New Aircraft: Celera 500 revealed for real

Its designers are Edwin Lawn and Ludwig Darte. I can't wait to see this Lawn-Darte design in action!

 

I’m sure it will be very pointed!

sV

 

I guess that I dim't present my thoughts or observations very well. I looked at the configuration again and I am wrong about the flow coming from the leading edge of the wing. It appears to be too far aft . Air flow on the fuselage will still probably stay attached IMO and smooth but the sharp edges and square configuration of the cooling intakes is not what I think as a good way to do it. Cross flow would certainly separate but probably not hurt anything but momentary loss of cooling. Admittedly , it won't affect engine performance too much but the whole thing is rather garish and ungainly.

 

The sharp juncture of the thin sharp wing and the fuselage looks like a drag wave generator or at least some turbulence.
Looking back. The F-102 achieved a big increase in Mach when they went to area rule on the F-106 if I remember.

 

Bob- The XF-92 could not go supersonic with the J-57 engine, so they area ruled it and called it the F-102, which easily got through the Mach. With the J-75, the F-106 was area ruled and conical cambered, too, but it would have gone supersonic without it. Probably not to Mach 2+, though. The F-106 held the world speed record for a while at 1526 mph.

 

Thanks. You have your memory and facts put together better than I. When I was in PD we looked at area ruling a 767 but it was a mess in every way.

 

I would like to see an area-ruled 767!

 

The study was short and ugly and you wouldn't want to see it. We looked at 18 foot diameter fans on engines that were functional but not workable. There wasn't a landing gear long enough.

 

Actually, it was the original YF-102 that would not go supersonic, so they applied the area rule on the YF-102A and that's when they broke through the sound barrier. But the TF-102 trainer version, which had side-by-side seating, wasn't supersonic even with area rule.

 

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Jim- Yup, should have looked it up instead of going by memory.

 

And number 2 intake well above boundary layer. Don't see that on the Celera

 

Yep, here's a good picture of them side by side:
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It looks like the boundary layer would have to be very thin that far back for the slight offset of the intakes to be effective:

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The prop shaft cowlings look less convincing...

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P51 style variable outlets - combined with the engine's exhaust?

 

The Celera looks a bit 'crude' in a couple of these pix.......is that normal/acceptable for an experimental build?
Is this a real flying airplane or are we looking at CGI?

 

The pics I used are from the real aircraft. Their website does have some CG but in the press pack they are marked as such, and it's visible too.

 

I am no highly educated or brilliant techinal type of engineer but I was involved in many of the aerodynamic problems with the 707, 720, KC-135, and others over a span of almost 50 years and this Celera thing seems to fly in the face of , First; A design that matches the mission within practical functional parameters. Second; A design that can sustain longevity and development of the original configuration. This thing looks like it is already tying to do the most with the least and is barely able to do that with the initial iteration. Just say'n.

 

What is the reason for the offset of the intake?

Does a NACA duct have an offset

Typical for a piston powered airplane.

 

Get non-turbulent and faster air above the boundary layer?

Na, it is supposed to be a non-protrusive intake located in a high pressure area.
Below the wing might not be too bad.
And it works best in laminar air flow.

 

Really important for a turbine inlet. But this is not a turbine.

Amazing, that is exactly where they located them.

The entire idea of the fuselage shape is to promote laminar flow over its length. Will it work? Probably not, as that is just the nature of real life flow over actual shapes. Even the so-called laminar flow wing sections are a lot less effective in real world than the wind tunnel. They've built a prototype and flown it. Likely will make some adjustments on a production model. Even Boeing flies the first airplane clean, and then starts adding vortex generators all over the wing and elsewhere after the first flight.

 

More electric plane news: https://spaceexplored.com/2020/11/05/nasa-just-completed-a-critical-propeller-test-for-its-all-electric-experimental-plane-called-x-57/
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Hey Hey EASY now... The Piaggio is beautiful, that thing is a pig.
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Out of south Africa.......
https://www.designboom.com/technology/pegasus-vertical-business-jet-11-18-2020/?utm_source=designboom+daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the+pegasus+vertical+business+jet+blends+jet+performance+with+helicopter+convenience

 

New video out about it: