John joins us full time
John Kinser has been working with us as a volunteer for some months, but is now working for us full-time on production.
John is currently completing the undercarriage test rig; he's welding a steel rig that will be used for drop tests of the undercarriage.
He's from Texas, married to a Brit, and has spent many years leading maintenance teams in the USAF (recently in East Anglia). So he's used to dealing with planes over 1000 times heavier than the e-Go!
He instructs many forms of modern dance - anyone for a Salsa?
carry through spars
Rob laying up
Kit for half of the forward carry-through spar (above) and partly laid up (right)
The fuselage skin has now been finalised, and quite a few fuselage components are going through.
Abel has just finished preparing the build instructions for the two spars that carry the wing loads into the fuselage, and Rob has completed the four moulds for the two spars.
John has made the inserts and Rob is now laying up the finished parts.
fuselage pattern arrives...
Here Rob (our Production Manager) and Charlie (our landlord and fork-lift driver) are offloading the first fuselage pattern from the delivery van.
This brings us to a major milestone in the project - the remaining fuselage parts will be defined soon, and it's now mostly down to the production team.
These are the largest patterns on the aircraft, and will be used to create two moulds from which the entire fuselage (including the first and last frames) will be built in one piece.
There are large cut-outs in the shape for the canopy (RHS) and the engine cowl (LHS). Location points for the two halves and various jigging points are machined in to ensure assembly accuracy.
The tooling block for the pattern is provided by our sponsor Trelleborg, and it's machined by Progressive CNC in Peterborough.
All fired up!
We had a bit of a problem a month ago - a fire in one of our two units. The good news was that a firewall protected unit 2. And due to refurbishment work in unit 1, all the aircraft parts plus almost all jigs and tools were in unit 2. We’ll never know the cause, as the fire was intense.
Celebrating a return to normality after the fire
With massive help from everyone, especially our volunteers, we've kept the design team at work offsite whilst installing some temporary accommodation. So now we're all back on site, and have space to complete the prototype programme. The only loss is that we've no space for our own oven, so we're hiring one locally.
We've bought a Portacabin for the design team, refurbished the foam cnc room (which we no longer need) for further office space, and cleared out a couple of containers for the dirty and smelly production jobs.
The whole team is now full of enthusiasm to complete the job, with major component patterns being machined now. You'll see the results appearing quickly in the coming weeks…..
Video shoot
We're making an animated video about the e-Go, in conjunction with students at the country's top animation course at Bournemouth University. But for this we need some live aerial shots for the background to the computer-generated graphics. So our intrepid crew went up on Saturday with the ground temperature at -12 degC to get the footage. Ed Moore is the cameraman, and he mounted two professional minicams on the front (one pointing ahead, the other to the side) and controlled them from the rear seat. James Lowman flew the Quantum 912 from Sutton Meadows.
In two sorties they got the shots we need - albeit with a snow-covered landscape. Unplanned but beautiful!
Production progress
We're building several fuselage components in parallel, working backwards along the fuselage. These are the coaming, the cockpit canopy and the front carry-through spar. Each goes through the same processes of building the pattern, the mould and then the part. Rob is masterminding these, with help of students Berhard and Lino. They're also working on the first undercarriage leg, which will be tested in a new rig being designed and built by John.
Rob and Bernhard preparing the coaming moulds
e-Go designer
We're looking for a full time designer to help us take the e-Go through the development programme.
We need someone experienced, probably 5 to 7 years; light aircraft design and structural analysis is vital - composites and 3D CAD are valuable. But we can teach some skills where needed.
The team is based near Cambridge UK, where all design and production takes place.
The prototype is being built, and design work is currently focussed on finalising the design and preparing information for production. Then there will be work in support of the test programme before preparing the production version and gaining certification in key markets.
For the future, we have major ambitions to expand the product range and sell it across global markets.
Do contact me if you’d like to discuss this further.
Tony Bishop
e-Go aeroplanes
e-Go Centre, Main Hall Farm
Conington, Cambridge, CB23 4LR
+44 (0)7768690086
Juan joins as designer
Juan Tobon Conde is working with us part-time, focussing on translating designs into production information.
From Colombia, he did a BSc in Aeronautical engineering at San Buenaventura University in Bogota, completed an MSc in Aerospace Vehicle Design at Cranfield University, and is now doing a PhD there.
In the photo, Juan (centre) is working out how best to make the undercarriage with Rob and Giotto.
Rob joins as Production Manager
Rob Martin has joined us as Production Manager. He's an expert in composite manufacture - previously he supervised a UAV production line at LolaComposites and he's been helping us for some time as a consultant. In his spare time he loves extreme sports, especially skydiving.
For now he's focussed on building the prototype, but later he'll be responsible for getting the e-Go into production.
Rob at work on the canopy mould
mini e-Go flies
We've now flown the 1/3rd scale radio control version of the e-Go. After a series of taxi trials, the aircraft flew from Bourn airfield on 17 December 2011. The flight lasted for about five minutes, and was faultless. Keith, our 'pilot' was able to fly it hands free, demonstrating its stability.
Next step is more handling tests, after which we'll add the instrumentation package so that we can start serious low-speed handling trials.