The guys just flew our first successful tethered test flight on XA-0.1b-750! Details to follow as I get them….
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The guys just flew our first successful tethered test flight on XA-0.1b-750! Details to follow as I get them….
Felicitaciones!!!!!!!!!!, al fin.
Congrats! Was that the engine with copper liner or with alu liner?
Anyway, your team is doing a great job!
Bruno
Bruno,
Copper chamber so far. We ended up making some extra machining changes to the engines after we got some data from the 750-1 firings, and the aluminum one isn’t due back till Monday. We’ll be firing that one soon.
~Jon
YEEHAA!
It looks great.
Congratulations!
Congratulations Guys! Glad to see you’re making progress.
Just wondering. Why consider going to an Aluminium Alloy inner chamber when the Copper Alloy is doing so well?
David,
Several reasons. The copper does work well, but the Aluminum has some potential worth investigating (plus it’s a lot easier to try other approaches when you know you already have a good working option in operation). Copper chambers are a lot more expensive, take more time to get fabricated, and if we can get the aluminum CSJ-style chamber working reliably, we have some manufacturing techniques that we want to investigate that might allow for really lightweight, low-cost engines. Also, Dave’s always been interested in trying something Kerosene-like for a fuel down the road, and aluminum doesn’t catalyze coking like copper does, so you have more flexibility on the fuel choice.
There’s a lot to be said for the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought, but there are also some real potential wins if we can make aluminum work reliably, and at worst, we’ve lost a bit of money but still have a perfectly workable solution already demonstrated.
~Jon
Jon,
Thank you for the explanation. It is appreciated. I had thought manufacturing would be less expensive and lighter using aluminium with the benefit of it being easier to machine. I did not know that the coking in the cooling lines issue is reduced when using Kero (or related fuel) which is clearly a significant advantage. Thank you for the explanation – I am looking forward to the results of your tests.
David.