Elixir's Molded Carbon Aircraft 

Wow, that's some impressive numbers for such an inexpensive aircraft. Getting that low of a fuel burn with that much payload and that much speed is insanely good. I'm definitely intrigued and will be keeping an eye on this company. Thanks for bringing us this info, Paul and AVweb!

So cool to see so much innovation and new ideas

Hope you can arrange a tour/video of their production method.

I've been waiting a long time for someone to build an airplane using this monolithic design. Most modern designs are still too complex and require excessive construction time...

This technology is profusely used in automotive. Here in UK lots of companies do that. It was actually time someone applied it to light aviation. Well done.

Glad to see you are no longer detained Paul...

Imagine getting a 6 place plane built like this, the pricing could be amazing with killer performance.

Sweet Airplane... Looks good

Wow it's seems very innovative ! I am impressed ! And cheap as well !

Very nice design

Very interesting!

I saw it at Friedrichshafen 2022 & it’s impressive. They basically looked at all the accident data over the last few years & attempted to design out the major causes. Its got a parachute recovery system; It’s un-spinnable - ailerons are fully effective in the stall; it’s an extremely strong structure & offers a lot of protection for the occupants if you did crash; a single explosion-proof fuel tank running through both wings to eliminate fuel starvation by not switching tanks & help prevent fatalities from post-crash fires. It comes with the option of trailing link undercarriage for rough field operation. Corrosion free structure. Lots of experience out there now with repairing structural carbon fibre - think 787. Only problem is the price seems to have gone up & it’s not yet certified in the UK. Hopefully it will be because someone has actually applied some original thinking here.

200k USD. Affordable, but not cheap. Still pretty cool to see them using composites the way they're used in other vehicles. I remember working with the carbon fiber pre-preg back in college. Hard to mold and cure, but strong stuff.

Wow! I'm disappointed not to fly myself to Friedrichshafen this year, so I appreciate your coverage, Paul! Sorry you had to suffer in a BA747 to get there...

J'avais pas beaucoup d'argent, mais j'aime cet avion! Very good job of doing stress testing and designing products according to need and function. 914Turbo data should be very exciting. Merci beaucoup! Now going to buy lotto ticket, hoping....

Amazing

I like the less parts and carbon fiber concept; simplicity is safety from the manufacturing and maintenance standpoint. In the future I would like to see a larger aircraft with retractable wheels, each plane 2 to 4 passengers, more cargo space when seats are folded closed. Also, a more enclosed interior, perhaps even with an optional extended front that has a small turbo prop engine (yeah crazy). Small planes tend to be slow and have a short range; this is plane a big improvement, but the price is will stall most shoppers.

This is awesome. Less complexity is the way to go.

Perfect, now the only thing left is for the price to come down to about $70,000 and im in!

Sold. I’ll take it.

Good report, thanks (and thank you for the good body mike sound). Production tips: Some viewers may not be aware that RU-vid has an auto-generated English caption option and that might be a better way to view and understand this speaker’s presentation with the sound off. Put that in the notes. Another method: Record two presentations, one in the speaker’s native language and one in English. Post both with the note that the viewer can select auto generated captions or, if you have the budget and time, create open captions translated to English in both of his versions. This is a common practice in news reporting where the speaker has a heavy accent.

This looks like a Dynaero MCR with a fat wing and a dumpy lower cowl

I wonder why nobody has done it before?

I wonder if it was originally designed as a T tail. Interesting choice. Mitigating high AOA elevator stall?

first of all good day. Your potion plane is beautiful. I like it. I want information about technical technique and price. thanks.

Cheaper to manufacture but wonder if it's possible to repair the wings or fuselage if either are damaged. This type of construction is like an egg............... very strong until it cracks. ;-)

l like this guy

My main concern would be hangar rash - if its all one piece, would that total the aircraft?

What’s the damage tolerance when the wing takes a bird or some careless owners dents the wing?

Great idea to reduce cost, definitely a market there. Always questioned why you would spend all that money on a new (boring) aircraft when you can buy an old, interesting plane with money to spare.

How do you repair the wing to the same it was before if it is just one piece??

What about the roll-over protection for the pilots?

Great to see more modern electric and lead free planes! 🤓

6 figures for a aircraft just bigger than a fiat 500?

How easy is it to fix damage to the wing?

150,000..... Is it "certified" for use in the US?

Are there subtitles in English?

nice,,,, too bad the price has doubled to 400k for the ifr model

The high price of airplanes is not an issue of manufacturing technology so much as it is an issue of low volume, frivolous lawsuits, and insurance against those lawsuits.

They claim it's certified in Europe now. Only the 912 version is available so far. But one would imagine the 915 version should be easy then. Of course they will price it too high because they are douches (french word for shower :) but otherwise it could be a significant killer in certified GA. Hopefully well under Diamond, Cirrus and Cessna. Only Diamond has a 2 seater and that's under 200k$. So the price actually has to be low. Diamond DA20 is surprisingly a decent plane. High speed with only 120horses. They should really make a version with the 915.

The canopy looks great for visibility but wouldn't it bake you on a hot sunny day?

G limits and gust tolerance at max gross? A Carbon fiber tube is very stiff, but bend it slightly under load it fails catastrophically. A parachute may be a good option for this plane.

Looks like very similar pricing to other LSAs. The savings from the innovation don't appear to be reflected in the price.

I built many model aircraft on this principle... The light aircraft industry has been dominated by out of date American metal designs for too long... The europa was the turning point in design long may it live with electric propulsion

Subtitles, please.

Where is the fuel tank?

The wing is one single piss

Cheaper to manufacture. Still a rich mans plane.

A single fuel tank? Is that one with or without a hole in in...?

"First time that this has been done in aviation," not. Are these guys not aware of Scaled Composites? -or am I just imagining that Rutan's company has done stressed-skin, foam-filled composite planes?

Interesting, yet is their target market a volume orientated space? Don't think so therefore I am not sure they can sell enough units to maintain their price point and will quickly end up becoming a boutique manufacturer of luxury goods as are most of their competitors. There in lays their Achilles heel because their up front manufacturing model can not lend itself to the production approach of "engineer to order" such that we see with Bristell. Elixir's profit return will be 100 units sold and not 5 if you get my drift and unless the marketing is spot on they will find it very hard to adapt if forecasts are not met because their eggs are all in one basket called an expensive mould which can not be refashioned . Icon A5 thought they could produce a model T for the light sport market as well yet it become morphed from a peoples plane to a rich peoples plane simply to satisfy investors expectations of getting a return this side of the next millennium. Low price points require high volumes and to my eyes their simply is not enough people to sell to before the company would have to refinance the dream.

So why not simplify the engine choice while simplifying the airframe? UL (and probably others) offer engines that are a LOT less complex than the air and liquid cooled Rotax. I uderstand that Rotax is powering many small aircraft these days, but the complexity of speed reduction, liquid cooling with all of the extra tubes, hoses, etc, would favor choosing a simpler direct drive, fuel injected engine.

I don't understand why so many people are obsessing over price in the comments of these videos, you can't just magically reduce the price of something that's as inherently complex to design and build as an aircraft. The only way to make flying popular again is to start paying people well, just like they were for a couple of decades following WW2. The only way to make that possible is to start taxing the ever-living s-t out of the wealthy, like we did following WW2.

Electric motor would be cool.

Now when the fuel truck driver dents your wing your airplane is totaled

Now make it electric !! :)

I am not sure that this will have a long life. A foam core gives me pause. No spar also makes me suspicious.

They should do an electric modification.

Still way too expensive for a two seater.

I was googling a little for past states of the Elixir, now 2022 and I note that the prices have doubled since this 2019 video. So much for cost reduction as their core premise. It became what can we get away with in the context of the other overpriced poor selection of fully certified planes. 300 and 400k$ for an LSA/UL. Difficult to justify as cost reduced.

Yea, I don't speak french. What did he say about my grandmother?

Adding a spar would be extremely easy and still not interfere with their monocoque design. Remove the leading edge after cutting the airfoil, lay up a 6 ply prepeg carbon fiber spar, cut it then put the airfoil back into a mold and do everything they already do. Carbon fiber is extremely rigid and pretty strong but S glass is stronger and only flexes a bit more. Not sure if I want to trust this design under heavy load in just carbon fiber with no spar. Those formula 1 planes he talks about all use a combination of both carbon fiber and S glass as well as all having a spare.

Very nice to optimize but I remark that the price they land on is like all the others. So what good is it.... A VL3 Evolution is a fast long range bird that starts around 140k euro iirc. And getting rid of Rotax is another needed optimization. Particularly the 915 is bizarrely priced at 39k$? A Nissan Versa sedan starts at 12k for the entire car including a 1.6L 16valve 109 horse engine that of course has computer mapped fuel injection because it's not from 1950.

The cheapest model is 274k in my country's money. Lets face it, their will never be an affordable aircraft it just isn't possible no matter how cheaply it can be produced

Um, Burt Rutan was doing this 40+ years ago with solid foam core wings with a glass skin.

A lot more can be done for five to sex people and it they takes up to 10 people, it will make wonders.

"should us Automotive Industry practices to build $30,000 planes". Sigh. Anybody who buys that argument needs to return to high school and apologize to their math teacher. Auto volumes are in the 100,000's. Per Year.

sir I want air line job

Not a fan of the car like instrument panel. Looks cheap

All good until delamination occurs or damage to a leading edge. The whole structure would require a specialized composite shop to do the work. Not sure i like french cars, not sure i like french frys.....this plane is slick looking and that's about it

This is not revolutionary in pricing. I bought a pipistrel for cheaper then this

They do use automotive technology. They do only cost $30,000. Do the math: airframe, engine, avionics, assembly cost: $ 30,000.00 Profit: $ 0.00 Lawyers & other legal expenses: $270,000.00 total cost to the end user: $300,000.00 Sheesh.... What was so hard about that? Simple math.

Ugly airship...

I think that French shall be banned from speaking English.