Cheap(er) Private Aircraft
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Cost to fly/maintain about $368 per hour.
Probably a bit less than first class, commercial.
6 passengers.
A LOT less than first class, commercial.
Shaped like an elongated egg with wings and a stubby propeller hanging off the tail, the 500L is designed to leverage the benefits of laminar flow—an aerodynamic advantage that increases efficiency in flight by minimizing drag—to an extent never before seen in a production airplane. At the moment, the prototype is collecting flight data to see just how well extremely low drag across an entire airframe will translate into performance.
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During the mid-1960s, while working on torpedoes for the Navy, Otto helped with an unconventional design called the “Dolphin,” its shape inspired by an airfoil developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics—NASA’s predecessor—to minimize drag by taking advantage of the aerodynamic principle of laminar flow. After numerous tests, the Navy passed on the torpedo. But not because it failed to deliver. In fact, it was just the opposite, according to a paper published nearly a half-century later in the Journal of Hydronautics.
“A significant drag reduction was noted,” the authors wrote, “the Dolphin having half the drag of a conventional torpedo [under similar conditions]. The low drag was achieved primarily by the Dolphin’s ability to maintain a long run of laminar boundary layer.”
As a wing moves through air—or as a torpedo moves through water, which is much the same thing in terms of fluid dynamics—it creates drag. Exactly how much drag is determined largely by the characteristics of the air (or water) flow. If the air currents move smoothly in parallel contours—imagine playing cards sliding into a deck—the flow is said to be laminar. If the air is chaotic and tumbling, the flow is considered turbulent. You can visualize laminar flow transitioning into turbulent flow by watching smoke rise from the tip of a lit cigarette. The smoke first travels in a thin, solid line before swirling into eddies. Those eddies in the air around an airplane—turbulence—cause drag, which slows the airplane and wastes fuel.
At first, this had been a self-funded nights-and-weekends project to build an experimental airplane for Otto’s personal use. But as the benefits of the cabin became clear, wheels started turning. “We thought, ‘Golly, this can be a huge business,’ ” says Otto’s eldest son, Bill Jr., a University of Texas MBA recently named CEO who founded Majestic Pet Products before joining the aviation company as chief financial officer. “This airplane has direct operating costs of $328 per hour, which basically includes all your fuel and maintenance for both the airframe and the engine. That allows you to offer private transportation at prices that are competitive with commercial airfares.”
The crew is expanding the flight envelope now that flight-testing has been resumed. Eventually, the nacelles will be eliminated by replacing the radiators with heat exchangers submerged inside the fuselage. The addition of a second turbo will allow flights up to 38,000 feet. Three-stage turbocharging will be needed for the airplane to reach its ceiling of 50,000 feet.
The Celera 500L is expected to sell for between $4.5 million and $5 million, about the same cost as the popular seven-passenger HondaJet. But the Honda has almost triple the operating cost.
