HP-24 Project Update

On Mar 25, 11:56*am, "noel.wade" wrote:
Having worked with Bob & Brad a bit on these projects, I have to say
that it seems weird at first to have homebuilders working on these
things...

But what you have to realize is that this is nothing new. *Burt
Rutan's composite designs have been built thousands of times by
amateurs all over the world. *Many well-known sailplane builders (from
Applebay to the big European manufacturers) started out as amateurs or
college students.

Composites have been around for decades and there's a lot of good
published information on how to work with them and what their
properties are. *As long as you meet certain quality minimums when you
work with composites, you end up with good parts. *Bob & Brad have
done remarkable work in figuring out how to apply cost-effective
construction methods (commonly associated with Rutan's "moldless"
systems) over to molded designs. *They've done vaccuum-bagging,
vaccuum-induced resin-infusion, and other supposedly fancy techniques;
and IMHO they've discovered that there's no magic to it - just
diligence and a LOT (a __LOT__) of elbow-grease! *About the only thing
they don't do is autoclave-cure parts; but I don't think that's
something the European glider manufacturers do either, right?

Also, its important to note that the HP-24 project is not an attempt
to push the state of the art. *There's no trimming of margins or
pushing for every last bit of performance. *The team is using known
airfoils, established practices, and tried-and-true construction
methods (often lovingly copied from very popular sailplane models, and
improved where practical).

I'm curious to see how the wings hold up under a sand-bag load test;
but seeing the project come together over the last 3 years (sometimes
being in the room), its exciting - though sometimes smelly and sticky
- stuff. *If I don't get rich in the next couple of years and buy a
top-line sailplane, I'll be thinking hard about an HP-24 kit! *The
idea of an LS-6-like sailplane at a lower cost than my DG-300 is
enticing...

--Noel

Thanks for the kind words Noel.............and for the help in the WA
shop on those occasions! My expectations of the HP-24 will be to give
all you 15m guys I fly with a real run for the money. The Apis does
pretty well, but I really look forward to the day when valley
crossings and ridge jumping to the east doesn't result in me chewing
the skin off my lower lip!

Brad
S/N #1

On Mar 25, 1:10*pm, Brad wrote:
all you 15m guys I fly with a real run for the money. The Apis does
pretty well, but I really look forward to the day when valley
crossings and ridge jumping to the east doesn't result in me chewing
the skin off my lower lip!

Hah! With all that composite experience, I'm surprised you haven't
chopped the root rib off the Apis wings and added 1 meter to each side
by now! ;-)

--Noel
(who's days are numbered as soon as Brad gets longer wings)