Wisconsin Public Television University Place 2012 EAA Airventure  Joe Caravella Roadable Aircraft Technology  July 27, 2012 UP746   cc >> Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the AeroInnovate Technology Showcase Stage. My name is Meredith Jagger, and I'm the co-founder and director of AeroInnovate at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. AeroInnovate aims to help entrepreneurs from across the globe connect to investors and partners to start new companies and bring related new technologies to the marketplace. We do this by using our four key pillars. The first one is to educate to build a pipeline of up and coming aero innovators. The second is to align investors in aero-related industry leaders with quality opportunities to expose new aero-related technologies to the world in a forum such as this at our Technology Showcase Stage. And, lastly, to connect aero innovators with people and resources that they need to grow and succeed in their start-up business. So, this morning I'd like to introduce our Technology Showcase presenter from Caravella Aerospace. Joe Caravella is the founder and owner of Caravella, and he's here to tell us a little bit about his affordable, roadable aircraft that integrates airplane and motorcycle components into one vehicle that is designed to drive, transform, and fly over and over and over again. So, with that, please welcome Joe. 

[APPLAUSE] >> Thank you very much, Meredith. We're happy to be here. So thank you to AeroInnovate for the opportunity to come and talk to you today. I'm always happy to be at AirVenture. As she said, my name is Joe Caravella, and I am here to talk to you about roadable aircraft technology today and tomorrow. So, the first thing we'll show you is a little intro video. This is a roadable aircraft. It is street legal as a motorcycle, and we have full authority to operate on all public roads and highways. When they say flying car what they really want is George Jetson. They want a vehicle that's quiet, takes of vertically, parks in the garage, drops them right off at work. 

Today's infrastructure, that's just not feasible. Such a device would be prohibitively loud, prohibitively expensive. So this roadable aircraft works with all the existing infrastructure of the day. You drive it on the highway, you take off at an airport, you land at another airport, then you drive to work. I don't have to change any laws. I don't have to build any new roads. It immediately works with today's infrastructure. All right, so that gives you a little teaser about what we're going to talk about today. Get into full screen mode here. So we went through the intro video. 

A little bit of biography about myself. I'm Joe. I studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Purdue University. I got my bachelor's and master's there. I worked for 10 years in combustion devices development at Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, California, on a variety of different rocket engine technologies. In 2007, I founded Caravella Aerospace with the mission of developing an affordable roadable aircraft. Since we began, I've presented AirVenture forums on roadable aircraft and their design here at AirVenture both 2009 and 2010 and here again in 2012. And currently, as you just saw, our prototype fuselage is street legal and has logged over 300 miles of road testing on public streets. We've reached up to 65 miles per hour on the highway, and we're continuing on in that part of the test program. So what I'd like to do today in talking about roadable aircraft is define them so we know and kind of have the same idea of what we're talking about, describe my motivation for a vehicle that drives, transforms, and flies, talk about the operation of such a vehicle, the challenges involved in the design of that kind of vehicle, and then some of the innovative solutions that we use to solve those challenges. 

And then we'll also have some ideas for what the future holds. So, drive, transform, fly. On one side of the spectrum you have the motor vehicle, cars, motorcycles, etc. n the other side of the spectrum you have aircraft, fixed wing, rotor craft, powered lift, light than air, etc. nd somewhere in the middle you have what we call roadable aircraft, and those are the vehicles that drive, transform, and fly. So the pictures here give you an idea of the range of design options in that space between motor vehicle and aircraft. Some that look more like a car, some that look more like a plane, and some that look kind of in between. The one we're working is the one there top and center. It's called the Caravellair. So, you've all seen this chart before in a variety of different formats and incarnations. So we all know why we're doing it, but it boils down, in some senses, to faster travel time. It allows you to go under weather. 

It allows you to go over traffic. You see the two images there of the clouds you don't want to fly through and the traffic you don't want to be stuck in. And it reduces you door to door travel time in certain range segments. Also, roadable aircraft has the ability to lower your recurring costs, in most cases, by eliminating the need for a hanger, and in some specific cases by allowing the use of automotive fuels instead of -- gas. Another nice feature of roadable aircraft is it enables you to have a longer commutable distance. So for the same commute time you can live further away from your employment, provided there are airports where they need to be, but what that can do is expand the housing opportunities available to you. In my particular case in southern California, Los Angeles is a large metroplex with some expensive houses in the center and some very large, nice houses that are further away. So it helps to balance that kind of tradeoff. And in the end, roadable aircraft are innovative and cool. When I say cool, I mean it really captures the public's attention. 

When I drive around the streets and come to a stoplight, it's almost hard to get going when the light turns green because I'm trying to answer so many questions to the people next to me. It's also very exciting when the guys in the Ferrari catch up to you and are asking you as you're driving down the highway, what is that? When is it going to fly? So we're really happy that the public is excited about roadable aircraft. So, this is just a little cartoon of how they can operate. And this folds into how you design the roadable aircraft as well. So, you see, starting in the garage at home, driving to airport A, folding out wings and tails, and flying. If there happens to be a thunderstorm or if your destination is airport B, you can land at airport B. If you want to continue you travels through weather or to you office, you can transform back into a car and get to destination C, which could be your office or could be another airport on the other side of the thunderstorm at which point you can fly again if you're continuing on a cross-country journey. So you can see the recreational application, how that fits in that little cartoon as well as expanding to the commuting application and the cross-country application. And depending on how much of these different operations you want to do, it can change the design of the roadable aircraft. Whether or not you leave the wing and tail or other aircraft components at one of the airports or not. 

My envision of a fully useful roadable aircraft is one that can do all of these. Travel on the ground at highway speeds and travel in the air at a speed greater than you can achieve on the ground. So, what are some of the key challenges in roadable aircraft? There have been a few different takes on this. Roadable Times is another resource that kind of outlines the challenges. So some of the key ones are the handling which gets into both handling on the ground and handling in the air, the controls required, the weight of the vehicle which is one of the larger challenges, cost is another large challenge especially when it comes time to bring the product to market, and then safety. So what we're going to do is discuss some of our innovative solutions for those key challenges and how technology plays a role. So starting with handling, the key design challenge for all roadable aircraft is to optimize the compromises between the car and the plane. We do this with innovative design choices. Now, there are many ways of doing this, and many good ways of doing this. In our particular instance, we were focusing on hitting the middle ground between motor vehicle application and an aircraft application. 

So what we do is we fold the wing in three places which allows to have a greater span in aircraft mode and a reduced area and lower center of gravity in the car mode. So on the left you see an image of our particular vehicle with the wing folded along the side of the fuselage which is essentially at the same height as the fuselage. Further, we have an extending tail which allows the airplane, as you see on the right, to have a very long tail. And it looks pretty much like an airplane. And then by having that tail move, it allows you to have a shorter motor vehicle. So you can see the length of the vehicle on the left is much shorter. Furthermore, that allows the center of gravity to move forward which improves the ground handling as the motor vehicle. Another piece of the puzzle there is that incidence of the wing, which is another design variable which can be used to tailor the design. Control systems are another unique challenge in roadable aircraft because you have aircraft controls, you have automotive controls, and you have drivers that are familiar with automotive controls, pilots that are familiar with aircraft controls, and in our case we were focusing on a single-seat development prototype so we did not have a lot of space in the cockpit. So what we did is develop a patent-pending three-axis control yoke that eliminates the need for rudder pedals. 

I want to emphasize that it is full three-axis control. So the way we explain it is imagine a stick-controlled airplane where you have pitch and roll and you attach a yaw control element like a steering wheel on the end of that stick. So, I will demonstrate for you a coordinated turn. I will now demonstrate for you a slip. So you have all those controls in your hand and no need for rudder pedals. The reason this is important is we already have a gas, a brake, and a clutch. So the pedal space is already occupied. Now, we do admit that this represents some degree of learning curve from the pilot's perspective. Just like we, as pilots, expect a learning curve from the automotive operator's perspective. In the future, and other ways of addressing kind of the mechanical linkages involved with this type of system is to use hydraulic or fly-by-wire systems. 

There are limitations and benefits to those types of systems, but they can be an important element of technology to allow you to move your flight surfaces from a flight mode to an automotive mode more simply. Weight. Weight is the big one. So, why are we lighter now than in the past? Modern materials, modern engines are the key way for the empty weight of vehicles to come down So you can see in the light sport revolution the use of composite materials in the modern engines have allowed these aircraft with good performance to have gross weights of only 1320 pounds. So in the case of roadable aircraft, we have an additional challenge because we need to carry both automotive and aircraft performance capability. In some cases that means two engines. In some cases it means one. All these cases on pictures on the left are all designs that have a single engine. On the top you have Moult Taylor's Aerocar, in the middle you have the concept we're working on, and on the bottom there you have a Terrafugia Transition. And I, from the public data, pulled the empty weights for those vehicles. 

So you can see Moult Taylor's design was at 1500 pounds, our design is at 1100 pounds, so ours is an all-aluminum construction but it uses a high power weight modern engine. We are also only a one-seater, so that helps to bring down the empty weight. And then the one on the bottom there at 970 pounds is taking advantage of carbon fiber. One of the reasons that we don't use carbon fiber in our design is it's designed to be a kit so you can build it without production level tooling. So in the future, what are we going to see technologically speaking that helps in building aircraft? Well, one example is 3D printed parts. It can greatly speed prototype time and give you end pieces directly from computer models. One of the key challenges there is they need to improve the structural capabilities and the material they use in doing that, but we are looking forward to incorporating that technology to speed the development of roadable aircraft. Metallic foam is another attractive option that is early in the development stages, but it could be an attractive option for sandwiched construction in the future. And evolved carbon fiber structures, they're going to continue to get lighter and better, and a lot of us have heard about the potential of carbon nanotubes and their strength capabilities. So continuing on weight, how does technology help us make a light airplane? Well, we have two examples on the screen. 

Example on the left is just to show you what can be done in solid modeling. This is a relatively affordable program. It works relatively quickly. It's the one we use. And it greatly speeds the design cycles. It gives you good documentation, and it gives you a platform for optimizing for weight. The image on the right is an example of using some finite element software to identify the stresses in the vehicle under key loading situations. You can see we have simplified the tail surfaces and the wing to simply model their reaction forces. In this case, it's for a one-wheel, nose-down landing at 2.5 Gs which is something that is at the edge of the operating envelope for the vehicle we're working on. But we use that to quickly identify the high stress areas and to optimize the structure, to solve the structural problems with a minimum amount of weight. 

So another big challenge in roadable aircraft is cost. We have two main innovative approaches that we use to keep the cost of our vehicle down. The first is to simplify the licensing and registration of the vehicle. Now, this seems pretty straightforward, but we just kind of like to say these are the decisions that get made in order to control the cost. We make an experimental amateur built kit aircraft that is the low-cost solution, and that is one of the innovative things that we bring to the table in the realm of roadable aircraft. Furthermore, it's a reverse trike that's registered as a motorcycle. Being registered as a motorcycle for ground operation is less cumbersome than trying to license a four-wheel automobile. The next innovation we use to keep cost down is looking for high volume, off the shelf components. In our particular case, that's a generic innovation. In our particular case, we use motorcycle engine, drive train, suspension, lights, etc. xhaust is another big one. 

So, what that does is it gives us a pre-engineered high power to weight power plant with all of the additional mechanics that we need for road operation. And it has the added benefit of meeting all the regulations for the highway patrol, for the Department of Motor Vehicles, as well as the EPA in the case of the exhaust. So, that saves us time and money and effort in developing something custom because Kawasaki, in our case, has already done that for us. We also use an automotive front end. In our instance, we use the fronts wheel and brakes and suspension from a Smart Fortwo. Now, while that is over designed, again, it saves us the development time and customization and comes pre-engineered. Has the additional benefit of being DOT approved Now, there are lighter weight options to consider as well. For example, the old Mini Coopers. There's a strong club community that is making custom parts that could be smaller and lighter. So we are always looking to improve Continuing with the cost and using the off the shelf automotive engine, we do want to discuss how it is that we use that engine successfully. 

So, we focus on using it as is without doing any conversion. As an experimental aircraft it's simpler to do that. For example, the engine has a single ignition source. It doesn't have dual magnetos and dual plugs. As an experimental aircraft, it's not required to. Now, also, by not converting it, it means we are leaving the transmission in place. So we attach the propeller drive system to the existing factory power interface output. The output shaft from the motorcycle at this location here, we simply put a shaft extension and a clutch system to drive either the wheel or propeller. So, vibration aside, the engine and transmission is spinning the same shaft it does in either car mode or in airplane mode. Now, we acknowledge that there is complexity in weight in that mechanical drive system And, of course, we are all looking forward to the day when aircraft are electric. 

So we are keeping the eye on the electric potential and how it applies to roadable aircraft. Full electric opens a wide door by allowing you to put your motor where the power needs to be. So some day you could have a two-motor vehicle with a motor for the propeller and a motor for the wheel and drive it with batteries. Now, we're not quite there yet in the roadable aircraft arena because weight is so important, and it's a little harder to fold a motor glider into a roadable application. So we look forward to that day, but we're not waiting for it. More immediately, we would consider serial hybrid application for the roadable aircraft where you could use electric motors and electric generators that could compete with the weight cost and reliability of a mechanical drive system. So how has technology improved safety? There are people that are more expert on this than I am, but it's an important thing to mention here. We have modern electronics, we have glass cockpits, we have new avionics, and the aim for them is to improve the safety for all aircraft. And in many instances it saves weight as well. In the particular application of roadable aircraft, it can confirm for you that the flight surfaces are extended and your locking pins are in place and you don't hit the wrong switch at the wrong time and cause something bad to happen. 

Furthermore, the development of complete airframe parachutes provide additional assurance, especially for roadable aircraft where you have transforming components that, as a pilot, you know the term of the pins that hold the wings on, and the less of those you have, the better. So, when you have a couple extra, it's nice to have the assurance of the airframe parachute. All right, at this point I would like to show you a video that documents the history of our development. Now, this one is not, there's no music for this one so I, whoa, I apologize for the quality there. Let me see if I can restart that. It is running native. That's not what I want. Well, I'm afraid we will have to live with this. So in 2007 we started with the design concept, and it focused on this type of platform where it looks like an airplane. We modeled this in X-Plane 8 just to give us the confidence that if you make an airplane that looks like an airplane, it flies like an airplane. 

The next step is to figure out how to build it in real life that meets the same shape and size of that. So we started construction of a full scale mockup in 2008, bought the new motorcycle, enlisted the help of friends and family to construct the full scale mockup to bring it here to AirVenture. So this is learning full scale construction techniques. Bringing it to the show. Okay, very good. Bringing it to the show to show people the concept and get feedback, get input, and to demonstrate that it is straightforward for one person for fold out a full scale set of wings and fold out and extend a full scale tail. So, while this hardware is full size and roughly flight weight, it was never designed to carry flight loads. It was never intended to be functional. So this was a learning experience and a demonstration mockup for showing how to turn an airplane into a car. Or, in this case, a motorcycle as it is a reverse three-wheeled configuration. 

So you'll notice I had a helper there, my dad, to do the pins at the wing root. In the production version, in fact in the prototype version we're working on now, that will be done remotely from the wing tip. You'll have a control to lock that last bit. So, following all the feedback we got here at AirVenture, we proceeded into the detailed design of the functional prototype. So this is kind of the thought process and design process in starting from the motorcycle and building up around it a roadable aircraft. The next step was to start work on the construction of the functional prototype. So the gussets here were water jet cut, and these were machine to print. We had friends and family help with the construction process. So all of this occurred in early 2010. And here's the build up of the fuselage trusses on the table Again, enlisting the help of family. 

My favorite picture. Mating it around the motorcycle and adding cross braces. That's our patented control system. Wiring the electronics for the motorcycle because we use all the donor parts, the headlights, the tachometer, speedometer, turn signals, etc. o we had to stretch the wires to get where they needed to be. This is the display we had here in 2008. Again, just coming back, showing everyone the progress and where we had gotten. In 2011, we made modifications to stiffen the fuselage and continue adding the CHP requirements, such as wheel fenders. So we get a one-day permit from the DMV to drive to the brake and light inspector. They ask for one change and that was to angle the lights accordingly so they pointed in the direction they needed to. We got out license plate and began test driving at the end of last year and beginning of this year. 

So this is some of the early test drive video. You'll notice the front end is relatively open at this stage. The banners on the side give thanks to our volunteers, supporters, and partners. And then added a dashboard feature, a panel, windshield, the body work on the nose, the side including the scoops, and we ended up with the roadable version. Here we have added the mockup tail and a mockup propeller location in order to show people as we're driving it that this is a roadable aircraft and not just a three-wheeled motorcycle. So we'll make sure that a clean version of this is available on the website. So it has been very enjoyable to drive this in traffic. And as you can see, it handles tight spaces and tight turns just fine. So this is a very open development process. We've been here to AirVenture three times now, and we love to keep you up-to-date with what we're doing. 

And, as you can see, we are doing it out in public, on the public roads. All right. That's also showing in our booth over across the way. All right, so just a little graphical summary of the video you just saw. We started here at AirVenture in 2008 with the full scale mockup. That led to the street legal prototype fuselage in 2011. Of course, I stole this picture from 2012 when we were in the Fourth of July parade just north of LAX. And the next step is, with the continued support of volunteers, supporters, partners, and sponsors, to get to the first flight. And then with the help of AeroInnovate and the Space Angels Network and organizations like that to take us from first flight to first kit as a business. The question mark on the 2014 is an indication of the speed at which this happens depends on the level of support and participation we get from the rest of the team. 

So, a glimpse of the future. We've learned a lot in doing this single-seat prototype. So, what we do is incorporate the lessons we've learned into the two-seat design. So, that's a picture of it in the flight mode, or I should say this is a picture of a possible incarnation in flight mode and in ground mode. Some of the things you see we are addressing in terms of focusing on weight would be a strut braced wing with a single pivot location. In terms of customer requirements, this is a two-seater. Still based on the motorcycle platform. It's still a reverse three-wheeler. It's still a kit. We look forward to the day when we get to focus on this design. 

We'll also have a welded steel tube frame in that one. So, in closing, I would like to say this innovation is for you, the home builder And we invite you to participate today at the website www.Caravella.aero. So, at this time, I would like to open the floor to any questions. Yes, sir. >> I'm curious, what government of regulations do you find... [INAUDIBLE] >> The question was in regards to the regulations that are greatest impediment to roadable aircraft. Well, it depends on what your design looks like. If you have four wheels, there are greater impediments than if your vehicle has three wheels, specifically in the road going arena. In the aircraft arena, if you're experimental it widely opens the design space. So if you try to meet, let's say, the light sport classification, then you have a very difficult challenge. 

If you try to go type 23 certified aircraft, then you have a very large cost challenge. I think that's about the sum of it. Yes, sir. >> What kind of speed to you project on this? >> Okay, good question. Projected speed. The first qualification I'll give to that is we're really focusing on proof of concept. So we haven't focused heavily on performance figures. This was originally thought to try to get into light sport, but we weren't promising it because of the stringent nature of it. So, where this evolves to for the prototype is we expect a stall speed of around 52 knots, which is a little higher than light sport. We expect a cruise speed around 100 knots. 

So let's say, depending on how well you fair the front end, between 90 and 100 knots. And, yeah, that's kind of the answer to that question. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> We have incorporated in the design from day one a ballistic recovery system that's located in the front decel of the wing. Well, actually, it's not a decel because the spar is the primary carry through structure. So between the spar and the back of the headrest is where the ballistic recovery system sits. And it is the insurance policy. Yes. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> All right, the question is, what is the range of the prototype vehicle? Or I should say, what is the range of the vehicle design? It was originally sized for a 16 gallon tank. Right now, to save weight, we've gone down to 14.5 gallons, which should give us roughly 3 hours of range at 100 knots would be 300 nautical miles. Yes, sir. 

>> Have you driven it in bad weather yet? >> Have we driven it in bad weather? No. It has not been driven in bad weather yet. It has been sprinkled on, but if you saw in the video, the roof is not installed yet so it has not been in the deluge that we had here yesterday. With the tail mounted on it, we have driven it in wind conditions, mountains and passes, at the end of the runway where we have ocean crosswind, crosswind for me but it's down the runway for airplanes. So we're beginning to explore those environments. All right, well thank you very much for your attention and time, and if you have any further questions, we're just behind you. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]