Welcome to the first newsletter from Terrafugia and thanks for your interest.This newsletter will be sent out periodically to keep you updated on our progress toward delivering the Transition personal air vehicle (PAV), both in terms of events and technical progress.
If you have any questions about Terrafugia or the Transition, feel free to send us an email at info@terrafugia.com
If you are ready to discuss placing your deposit for the Transition, contact us at sales@terrafugia.com
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy reading the updates below.
-The Terrafugia Team
Events
The Terrafugia team has been meeting and speaking with pilot groups around the New England area, including the Plymouth (Massachusetts) Aero Club and the Experimental Aircraft Association 106 meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, to discuss the Transition in more detail, answer questions, and receive feedback from our future customers.These meetings were very successful, and it is great to see all of the enthusiasm for the Transition.We plan to continue to build up the enthusiasm next at our exhibit at AirVenture 2006 from July 24-30 in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin.At AirVenture we will be taking deposits to guarantee your place in line to own a Transition.These deposits will be placed in a third party escrow account, and Terrafugia won’t touch the money until we deliver you your Transition.
Successful Wind Tunnel Testing
Using a combination of two dimensional viscous airfoil analysis and three dimensional vortex lattice codes, the basic design of the outer mold line of the vehicle was isolated in early February.A 1/5th scale wind tunnel model based on that configuration wasbuilt and tested in MIT’s Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel in April.The vehicle was swept through angles of attack ranging from -4 to 18
degrees at beta (yaw) angles of 0 and +/- 15 degrees.Data was collected on a six degree-of-freedom force balance, measuring lift, drag, and side force as well as moments around all three axes.We are pleased to announce that the tests confirmed the predictions of the vortex-lattice code: with proper center of gravity placement the Transition is aerodynamically stable, and the stall characteristics are benign.As the angle of attack is increased, the canard stalls first followed by the wing
root then finally the wing tip, providing the natural recovery or “safe-stall.”Since the elevator is on the tail (not on the canard) the pilot maintains pitch authority allowing him or her to “mush” the stall a bit more than a typical canard.In addition, the ordering of how the flow separates from the surfaces will allow roll authority to be maintained throughout stall.
Mechanisms
Preliminary design of the vehicle’s mechanisms is proceeding according to our development schedule.This past week we conducted a preliminary design review of the wing folding mechanism.This
review was a critical step in mitigating the concerns of many of our potential customers with an automatic folding wing on a general aviation aircraft.We are pleased to report that the preliminary design is moving forward to the detailed, part-design stage.Once the engineering design of all the specific parts have been isolated and analyzed using finite element analysis techniques, key areas for potential weight reduction will be identified and the design will move on to the critical review stage and manufacturing analyses.
