ScaleWings – CTO Newsletter – 15.11.2022

Dear ScaleWings community,

It is a pleasure for me to send you the first CTO newsletter from our latest news series, that is coming to you every 2 weeks.

Thank you Christian, for your kind introduction!

The SW-51 Mustang SN001 “Yellow Jacket” above the Ozarks in the USA (AR). Photo: Zak Heald

FLIGHT CAMPAIGNS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA

Starting in 2019, supporting the company on its mission to find practical ways to get this unique aircraft airborne, the first flight was achieved in May 2021, which is truly one of the most important milestones in any aircraft project.

From then on, we had the pleasure to fly the aircraft at numerous locations on both sides of the Atlantic, on paved and unpaved runways, in good and poor weather conditions, we flew in the hot desert, tropical, cold and normal climate and even at coastlines with quite salty humid air. So far the aircraft has been flown by 6 pilots, and co-piloted by many further. They all stated the same

“it´s an incredible aircraft and it is so much fun to fly !”

And I by myself agree.. It is! 😀

In terms of flying, the aircraft has excellent high speed, but also slow speed, characteristics. The slow speed controllability is extremely good due to its large true-to-scale control surface areas. The stall behavior is predictable and balanced. The precision and “fighter-like” agility of the aircraft sets the standard in its class and outperforms the Original P-51 Mustang by a factor of over 4x. The SW-51´s roll rate of about 360°/sec speaks for itself (Original P-51: 71°/sec).

As I can confirm, the 1st Law Of Aeronautics is fully applicable:
What looks great, absolutely flies great !!

At this point, I also want to thank for the amazing flying from our multiple continent crosser (in a SW-51 Mustang) “General” Jorge (GJ) Campillo, our US Demo-Pilot Maj. Trevor “Dozen” Aldridge, and our ex-Red Bull Air Race pilot Antanas Marciukaitis, who all take this aircraft to its fullest potential. Antanas flew the incredible US Airshow Premiere at Oshkosh; Trevor’s flights at the Reno Air Races and continued performances are awe-inspiring; and Jorge flew the SW-51 Mustang from Oshkosh to Florida, and again from Florida to Reno, Nevada. He is currently on an intercontinental cross-country with the SW-51 Mustang from the USA to South America, having landed in Panama just today. We will tell more about Trevor’s exciting actions and Jorge´s inspiring journeys in one of our future newsletters.

Jorge´s route with the SW-51 Mustang from from Inverness, Florida, to Reno, Nevada, in September 2022

NEW VIDEO BLOG ON ON YOUTUBE

Since the SW-51 aircraft project was started the entire team of ScaleWings has placed a great amount of focus on how to make the things in a way that they’re not only looking extremely good, but also working extremely well.

Functionality and proper design combined with state of the art technology is the latest benchmark ScaleWings represents with this product. To show you what we’ve done with the latest design stages, we have started a new YouTube Blog with it’s first episode; you can find here, by clicking on the link below:

FLIGHT OPERATION & MAINTENANCE

The flight test & demo aircraft SN001 “Yellow Jacket” has now reached plenty of flight time, and we recently had a technical inspection performed by a professional US maintenance center in Bentonville area (Arkansas, USA). Actually there is no obligation to do so, but we wanted to have a highly experienced external opinion about the aircraft condition after extensive operations in the field. The result: no unscheduled maintenance required, just the scheduled engine maintenance, defined by Rotax of course.. (Oil change, Oil filter, Spark Plugs etc.)

I want to highlight this as now, we cannot just estimate the direct operating cost, but we can provide you with real world numbers. One big factor here is the use of carbon fiber, which is in combination with the entire aircraft design, an on condition maintenance, corrosion free airframe. This helps to keep the maintenance effort and costs on an actual minimum.

How do we calculate the DOC**:

Fuel & Lubricant Cost -> approx. 7.3 USG/FH @ 4 USD/USG = 30 USD/FH
Engine Restoration* -> approx. 28kUSD/1200hrs = 23 USD/FH*
*TBO may increase to significantly higher numbers soon, which lower the actual cost for engine restoration.
Propeller & Airframe Maintenance -> approx. 16 hrs labour @ 100 USD/h, new engine oil, new oil filter, new spark plugs, consumables, wear and tear elements, propeller restoration
= 25 USD/FH

Total DOC: approx. = 78 USD/FH

**Note: this cost may vary pending on numerous factors e.g. actual fuel price, labour cost escalation etc.

From the DOC indication you can see that the variable cost to operate the
SW-51 Mustang is below 100 USD/FH even using a certified maintenance center for hourly recommended inspection.

With this great news I want to finish my first CTO letter, and looking forward to explain the next feature of the SW-51 Mustang in 4 weeks.

Warmest Greetings

Simon

Chief Technical Officer
on behalf of ScaleWings Aircraft ­

ScaleWings Aircraft GmbH
Zainach 19
84307 Eggenfelden
Germany

info@scalewings.com

www.scalewings.com ­
­
ScaleWings …..realizing pilot dreams!

For inquiries, email us at:
info@scalewings.com

Mr. Simon Schell
simon.schell@scalewings.com

Mr. Christian von Kessel
cvk@scalewings.com

International Sales:
ScaleWings Aircraft GmbH
Zainach 19
84307 Eggenfelden
GERMANY

ScaleWings Factory:
ScaleWings AeroPro Sp.z.o.o
ul. ks J. Popieluszki 88
38-400 Krosno
POLAND