Alec Proudfoot’s DaSH Project update (November 11, 2016)

Hi DaSH Sponsors,

I created this new e-mail group which will have very occasional e-mails (probably averaging one per month), to be able to give you reasonably quick updates on the progress with the DaSH Human Powered Airplane Project when we do test flights or have other significant events.

Since I last sent you e-mail after our successful maiden flight on December 5th 2016, we’ve actually had three flight weekends, one in Half Moon Bay in February and two at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View California in June and November. I’ll send you all separate update e-mails later with a brief explanation of the earlier flights, and why I have been so late in updating everyone (my apologies).

This past Saturday, we had 8 successful flights at Moffett, including a 1.62 kilometer (1.01 mile) flight that only stopped because we ran out of runway.

We’ve now had 8 pilots fly a total of 22 flights, and the airplane has traveled about 11,000 meters in about 27½ minutes of total flight time. Every time we have flown, one of the flights during the weekend has been the longest yet. We’re running out of room, so soon plan to head to the desert for longer flights.

We have another flight day planned for Saturday November 19th at Moffett, with Sunday the 20th as a weather backup. If you are in the area and would like to attend, please let me know and we’ll set it up! (Airplane set-up starts at 4:45 a.m. PST, first flights will be sometime around 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. PST.)

Here are stats for the flights we did last Saturday:

Flight # 1, 5-Nov-2016, Alec Proudfoot, 355 m, 48 secs

Flight # 2, 5-Nov-2016, Craig Robinson, 1.62 km, 4 mins 0 secs

Flight # 3, 5-Nov-2016, Ariel Herrmann, 600 m, 1 min 26 secs

Flight # 4, 5-Nov-2016, Marshall Gusman, 570 m, 1 min 18 secs

Flight # 5, 5-Nov-2016, Ariana Peck, 850 m, 2 mins 24 secs

Flight # 6, 5-Nov-2016, Geoff Bower, 80 m, 11 secs (drivetrain issue)

Flight # 7, 5-Nov-2016, Geoff Bower, 660 m, 1 min 25 secs

Flight # 8, 5-Nov-2016, Greg Thomas, 700 m, 2 mins 0 secs

(Note to purists: I am counting flight distance/duration from start of first takeoff to end of last landing, as several of the novice pilots have had brief touchdowns in between as they are getting used to flying the plane. Obviously if we end up trying any record flights, that won’t fly, and real distance/duration will only count flights with no ground touches in the middle of the flight.)

That’s it for now. Be sure to check the photo and video and video playlist links below!

Cheers,

Alec Proudfoot
Chief Designer
Chief Engineer, DaSH Human Powered Airplane Project

P.S. Here are some links to additional photos, and videos:

Selected photos from Saturday, November 5, 2016:

Here are some links to playlists of last Saturday’s flights, playlists of ALL DaSH videos, including flight and construction videos, and links to a few selected videos from last Saturday. Be sure to check out the 360 videos on your phone (or with VR headset), they are really fun and give a pilot’s eye view, and you can look all around the airplane as it is flying:

Playlist of the November 5 Moffett flights:

(It includes two 360 videos of actual flights (then the battery ran out), a neat 10X sped up video of the first flight, and both chase bike and chase car #2 video. I don’t have the wing mount and tail boom mount videos uploaded yet — I’ll be editing those in with the chase bike videos into longer videos, and add them to the playlist when done (hopefully sometime in the next few days).)

Playlists for all DaSH HPA videos:

Here are a few selected videos:

360 degree video of Flight #1 (Alec’s flight):

360 degree video of Flight #2 (Craig’s mile-long flight):

Video of Craig’s 1.62 km (1.01 mile) long flight:

Video of Ariana’s first flight, 850 meters (longest flight besides Craig’s so far):

Video of the last flight of the day, Greg’s flight in somewhat bumpy air:

This video is more close up and gives a different perspective: