One More Video - Flying the Raptor Prototype 

Is that good or bad?

But the 172 is 30 knots slower over the fence.

Cosidering the interior is the equivelent of a two row Ford Excursion, Id buy it...

Just what I was thinking. Raptor empty weight is comparable to a Baron 58, but with about 1/2 the horsepower, and no useful load or range to speak of.

@@TaillwindMatt Well this prototype had a bunch of additions stacked onto it to overcome various problems that cropped up and made it WAY heavier than projected. Willing to bet the production version won't have that issue because they can build to eliminate all the issues from the start as opposed to adding more and more parts and hardware to the already-built prototype.

His name is Peter

I’m at 200 hours single engine and when I saw his first flight Video I was pretty much Terrified by the lack of power he had during that flight . It seems like it is getting better but still seems under powered for the weight .

For only 200 hours you have a better understanding than 99% of the other comments in here. So many fundamental flaws in this aircraft have it doomed. Single pilot in cool weather and this thing still eats up an insane amount of runway. Taking a passenger and full fuel on a hot day would have this thing absolutely strung out more than it already is.

@@missouriaviator8871 my home airport atm is KRNO (Reno, Nevada) starting at ~4415 ft field elevation. It'd fly cause of the large runways but much shorter and I'd be concerned in the high desert area.

TBF it appears he's running it nice and easy to keep the temps low. I'm not sure if it's due to the warmer weather or maybe engine breakin?

I hope he's done a serious handling qualities evaluation. Perhaps see if Wasabi would be interested now that the powerplant portion of the program has less risk.

Seems like he's really attacking, not trying to help.

@@kevgermany yes I completely agree, I thought he had some interesting points though even though he is biased.

@@kevgermany People have been trying to help the Raptor project for a while now, to no avail.

@@kevgermany Didn't take it as he was attacking more like pointing out what was told the Raptor would be to compared to what it is at the current moment. The biggest concern being that nothing on the Raptor was tested, no load testing, no vibration testing etc. Now Peter does have a flying aircraft which is a lot further than others have made it. Remember Burt Rutan told Danny Maher that a 4 place canard wouldn't work.

@@engineernels1057 it's difficult to take the useful points from his videos, but you're right. There is some good stuff.

You can hear the power was reduced shortly after takeoff, presumably for cooling reasons given, 65% power is what he is using. It will obviously perform better with 100% power. Cooling issues are easy to solve. Why, after 40 hours, the cooling issues are not rectified doesn't make sense. It's a liquid cooled engine, therefore it can have a radiator located anywhere or any number of smaller radiators in any place you like. Cooling Airflow is easy and should have been factored into the preliminary design, but appears that it was omitted. Cooling is not intuitive for most people, you need high enough coolant velocities through the radiator(s) to cause the liquid to tumble through the radiator without cavatating. Then you need air pressure differential from the face of the radiator to the outlet, it should drop from freestream pressure several In/Hg across the radiator fins. So this usually means exit area is more important than ram air entry, but using a naca style submerged duct for cooling air inlet is a bad idea because it only recovers 65% of freestream pressure vs 85-95% for ram air inlets. These are all basic layout preliminary design issues that can also be added after the fact based on measured data, such as inlet and exit pressures. And the fact the engine is overheating.