Otto Aviation has officially concluded Phase One testing of its Celera 500L aircraft with 55 successful test flights and roughly 51 hours of flight time from July to November 2021.
The Otto Aviation team used industry standard flight test performance methods that aided in refining the statistical certainty of the prototype performance, according to company officials. Several flights reached airspeeds of over 250 mph at altitudes up to 15,000 feet, which projects to an airspeed of 460 mph at 50,000 feet, officials add.
During test flights, the team was able to visualize the laminar flow state with a precision infrared camera mounted on a chase aircraft, quantifying extensive laminar flow capability on external surfaces, company officials noted. The team also tested wing and fuselage surfaces for laminar flow robustness and gathered additional test data supporting the development work for the production vehicle, they said.
Through a collaboration with Cal Poly’s Boundary Layer Data System team, Otto Aviation was able to quantify the skin friction state of the wing and fuselage surfaces utilizing a series of Preston-type, pitot-static tubes, company officials explained.
Additionally, they were able to collect data from custom-built boundary layer rakes to measure the cumulative effect of laminar friction on the airflow around the wing and fuselage, they said.
The final flight was flown using Sustainable Aviation Fuel, company officials added.
“The data from our first phase of test flights shows that we are on the path to achieving our goals for the aircraft,” said William Otto Jr., CEO of Otto Aviation. “We couldn’t be more excited in this step toward our mission of having a production aircraft in 2025 and we look forward to beginning the next phase of development where we will take the aircraft to higher altitudes and higher speeds.”
Anti Icing capability? Approach turn stall testing? Can they keep the price under 4M? Garmin 1000, E-CoPilot with one button Auto Land?
Complementing my previous comment I believe that a lower fuselage drag comes more from the smaller turbulent boudary layer drag of to the shorter and small surface fuselage tail cone ( with Stradford type concave strong pressure recovery) than from an extensive laminar boudary layer in the front fuselage.
In my OSTIV paper “Note on Low drag Bodies”, I have shown that for 3D flows, surfaces having laminar boundary layers are more extensive and less unstable (due to larger negative pressure gradients) in hyperbolic shaped pointed nosed shapes than in elliptic nosed shapes like that of Cellera`s front fuselage.
Very Interesting Aircraft Indeed !!
I look forward to seeing more about the development of this aircraft in the future.
It’s an ingenious design, the form follows the function. A hydrogen drive would be the icing on the cake.
Now we need a rural community out there to sell some bonds and get a few grants to build them a factory. West Vrginia, Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado, all have led the way in providing facilities for aircraft production. Sweringen, Luscombe, Blue, Adam, the list goes on. Might be time to try using one of those sites? Hope springs eternal.
👏
Interesting. Will there be windows for the pax?
Excellent testing procedure . I hope there is going to be a slow/ stall test procedure as well . Good luck.
I’d love to know how they deice it. Bad enough it doesn’t have a turbine.
A large Piaggio, less the whiskers.
I wonder how the visibility is in that thing. It’s pretty cool looking.
I am in the business of private jets and charter. One thing that is really needed is a cheap jet that can be used as a medivac and then the interior swapped for business commuting. The key thing missing on most private jet is a wider door. Old Lear Jet 35 had them. Majority of the business jet out there have narrow door entrance. Our medivac customer prefer the old tired LR35 because of the door width. So if the piston plane seem to have a chance for certification, hopefully they make a wider entrance door then most business jet. That might make a big selling feature.
Wide, large door will be a huge selling point. Fuselage is close enough to ground to use it as a medivac or freighter.
I would love to know the stall speed. It looks mainly like a flying body aircraft. Also how it would handle icing conditions.
Interesting to see if the RED engine finds its way into helicopters… with its inherent torque and low DOC’s…
Yup…!!! so it is a real aircraft, and it is flying very well.!
So much for all those previous negative comments.
Where is the video?
Nevermind, found it.
I’ll freely admit that I think this is easily one of the most practical, even realistic development projects I’ve heard of in the last few years. I’d say there is even a fairly good chance that this one makes it to certification.
But, one flying prototype is a long way from certification still. And even certification does not a viable market make. (Beech Starship anyone? Airbus A380? Cessna 162??)
Point being, while there may be considerable “innovation” at play here, that doesn’t automatically mean it will be enough “better” to offset the (additional) costs or other trade-offs involved. And anyone paying attention has seen example after example over time where an innovative aircraft didn’t have enough advantage over the tried-and-true to justify a market for it.
It would be nice if their flight data wasn’t blocked, so everyone could see the progress
🤛
Why does the jet engine look like it mounted with front up?
I think you are confused. This particular Otto prototype runs a piston engine, not a jet.
Are you talking about the nacelles on top at the back of the fuselage? If so, they don’t have to be on the “front” or the “bottom”, they just need to be in an area with appropriate airflow, which in this case is to provide cooling for the engine. Go have a look at the Cirrus Vision jet for instance or, even better, the rear engine on the Cessna 336/337.
The nice part of this one is being water cooled. Won’t have the same issues as the rear engine on the 336/7. I think there is an AD for them relative to single engine ops for taxi (people were forgetting to start the rear engine and then trying to take-off on only the front engine).
Yes, it uses a V-12 diesel, so the need for cooling air for the radistors.
https://red-aircraft.com/press_release/red-aircraft-gmbh-the-power-behind-the-celera-500l-otto-aviations-secret-bullet-plane/
Jet engine ??????