ION aircraft being built at ANE

I always have fun when I bop in and talk with Steve, of ION aircraft. He's
bursting with enthusiasm, ...and airplane knowledge (history AND
engineering). He walked up to me at one of our EAA Chapter meetings and
said, "Are you Montblack?"

http://www.ionaircraft.com/
Check out the links.

He's building the prototype at our local airport - ANE (Anoka County-Blaine
Airport, MN)

The plane is really coming along. Very cool design. The craftsmanship is
outstanding: attention to details, material choices, innovative ideas, etc.

It's fun seeing what all goes into getting one of these prototypes into the
air ...later this spring is my guess.


Montblack
Steve reads r.a.h ...whenever he can steal a spare minute of two. g

Montblack wrote:

It's fun seeing what all goes into getting one of these prototypes into the
air ...later this spring is my guess.


Any pics on the net?

Richard Riley wrote:
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:06:43 -0600, "Montblack"
wrote:

I always have fun when I bop in and talk with Steve, of ION aircraft. He's
bursting with enthusiasm, ...and airplane knowledge (history AND
engineering). He walked up to me at one of our EAA Chapter meetings and
said, "Are you Montblack?"

http://www.ionaircraft.com/
Check out the links.

He's building the prototype at our local airport - ANE (Anoka County-Blaine
Airport, MN)

The plane is really coming along. Very cool design. The craftsmanship is
outstanding: attention to details, material choices, innovative ideas, etc.

It's fun seeing what all goes into getting one of these prototypes into the
air ...later this spring is my guess.


Montblack
Steve reads r.a.h ...whenever he can steal a spare minute of two. g

Yeah, I talked to Steve a bunch when he was starting out with nothing
but the dust left behind by Dreamwings. It is pretty, and I
absolutely admire Steve's resolve, hard work and craftsmanship. It
looks like it will do what Steve says it will do, and in the homebuilt
world that's about as high a complement as one can give.

I have my doubts as to whether it can "succeed" in the open market. It
suffers from a common syndrome in homebuilts - doodler's disease. You
draw a shape that just looks cool, then you try to make it fly a
reasonable mission. You end up compromising your cool sketch, and get
performance that's adequate.

OTOH, his mission IS building something cool and sexy, something that
satisfies the former Dreamwings builders and actually flies. So he
may achieve "success" in those terms even if it's slower, more
expensive and takes longer to build than a (fill in the blank).

Richard Riley wrote:
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:06:43 -0600, "Montblack"
wrote:

I always have fun when I bop in and talk with Steve, of ION aircraft. He's
bursting with enthusiasm, ...and airplane knowledge (history AND
engineering). He walked up to me at one of our EAA Chapter meetings and
said, "Are you Montblack?"

http://www.ionaircraft.com/
Check out the links.

He's building the prototype at our local airport - ANE (Anoka County-Blaine
Airport, MN)

The plane is really coming along. Very cool design. The craftsmanship is
outstanding: attention to details, material choices, innovative ideas, etc.

It's fun seeing what all goes into getting one of these prototypes into the
air ...later this spring is my guess.


Montblack
Steve reads r.a.h ...whenever he can steal a spare minute of two. g

Yeah, I talked to Steve a bunch when he was starting out with nothing
but the dust left behind by Dreamwings. It is pretty, and I
absolutely admire Steve's resolve, hard work and craftsmanship. It
looks like it will do what Steve says it will do, and in the homebuilt
world that's about as high a complement as one can give.

I have my doubts as to whether it can "succeed" in the open market. It
suffers from a common syndrome in homebuilts - doodler's disease. You
draw a shape that just looks cool, then you try to make it fly a
reasonable mission. You end up compromising your cool sketch, and get
performance that's adequate.

OTOH, his mission IS building something cool and sexy, something that
satisfies the former Dreamwings builders and actually flies. So he
may achieve "success" in those terms even if it's slower, more
expensive and takes longer to build than a (fill in the blank).

Hello,

Actually, the aerowork on the Ion was rather extensive for an aircraft
in the sport category. CFD was performed by AMI (Analytical Methods
Inc. - same folks that solve Boeing, Raytheon, etc. problems ......
there client list goes on and on). Moreover, the aircraft was designed
structural and system wise to reduce building hours. As always, a
prototype takes far longer to build as compared to a production
version, so I would not judge the build time by the time required to
build the prototype.

David J. Fawcett
AirBoss Aerospace, Inc.

PS ...... AirBoss designed the aircraft

("Richard Riley" wrote)
Yes, it looks sexy, and that may be what it needs to sell - after all, it
sold plently of Dreamwings airplanes and looks was ALL they had.


I think Steve might know where the (yes it flew) DreamWings airplane is - in
storage. Just a guess.

http://www.darcorp.com/Consulting/Consulting_Projects/
"New design of an all composite two person kit airplane for DreamWings"

http://www.ultralightnews.com/airv98...e_valkyrie.htm
DreamWings Valkyrie (1998)

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/au...amwings_dives/
DreamWings goes under (2001) ...enter Steve.

Unlike the DreamWings plane...

The iON 100:
1. Is NOT a canard
2. Is a T-tail(s)
3. Has a bigger engine - Jabiru 3300
4. Is a low wing, NOT a mid wing
5. Has aluminum wings, outboard the booms
6. Was "specifically" engeneered for quicker build times
7. Has realistic performance figures...


Montblack

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 03:42:56 -0800, DABEAR wrote:


Montblack wrote:

It's fun seeing what all goes into getting one of these prototypes into the
air ...later this spring is my guess.


Any pics on the net?
The OP had the link to their site with pictures.


http://www.ionaircraft.com/

On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:04:44 -0800, Richard Riley
wrote:

He might. I don't think it would help him, though. The original
DreamWings plane is one of the worst example of doodler's disease the
world has ever seen - at least as bad as the BD5, even worse than
"Discovery." OK, maybe not as bad as the "Christmas Bullet."

Don't think I'd class the Bullet as an example of "Doodler's Disease"... ol' Doc
Christmas didn't know enough about aviation to doodle but had tons of public
relations moxie. I'd reckon the Bullet as an example of "Moller Malady"... :-)

Ron Wanttaja

Missed that link completely...thanks! Goregeous aircraft...

The Prescott Pusher is another classic example of Doodler's, but not
as bad as the DreamWings. Avteck, Omac, Jetcruzer, Starship - hmmm. I
sense a pattern developing here...

How about the Anderson-Greenwood? See:
http://www.eaa231.org/miscellaneous/what/AG14.jpg

Nice design, but AFAIK never made it into production.

David Johnson

("Richard Riley" wrote)
Does anyone know what this is?


http://www.balancemasters.com/ultralights.html

Korean kit plane?

Dragonfly?

I was going through some old issues of SportPilot at our Chapter Hangar a
few months ago and read a small blurb on a Koream kit plane. It looked like
the one in your link.

Off to Google to hunt down the correct name... many attempts have failed me,
thus far.


Montbwack
"What was that? This is not a chawade. We need total concen****ion."
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)