Tomas Salvo

The story of building Reaper, my 500 mph RC airplane (part 2) By late April the plane was built: > carbon skins laid up from CNC-cut molds > waterjet-cut internal rib structure > 250N turbojet characterized with custom inlet and nozzle > 30ft catapult tested with a 3d printed dummy (it fell over so changes were made before the maiden) One problem left: nowhere to fly it. You can't test a 500mph jet at Piedmont Park. So I spent an entire afternoon cold calling farmers until one said yes, 3 hours south of Atlanta. His only condition: his wife and kids got to come watch. Test day 1: we drove down, set up, and then the rain and fog rolled in. The FPV camera kept fogging over. I made the tough call to pack the plane up untouched and drive 3 hours home. Test day 2 was the sunday before final exams, the last possible window of the semester. We spent an hour setting up the launch rail, and right as we were about to fly I reached for my controller. It was sitting at home. 3 hours away. My roommate Luca grabbed it and met me halfway. We got one flight in, right before sunset. Reaper hit 600 km/h (370 mph) on its maiden. If we hadn't flown that day, the plane would've sat in my apartment all summer. Sometimes the hardest part of engineering isn't the engineering. More soon.