Celera 500L | Egg with wings or a revolution in aviation

hello heather skye here and today we'll put aside the classic airliners and get acquainted with the plane that is as far from the concept of classic as possible taking a first look at our today's hero one might think these guys are completely out of their minds some are making a double fuselage monster the others are building a rocket from the magazines of the 1940s and now there is this egg with wings but is this egg really that crazy and how can it flip the air travel industry upside down meet the autocelera 500l so a few years ago photos taken in a small california airport started to appear on the internet and quickly excited the aviators they depicted a very strange aircraft that looked either like a bullet or an egg with a small straight wing and a propeller in its tail there were many disputes and theories starting with the next work of bertrand and ending with the options that this is a prototype of some new military device total secrecy also added fuel to the fire no official statements or announcements just some things standing on an apron that's all later the interest in this thing grew again when it became known that a certain auto aviation company was engaged in its creation this firm bears the name of william otto a man who has experience of working at los alamos and north american where he was dealing with power plants weapons and all kinds of onboard systems in the mid-1970s otto founded his own company engaged in the analysis of aviation incidents yes the air crash investigations and in 2008 it came to auto aviation and their own aircraft given the founders experience and solid team we can assume that aviators are unlikely to do something strange just for fun but the question of what they were creating remained open at the end of summer of 2020 auto aviation nevertheless dispelled the fog of secrecy a bit by presenting their aircraft named solera 500l it would seem that everyone should calm down after all how many aircraft are created in the world every year but the data provided by the firm has caused the storm even greater than before and the reason for this were the flight characteristics and so the solera 500l is a single engine piston aircraft designed to carry six passengers in a business class cabin the flight speed of this aircraft is 400 knots 700 740 kilometers per hour on a piston plane this of course is not a record in aviation but for a piston aircraft it is a wild figure the solaris flight range should be about 4 500 miles 8 300 kilometers this is the distance from toronto to sao paulo just so you understand even such large aircraft as the boeing 737 and airbus a320 do not fly that far the aircraft that seems to be an unusual representative of general aviation and his performance is closer to business jets and commercial airliners at the first meeting there are mixed feelings of fantasy and absurdity well let's try to figure out what kind of bird it is and how can it do what it does and most importantly why is it needed at all so what do we have a fuselage tricycle landing gear a mid-wing design a tail unit in general nothing revolutionary but with nuances the fuselage has a circular cross section but this is not the usual cigar but a design that looks more like an egg or a bullet the landing gear is tricycle rather short and when the main gear is retracted you can see that it goes into the fuselage entirely there are no fairings everything is clean and smooth the wing looks more like the wings of gliders or high altitude reconnaissance planes straight long and thin so thin in fact that there is no room for fuel tanks inside only flaps and ailerons although there are winglets huge winglets the tail is also unusual the horizontal stabilizer is quite small with rounded surfaces like those of the 1930s aircraft below there is a small vertical fin and above a high main fin the control surfaces here are all turning like on fighter jets given the location of the propeller this whole structure looks more like the stern of a submarine than the tail of an aircraft well if the aviators had the task of making the most extravagant plane congratulations it worked but it is unlikely that was the goal at least it was not the main one let's try to figure out why and what for the main problem of gaining a high speed for an airplane is air resistance friction and various air vortices near the surface can hinder acceleration and this problem is often solved by climbing higher when the air density is less or by a plane increase in engine power these solutions of course are also presented here but the main innovation of solera was another idea the laminar glider now what is this a simple explanation for what a laminar flow is can be considered the analogy with the flow of water if the flow is calm and smooth we see clean transparent water but if the stream is fast and meets obstacles the water becomes cloudy from the silt rising from the bottom or turns white filling with bubbles this is due to eddies and turbulence rising in the flow in flight something similar happens if the flow around the plane is calm and smooth everything is great but if vortices and turbulence arrives they cling to the hull so to speak and start slowing it down the idea behind solera is to provide this clear flow all surfaces are as smooth as possible and the design is adapted for the best aerodynamics which is why in fact it looks so strange the result of this according to the company was a decrease in air resistance by as much as 59 which can be considered an advertising exaggeration but even if the figure is less it is already a very impressive achievement this is to a large extent the key to the fact that the plane can fly so fast you can of course ask the question what are they the smartest people in the world if a laminar glider is so good why don't others do it they do many aircraft strive to improve the flow but the problem is that these solutions are quite complex demanding in production and construction as we see on solera which in addition to its appearance is also almost entirely made of composites and the larger the aircraft the more difficult it is to provide this flow although it is worth noting that the matter does not stand still even large companies are gradually introducing such solutions on their new airliners what about the fiery hot at first glance the issue of high speed is solved in an obvious way a jet engine but it is too expensive to purchase and operate it would be possible to compromise and install a turboprop but no auto went the most radical way and installed a piston engine which is immediately followed by an obvious question how is a piston engine alone capable of handling such flight performance the core of the power plant is the red a03 engine red is an abbreviation reichlin engine development founded by vladimir reichlin an aviator from russia who moved to germany and engaged in the development and production of aircraft engines there his main masterpiece the red a03 received easa certification in 2014. in russia by the way it is already running the ao3 is being applied on the yuck 152 training aircraft and the altius uav the red a03 is a v-type 12-cylinder geared turbocharged engine running on diesel fuel or aviation kerosene the engine is equipped with an advanced electronic control system and many systems are duplicated so that if one of the cylinder banks fails the second is enough to support the flight before landing at the reserve airfield not a bad help for a single engine aircraft interestingly red claims that the engine is capable of operating at flight levels up to fl 500 50 000 feet more than 15 kilometers for a piston engine that's a lot perhaps this is also an exaggeration but these engines are installed on a reconnaissance uav whose declared ceiling is about 12 kilometers and for solera even 12 is quite enough to work at standard levels the solera is equipped with a 550 horsepower engine and apparently a lot of red features got supplemented by a lot of auto features the first thing that catches the eye is of course the location in a tail with a pushing five-bladed propeller such schemes have many pros and cons but in this case the choice was limited the aircraft must maintain a clean laminar flow or on the fuselage and this will not work out behind the propeller placed in the front besides the pushing propeller provides better acceleration the features continue in the tail section there are two hefty air intakes that transition into something resembling flat nozzles there are many goals here turbocharging which provides the engine with the necessary pressure at high altitudes heat removal from the liquid cooling system and as a chair on the cake the heated air is being mixed with engine exhaust gases and thrown backwards through the nozzles creating additional thrust cool the creators of piston combat aircraft used to dabble in such things back in the day what is the result of these dances with engines the solera 500l comparable in performance to business jets managed to keep the low prices a piston engine is much cheaper than a jet engine in itself it is much cheaper to maintain and much more economical in terms of fuel consumption according to auto aviation the solera flies 18 to 25 miles per gallon very modest given that its jet competitors burn several times more fuel it is the combination of excellent aerodynamics and the powerful engine that provides the aircraft altitude and speed they coupled with the efficiency of the power plant are the key to the long range 4 500 miles or 8 300 kilometers frankly seems like a very big figure this indicator is probably the limit of a ferry flight or maybe for the sake of greater contrast it was slightly exaggerated but even if we assume that with a standard payload this bar will be a bit more modest it is still a success for auto about why that's the case we'll talk a little later the cockpit of the plane is a mystery what's inside of it is unknown however given the requirements of the aerodynamics of the aircraft its glazing is very interesting it is completely inscribed into the shape of the fuselage any imperfection would break the airflow a side effect is poor visual control this is somewhat reminiscent of the history of supersonic civil aircraft which also could not afford ordinary glazing and to ensure visibility they had to be equipped with droop noses here the nose of course is not so sharp and the problem is not so obvious but the question do they have good visibility remains maybe it is not critical or maybe in the future we'll see cameras integrated into the nose or something like that the main feature of the plane from the passenger's point of view is of course the cabin the unusual shape of the fuselage turns out to be very useful here for an aircraft of a rather modest size the dimensions of the cabin are very decent the volume is 448 cubic feet which is enough for a spacious arrangement of six business class seats and the ceiling height the main price of auto reaches six feet and two inches about 188 centimeters for most machines of similar dimensions this is a lot passengers can stand here at full height without bending while getting to their seats well let's assume that the plane can do whatever the manufacturer says it is fast long range and economical let's now try to figure out why it is needed at all and whether it has any prospects what's interesting is that the solera 500l which seems to be a representative of general aviation doesn't really have much to do with it for local traffic the plane is too fast and long range while for such specifications it had to pay with high minimum speed and high demands for airfields this is not a commercial airliner but at least the light landing gear and the low composite fuselage would hardly be able to handle bumpy unpaved runways on the other hand at high speeds the solera 500l has capabilities comparable to jet aircraft which gives it the opportunity to claim several niches at once both business and surprise mass commercial aviation with the first it's obvious if we consider solera as a six-seater business jet then it looks pretty decent a huge advantage of the outer brainchild is its economy according to the manufacturer's plans their aircraft could cost the operators about 300 to 330 dollars per flight hour which in comparison with business jets is a ridiculously small figure yes if the passenger is a character of a major blockbuster he takes a purebred jetbird and does not care that an hour of flight costs several thousand dollars but most of the clients still count their money and here the question may arise why do we need jets at all if we can get the same thing much cheaper and this is a serious question if the solera and aircraft like it begin to actively enter the market they will become a serious problem for the already established model lines and then the aviators will have to either significantly reduce the cost of operating their planes or give them new capabilities that are not available to newcomers which can make our lives even more interesting another thing that is closer to most travelers is the prospect of such aircraft in the largest field in the industry commercial passenger travel the flight range of the solera 500l with normal load can be five to six thousand kilometers a bit more than three thousand miles so why is it a success considering where the plane is being created we understand what market it is being created for and transcontinental air routes in the united states are not particularly long even such airliners as the boeing 787 often fly at a range of three thousand miles so if solaris capable of such jumps it will be able to master the vast majority of potential routes in the country in other major markets the picture is similar suppose the airplane is capable of flying the same routes as commercial airliners now are you going to see passengers from 1 737 to 30 solaris at first glance this seems absurd but on the other hand no one is confused when people take 30 cars instead of one bus i'll try to explain auto offers a flight hour for around 330 dollars which sounds like a big figure at first glance but is actually quite modest the 500l model has a capacity of six business class seats and a little more in the usual configuration plus auto has in his plans another model 1000 l which will have the same layout but will become bigger and get a 20 more spacey fuselage and corresponding capacity but that is still not many people replacing the big airliners will not work that way in the main airports they will create traffic jams filling up aprons and runways like locus but we're not talking about the main ports solero of course is not the cessna 172 or the unto but it is still much more tolerant to infrastructure than the large airliners they do not need much on the ground a kilometer of paved airstrip is more than enough and at the same time we know the speeds and ranges they are able to provide regional and long distance transportation operating from small local airfields and maintaining fairly modest price tags no huge airports giant terminals inflexible flights and crowded airliners in our crazy times this is also a good bonus in fact passengers will have access to business aviation services at mass aviation prices and this is a whole new industry with many small airports ground and air services and ultimately air taxes which can work over considerable distances if this project is implemented and turns out to be what its creators describe to us the solera 500l could potentially start a real revolution in the air travel industry of course the risks are also quite high here you never know how many ambitious aviation projects rose brightly in the sky and then collapsed just as brightly but at least auto aviation has already entered the stage of creating and testing a prototype the first board took off in 2019 and has already completed several dozen flights now it must check how true the assumptions of the aviators are and prove that all these beautiful numbers are not just invented to attract attention and they also have to create a real passenger aircraft establishes production undergo certification and so on this is a long and challenging journey that auto aviation plan to go through in several years their brainchild will enter the market according to plans around 2025. let's hope that everything works out because this is much more interesting aviation is developing presenting us with bright and interesting projects so let's cheer for the new birds and for the day i think we have enough like and subscribe to the channel fast flights and soft landings to you [Music] you

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 624,379

Rating: 4.8939767 out of 5

Keywords: otto celera, celera 500l, celera 1000l, celera 500, otto aviation, laminar flow, future plane, celera 500l aircraft, celera 500l flying, celera 500l interior

Id: E38cc-4TvX8

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mud_tug]

25 Mpg is amazing for a six seater plane.

[u/HughJorgens]

Man this thing looks amazing. Actual laminar flow.

[u/skyersjet]

What kinda egg is that?

[u/Flyberius]

I remember when this was first shown on here years ago and there was a lot of scepticism (rightly I guess cos they had a lot of big claims), but it is nice to see them coming through. Now, if only something like skylon could do the same.