cc
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
AeroInnovate aims to help Uentrepreneurs from across theh.
globe connect to investors and
and bring related new technologies to the marketplace.
We do this by using our four key
The first one is to educate to pillars.
coming aero innovators. The second is to align investors
in aero-related industry leaders
expose new aero-related technologies to the world in a
forum such as this at our Technology Showcase Stage.
And, lastly, to connect aero
resources that they need to grow innovators with people and
business. aSo, this morning I'd like to
introduce our Technology
Caravella Aerospace. Showcase presenter from
owner of Caravella, and he's Joe Caravella is the founder and
about his affordable, roadable here to tell us a little bit
airplane and motorcycle components into one vehicle that
is designed to drive, transform,
again. and fly over and over and over
please welcome Joe. So[APPLAUSE]t,
Thank you very much,
We're happy to be here. So thank you to AeroInnovate for
the opportunity to come and talk
I'm always happy to be at tAirVenture..
As she said, my name is Joe Caravella, and I am here to talk
to you about roadable aircraft
So, the first thing we'll show technology today and tomorrow.
This is a roadable aircraft. you is a little intro video.
motorcycle, and we have full It is street legal as a
public roads and highways. authority to operate on all
what they really want Whenis George Jetson.car,
They want a vehicle that's
parks in the garage, drops them quietright off at work.lly,
Today's infrastructure, that's
Such a device would be just not feasible.
prohibitively expensive. prohibitively loud,
with all the existing So infrastructure of the day.ks
You drive it on the highway, you
you land at another airport, take off at an airport,
I don't have to change any laws. then you drive to work.
any new roads. I don't have to build
Itoday's infrastructure.h
All right, so that gives you a
going to talk about today. little teaser about what we're
So we went through the intro Get into full screen mode here.
A little bit of biography about myself.
I'm Joe.
astronautical engineering at I studied aeronautical and
I got my bachelor's and master's Purdue University.
I worked for 10 years in there.
at Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, cCalifornia, on a variety ofnt
different rocket engine technologies.
In 2007, I founded Caravella
developing an affordable Aerospace with the mission of
Since we began, I've presented roadable aircraft.
aircraft and their design here AirVenture forums on roadable
and here again in 2012. And currently, as you just saw,0
our prototype fuselage is street
miles of road testing on public legal and hstreets.d over 300
We've reached up to 65 miles per
continuing on in that part of hour othe test program.d we're
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,
operation of such a vehicle, the and flies, talk about the
design of that kind of vehicle, and then some of the innovative
solutions that we use to solve
And then we'll also have some ideas for what the future holds.
So, drive, transform, fly.
have the motor vehicle, cars, On one motorcycles, etc.rum you
On the other side of the
fixed wing, rotor craft, spectrum you have aircraft,
etc., and somewhere in the powered lift, light than air,
roadable aircraft, and those are middle you have what we call
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
of in between. plane, and some that look kind
there top and center. ThIt's called the Caravellair.ne
So, you've all seen this chart
formats and incarnations. bSo we all know why we're doingt
it, but it boils down, in some
It allows you to go under senses, to weather.ravel time.
It allows you to go over
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
cases by allowing the use hangof automotive fuelscific
instead of AvGas. 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
is a large metroplex with some southern California, Los Angeles
and some very large, nice houses expensive houses in the center
So it helps to balance that kind that are further away.
And in the end, roadable of tradeoff.
cool. aWhen I say cool, I mean it
really captures the public's
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
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
When is it going to fly? is that?
public is excited about roadable So we're really happy that the
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
tails, and flying. airport A, folding out wings and
thunderstorm or if your destination is airport B, you
can land at airport B.
travels through weather or to you office, you can transform
back into a car and get to
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
application and the cross-country application.
And depending on how much of
want to do, it can change the design of the roadable aircraft.
Whether or not you leave the
components at one of the wing and tail or other aircraft
My envision of a fully useful roadable aircraft is one that
can do all of these.
speeds and travel in the air at Tra speed greater than you cany
achieve on the ground.
challenges in roadable aircraft? So, what are some of the key
takes on this. There have been a few different
resource that kind of outlines Roadable Times is another
So some of the key ones are the handling which gets into both
handling on the ground and
controls required, the weight of handling in the air, the
larger challenges, cost is the vehicle which is one of the
especially when it comes time to another large challenge
then safety. bring the product to market, and
discuss some of our innovative So what we're going to do is
challenges and how technology solutplays a role.e key
So starting with handling, the
roadable aircraft is to optimize key design challenge for all
and the plane. the compromises between the car
design choices. Now, there are many ways of
doing this, and many good ways
In our particular instance, we of doing this.
middle ground between motor wvehicle application and ane
aircraft application. So what we do is we fold the
wing in three places which
aircraft mode and a reduced area allows to have a greater span in
the car mode. So on the left you see an image
of our particular vehicle with
of the fuselage which is the wing folded along the side
as the fuselage. essentially at the same height
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
shorter. vehicle on the left is much
center of gravity to move Fforward which improves thee
ground handling as the motor
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.
unique challenge in roadable Control systems are another
aircraft controls, you have automotive controls, and you
have drivers that are familiar
that are familiar with aircraft wicontrols, and in our case wets
were focusing on a single-seat
not have a lot of space in the development prototype so we did
So what we did is develop a patent-pending three-axis
control yoke that eliminates the
I want to emphasize that it is need for rudder pedals.
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
I will now demonstrate for you a coordinated turn.
So you have all those controls slip.
rudder pedals. in your hand and no need for
we already have a gas, a brake, The reasoand a clutch.ortant is
So the pedal space is already occupied.
Now, we do admit that this
learning curve from the pilot's represeperspective.ree of
Just like we, as pilots, expect a learning curve from the
automotive operator's perspective.
In the future, and other ways of
mechanical linkages involved addressing kind of the
use hydraulic or fly-by-wire with this type of system is to
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
an automotive mode more simply. surfaces frWeight.ight mode to
Weight is the big one.
in the past? So, why are we lighter now than
are the key way for the empty weight of vehicles to come downs
So you can see in the light sport revolution the use of
composite materials in the
these aircraft with good modern engines have allowed
weights of only 1320 pounds. performance to have gross
aircraft, we have an additional challenge because we need to
carry both automotive and aircraft performance capability.
In some cases that means two
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
there you have a Terrafugia working oTransition.he bottom
And I, from the public data,
those vehicles. So you can see Moult Taylor's
design was at 1500 pounds, our
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
advantage of carbon fiber. there at 970 pounds is taking
use carbon fiber in our design One of the reasons that we don't
you can build it without is it's designed to be a kit so
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
directly from computer models. time and give you end pieces
is they need to improve the structural capabilities and the
material they use in doing that,
incorporating that technology to but we are looking forward to
roadable aircraft. speed the development of
attractive option that is early in the development stages, but
it could be an attractive option
the future. forAnd evolved carbon fiber in
structures, they're going to
better, and a lot of us have continue to get lighter and
carbon nanotubes and their heard about the potential of
So continuing on weight, how strength capabilities.
light airplane? Well, we have two examples ona
the screen. Example on the left is just to
show you what can be done in
This is a relatively affordable soliprogram.ng.
It works relatively quickly.
And it greatly speeds the design It's the one we use.
It gives you good documentation, cycles.
optimizing for weight. and it gives you a platform for
example of using some finite The image on the right is an
stresses in the vehicle under elemkey loading situations.y the
You can see we have simplified
to simply model their reaction the tail surfaces and the wing
In this case, it's for a forces.
2.5 Gs which is something that one-wheel, nose-down landing at
envelope for the vehicle we're is at the edge of the operating
But we use that to quickly working on.
and to optimize the structure, identify the high stress areas
with a minimum amount of weight. to solve the structural problems
roadable aircraft is cost. So another big challenge in
approaches that we use to keep We have two main innovative
The first is to simplify the the cost of our vehicle down.
the vehicle. licensing and registration of
straightforward, but we just Now, this seems pretty
the decisions that get made in kind of like to say these are
We make an experimental amateur built kit aircraft that is the
low-cost solution, and that is
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
license a four-wheel automobile. cumbersome than trying to
keep cost down is looking for Thhigh volume, off the shelfo
components. In our particular case, that's a
generic innovation. In our particular case, we use
motorcycle engine, drive train, suspension, lights, etc.
Exhaust is another big one. So, what that does is it gives
us a pre-engineered high power
of the additional mechanics that to weight power plant with all
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
So, that saves us time and money the exhaust.
something custom because and effort in developing
already done that for us. We also use an automotives
front end.
fronts wheel and brakes and suspension from a Smart For Two.
Now, while that is over designed, again, it saves us the
development time and
pre-engineered. Has the additional benefit of
being DOT approved. Now, there are lighter weight
options to consider as well.
Mini Coopers. There's a strong club community
that is making custom parts that
So we are always looking to could be smimprove.d lighter.
Continuing with the cost
automotive engine, we do want to and using the off the shelf
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
power interface output. syThe output shaft from theory
motorcycle at this location here, we simply put a shaft
extension and a clutch system to
propeller. drive either the wheel or
and transmission is spinning the So, vibration aside, the engine
mode or in airplane mode. sNow, we acknowledge that therer
is complexity in weight in that mechanical drive system.
And, of course, we are all
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
So some day you could have a be.
for the propeller and a motor for the wheel and drive it with
batteries.
in the roadable aircraft arena Now, we're not quite there yet
and it's a little harder to fold because weight is so important,
application. a motor glider into a roadable
but we're not waiting for it. So More immediately, we wouldy,
consider serial hybrid
aircraft where you could use application for the roadable
generators that could compete elwith the weight cost andic
reliability of a mechanical drive system.
So how has technology improved
There are people that are more safety?
it's an important thing to expert on this than I am, but
We have modern electronics, we mention here.
avionics, and the aim for them have glass cockpits, we have new
aircraft. iAnd in many instances it savesl
weight as well. In the particular application of
roadable aircraft, it can confirm for you that the flight
surfaces are extended and your
you don't hit the wrong switch locking pins are in place and
something bad to happen. at the wrong time and cause
complete airframe parachutes Furthermore, the development of
especially for roadable aircraft provide additional assurance,
components that, as a pilot, you where you have transforming
hold the wings on, and the less of those you have, the better.
So, when you have a couple
assurance of the airframe extra, itparachute. have the
All right, at this point I would
documents the history of our like to show you a video that
Now, this one is not, there's no development.
apologize for the quality there. music for this one so I, whoa, I
that. LetIt is running native.art
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
it looks like an airplane. on this type of platform where
just to give us the confidence We modeled this in X-Plane 8
that looks like an airplane, it thflies like an airplane.ane
The next step is to figure out
that meets the same shape and how to size of that.eal life
So we started construction of a full scale mockup in 2008,
bought the new motorcycle,
family to construct the full enlisted the help of friends and
AirVenture. sSo this is learning full scaleo
construction techniques.
Okay, very good. Bringing it to the show.
people the concept and get Bringing it to the show to show
demonstrate that it is feedback, get input, and to
for fold out a full scale set of straightforward for one person
full scale tail. wings and fold out and extend a
size and roughly flight weight, Sit was never designed to carry
flight loads. It was never intended to be
functional. So this was a learning
experience and a demonstration
an airplane into a car. Or, in this case, a motorcycle
as it is a reverse three-wheeled
So you'll notice I had a helper there, my dad, to do the pins at
the wing root.
fact in the prototype version we're working on now, that will
be done remotely from the wing
You'll have a control to lock that last bit.
So, following all the feedback
proceeded into the detailed we design of the functionalwe
prototype.
process and design process in starting from the motorcycle and
building up around it a roadable
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
So all of this occurred in early with the construction process.
And here's the build up of the 2010.
Again, enlisting the help of fuselage trusses on the table
My favorite picture. family.
and adding cross braces. Mating it around the motorcycle
system. Wiring the electronics for the
motorcycle because we use all the donor parts, the headlights,
the tachometer, speedometer,
So we had to stretch the wires turn signals, etc.
This is the display we had here to get wherein 2008.eded to be.
Again, just coming back, showing
we had gotten. everyone the progress and where
to stiffen the fuselage and In continue adding the CHPions
requirements, such as wheel fenders.
So we get a one-day permit from the DMV to drive to the brake
and light inspector.
was to angle the lights Taccordingly so they pointed int
the direction they needed to. We got out license plate and
began test driving at the end of
year. laSo this is some of the earlys
test drive video. You'll notice the front end is
relatively open at this stage.
thanks to our volunteers, Tsupporters, and partners.ve
And then added a dashboard
the body work on the nose, the feature, a panel, windshield,
we ended up with the roadable side includversion.scoops, and
Here we have added the mockup tail and a mockup propeller
location in order to show people
a roadable aircraft and not just as we're driving it that this is
So we'll make sure that a clean version of this is available on
the website.
drive this in traffic. So it has been very enjoyable to
tight spaces and tight turns And as you can see, it handles
So this is a very open just fine.
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
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.
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,
sponsors, to get to the first supporterflight.ners, and
And then with the help of AeroInnovate and the Space
Angels Network and organizations
flight to first kit as a like that to take us from first
The question mark on the 2014 is business.
which this happens depends on an the level of support andat
participation we get from the rest of the team.
So, a glimpse of the future.
this single-seat prototype. So, what we do is incorporate
the lessons we've learned into
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
strut braced wing with a single focusinpivot location.ld be a
In terms of customer
two-seater. Still based on the motorcycle
platform. It's still a reverse
three-wheeler.
We look forward to the day when we get to focus on this design.
We'll also have a welded steel
So, in closing, I would like to say this innovation is for you,
the home builder And we invite
website www.Caravella.aero you to participate today at the
to open the floor to any So, at this time, I would like
Yes, sir. >> I'm curious, what government
of regulations do you find... [INAUDIBLE]
The question was
that are greatest impediment to in regroadable aircraft.tions
Well, it depends on what your design looks like.
If you have four wheels, there
your vehicle has three wheels, are greater impediments than if
arena. specifically in the road going
experimental it widely opens the In the aircraft arena, if you're
So if you try to meet, design space.
classification, then you have a very difficult weight challenge.
If you try to go type 23
have a very large cost certified aircraft, then you
I think that's about the sum of chait.nge.
Yes, sir. >> What kind of speed to you
project on this?
Projected speed. >> Okay, good question.
give to that is we're really The first qualification I'll
So we haven't focused heavily on focusing on proof of concept.
This was originally thought to performance figures.
we weren't promising it because tof the stringent nature of it.t
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.
100 knots. We expect a cruise speed around
well you fair the front end, So let's say, depending on how
And, yeah, that's kind of the banswer 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
ballistic recovery system sits. And it is the insurance policy.
Yes.
All right, the question is, what is the range of the
prototype vehicle?
range of the vehicle design? Or I should say, what is the
for a 16-gallon tank. Right now, to save weight, we've
gone down to 14.5 gallons, which
of range at 100 knots would be should give us roughly 3 hours
Yes, sir. >> Have you driven it in bad
weather yet?
weather? >> Have we driven it in bad
It has not been driven in bad weather yet.
It has been sprinkled on, but if
is not installed yet so it has you saw in the video, the roof
had here yesterday. nWith the tail mounted on it,e
we have driven it in wind conditions, mountains and
passes, at the end of the runway
crosswind for me but it's down where we have ocean crosswind,
So we're beginning to explore thethose environments.es.
All right, well thank you very
time, and if you have any much further questions, and
we're just behind you.
[APPLAUSE]