E-Bay Buyer beware. Someone is going to pay good money for the novelty
and then be very disappointed to learn that the thing can't be run or the
flight controls even moved. No gyro, no flight control computer, wiring
ripped out, etc. That aircraft suffered an un-publicized explosion/scatter
of the fans last March. The input to the main gearbox broke, and the loose
drive shaft destroyed the fuel tank and caused the fans to scatter. We were
lucky no one got killed by the plastic fan blade fragments, as the CEO made
us test it out in the parking lot driveway to the street. Except for it's
novelty value, it's parts worth would be whatever an often-overheated Hirth
F-30 is worth. The microcontrollers and RC model servos that I cobbled the
fly-by-wire flight control system together from would have minimal value.
I was canned from Trek a week before the latest accident, in part due to
ongoing disagreement over the safety and legality of where and how we were
testing the thing. They were really lucky to once again fail to kill
anyone. (I used to set up the overhead tether so that it couldn't get
sucked in, btw..)
I agree completely that the thing was way too fragile and the soldier too
exposed for it to ever make it as a combat zone vehicle. I believe that a
sparrow or large bug could have caused the fans to scatter, much less a
bullet hit. It could have been armored and the pilot more protected, but
that would be an entirely different vehicle what with the extra weight
required.
A great deal of flight testing had yet to be done, and with the most
recent crashed vehicle being the only machine available it would have taken
years of cautious testing, by real test pilots. The concept really begged
for an unmanned sub-scale radio controlled version to proof-of-concept its
flying qualities. And more machines, of course. And most importantly, some
significant Management changes. Aside from the missed milestones and
crashed aircraft, DARPA was right to cease funding due to the way the
program was being run.
Ken Doyle,
(former Trek Aerospace Development Engineer, now back home in Phoenix)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randall Clague" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 3:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ERPS] OT: SoloTrek on ebay
On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:20:26 -0800, "Sander Pool"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Then again 180 Pounds doesn't get you a whole lot of soldier+gear either.
I wish the Army would quit spending money on single-soldier flying
platforms. The technical term for a soldier on a low flying, slow
moving, noisy, unarmored platform, in a combat zone, is "casualty."
-R
--
"You haven't been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
-- Paul Crickmore
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