{"id":12344,"date":"2020-01-06T00:11:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T07:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=12344"},"modified":"2020-01-06T00:11:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T07:11:34","slug":"hopflyt-hops-into-the-next-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/hopflyt-hops-into-the-next-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"HopFlyt Hops into the Next Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 2020 lurching into life in some turbulence, HopFlyt promises a smooth, above-the-fray experience.\u00a0 A look back at an innovative aircraft designer, the new variant applies electric power and new structural techniques unknown when Willard Custer had his inspiration.\u00a0 HopFlyt<\/a> is a modern interpretation of that vision, with distributed electric propulsion, 3D-printed components, and simplified control systems.<\/p>\n

Willard was a far-sighted soul in the 1940\u2019s, when aircraft were either all wood, all sheet metal, or mixed structures of wood, chromoly tubing and fabric.\u00a0 The composites that freed designers for swoopier things were a few decades away.<\/p>\n

Willard Custer\u2019s Big Idea<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Reputedly a descendant of George Armstrong Custer, Willard Custer envisioned a propeller in a semi-circular channel that might produce lift as well as thrust.\u00a0 This blog channeled that history in an earlier article on HopFlyt<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

While you can see real-life footage of the original channel wing concept in that entry, we turn to Tom Stanton, who built a small-scale version of the idea and collected data from a fairly-sophisticated test rig, load cells and all.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oMFUWVj1_DQ&t=0s<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Channel Wing Champions<\/strong><\/p>\n

HopFlyt\u2019s founders and executives are residents of Baltimore, Maryland, as was Willard Custer.\u00a0 The three leaders have extensive aeronautical experience, and two were highly-experienced Marine pilots.<\/p>\n

Rob Winston, founder and President, \u201cHas been a pilot for over 35 years, 22 of which were spent flying high-performance military aircraft. His job experiences include former NASA Test Engineer; Operational Test Director and Operation Test Pilot for the United States Marine Corps; and Presidential Nuclear Strike Advisor.\u201d\u00a0 His awards include the National Defense Industrial Association, Marine Corps Test Pilot of the Year for 2004.<\/p>\n

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HopFlyt’s structure supports a complex wing configuration that distributes thrust through two channels on each wing<\/p><\/div>\n

His wife, co-founder and Vice President at HopFlyt, Lucille Winston, \u201cIs a former NASA Test Engineer with experience developing environment-ready hardware for satellites, the space station and the space shuttle.\u201d<\/p>\n

At HopFlyt, Lucille is leading the effort to integrate multiple electric motors, control, navigation and communications systems, while supervising the building, manufacturing and testing of the HopFlyt aircraft composite wings and propellers.\u00a0 She has also helped create aviation combat survivability systems for many service branches.<\/p>\n

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Full-size channel for one pair of counter-rotating propellers<\/p><\/div>\n

Co-founder, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Test Pilot at HopFlyt, \u201cRory [Feely] is a military Experimental Test Pilot and Marine Corps aviator that has been flying high-performance aircraft for over 20 years.\u201d\u00a0 In four deployments, he flew over 300 hours in combat.\u00a0 \u00a0He has deployed four times and flown over 300 hours in combat. He has a BSc. in Physics (Honors), an MS in Aerospace Engineering and an MS in Technical Program Management.\u00a0 Rory and the HopFlyt team want to save the world from traffic jams and exhaust pollution.<\/p>\n

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HopFlyt executives and build team show off full-size fuselage<\/p><\/div>\n

Here we see him promoting that vision in a 2019 TED Talk.\u00a0 His \u201cpitch\u201d emphasizes the economic and environmental costs of continuing in the vicious cycle of gridlock and fossil fuel consumption.\u00a0 His answer would save money, the natural world, and best of all, the time we now waste sitting in a single-occupant, idling machine being bored and frustrated.<\/p>\n