of the fiberglass work already delaminating, I'd be curious to see the structural workmanship after a few dozen flight hours. Many of the interior work appears to be a patchwork of "let's glue this here" and we still have that suspected potential flutter issue with the wings
He has a long road still ahead of them. But I agree, the last few flights were gradually improving.
PS, regarding the engine cooling, I thought I remember seeing on the Raptor side he was planning on routing engine coolant around the wing leading edge, using that as a heat dissipater and getting "better than free" anti ice protection from it:
http://www.raptor-aircraft.com/features/deicing.html