About Semper Apollo
Semper Apollo began as an aviation videography venture and eventually became a perfect vehicle (punintentional) for the aerospace designs and concepts that I had been working on for over 15 years. As a pilot who doesn’t fly often enough to get rid of my engineering tendencies, I’m constantly looking at how things can be different. Many ideas will never be listed here since 3 minutes and a calculator can get rid of a lot of bad ideas before they gain momentum. However, there are plenty of other ideas which have the potential in theory or in practice to make aviation safer, more fun (is that even possible?) and more accessible to the public.
A word of caution should be issued at this point. I have a complete and utter disregard for how an airplane should look. Many of you will wonder how I didn’t stab myself with a T-square by this point. But my mind works towards what an operator wants it to do and how it can be cared for without excessive labor. A lot of wonderful airplanes are real PITAs to work on, which ultimately drives up the ownership cost. Calculations and comparisons with existing aircraft are included where possible. No, I don’t use ridiculously low estimates for empty weight or jet engines with the fuel flow of a moped. That type of wishful designing has done more harm to GA than good as unwitting investors and a spellbound public waited for superplanes that never were to be. For at least the next 5 years, there won’t be any jets carrying 6 people at FL590 and Mach 0.98 while burning 150pounds per hour. Maybe by then someone will figure out how to make electromagnetoaerodynamic hpyerdrive turbine engines.
As for maneuvers and procedures, anything that has been labeled “Tested” is one that I have flown personally and had data recorded on. All tests are first flown on a simulator (X-Plane 9.4) before being flown in a real aircraft both for a control and to be familiar with what to expect. When possible I’ll mount a video camera in the aircraft to show the results. At the risk of being disappointing, none of the tests are particularly exciting. No spinning horizons, floating pencils or g-force induced grunting. And nobody hands me a stick of Beemans gum before the flight either. Most of what is being researched are slight modifications to standard procedures such as the 3 degree glideslope and methods for increasing safety margins in various phases of flight. You’ll see my safety pilot and I alternating between writing a lot of stuff down and sitting quite boringly in one spot with not a bit of high speed buffet.
I welcome anyone, pilot or not to write in questions, queries, complaints and wishlists. Sorry but I can’t do anything about the TSA body scanners. That’s just one more reason to fly GA!
