News & Progress

This week so far we have assembled the rear wheel carriers, brakes and hub. The custom steering box is being fabricated to provide a strong steering mechanism for the single front wheel. Typical two wheel steering systems were inadequate for what we required, so we fabricated our own. When we get into full production, the …

Work has continued on the front suspension, with the assembly shown here being VERY light – saving us nearly six pounds by using racing quality parts. This is the brake and wheel bearing assembled onto the spindle shown last week. So far we have shed six pounds without sacrificing anything on performance. We are having …

Thought you might want to see our first completed part for the Switchblade prototype. This is the spindle for the front wheel. The wheel is mounted to this, and the spindle is mounted to the front suspension arm. The brakes have been ordered, and should be here early next week. We went to the off-road …

Our structural engineer was sent seven sheets of drawings yesterday showing details of the various components of the Switchblade, and how they relate. It is amazing how much detail is in a vehicle such as this. Normally, you have a wing, a tail, and a body in any aircraft. In the Switchblade, the wings swing …

Pictured from left to right: model builder Joe Marine, RC pilot Tom Richardi & designer Sam Bousfield We have wrapped up our flight testing with the quarter-scale prototype, having achieved 90% of our test flight objectives for this prototype. There remains more work to prepare the model as an R/C model kit, which will be …

We made some good progress with the tail mods. Joe Marine at Race Pro Engineering has the tail vertical pieces being joined, and fitted with the rudder actuation mechanism in the shot below. This is prior to trimming the excess away around the edges. For scale models, this technique works. Won’t work for the full-scale! …

We thought we should post a few pictures of our experience at AirVenture 2012 so that people who did not attend could gain a sense of the excitement generated by the Switchblade. Samson Motors CEO Sam Bousfield giving a talk “Switchblade Flying Car Production” to a packed house of over 100 people. Sam Bousfield speaking …

Changing the cg helped quite a bit, and we continued to change it to get closer to acceptable cg during testing today. The tail now has functioning rudders (not available the first day). The rudders also helped make testing easier and more fruitful. Rudder control and steering by the nose-wheel was uneventful – just what …

The 1/4 scale prototype has been completed and initial flight testing started. The pictures below are of the completed prototype being taken to our “secret test facility”. We did not paint the vehicle for the first few hours of testing Saturday evening. There was ample thrust once the battery solution was perfected. The electric motor/prop/battery …