Happy New Year! It's hard to believe it's already 2020!

This past December we continued making progress on the aircraft systems including the engine mount, rudder pedals, brake system, and a few control system components. We also installed heating elements on the inside of our revised canopy mold and performed a number of tests to finalize the arrangement of these.

Engine Mount Machining and Assembly
The machining and assembly of the engine mount is now complete. We were pleased with how the mount fit to the firewall, and everything lined up as planned. A number of comments and questions were raised on social media regarding the design. We thought it would be good to provide some background and context on our design approach.

The original engine mount design was conceived as a welded, tubular steel structure. In CAD, this worked well for mounting the engine but it proved difficult to incorporate a nose gear mounting structure. Additionally, the tubular steel design fell short when considering the aspects of manufacturability and repeatability. It required tube cutting, an assembly fixture, and dedicated welding equipment. Welding also brings with it, its own host of challenges for accuracy and weld quality and consistency. Each part and system we design needs to meet a set of core functional requirements and also perform in the context of cost, weight, quality, and manufacturability. We are happy with our new design as it fits all these requirements. In addition to completing the engine mount, we also machined out another mock firewall which will be used for drop testing of the engine mount and nose gear. For January, we will be working on the drop test rig, and machining of the nose gear components.

Brake System Component Installation
The brake system is coming together as we finalized the position and geometry of the brake system components and started installing the various pieces of hardware and hydraulic lines. In parallel we have been documenting everything about the installation process to make sure it is clear to builders. The brake system on the DarkAero 1 is a bit different than what is found on standard configuration aircraft because its operation is tied in with the split rudder system. The first 80% of rudder pedal travel actuates the rudders only and the last 20% of rudder pedal travel engages the brakes as well. This is similar to the function of the rudders and brakes found in canard-style aircraft such as the VariEze, Long-EZ, and Cozy which also employ a combined rudder and brake function.

Rudder Pedal Fabrication and Carbon Tube Connector Development
The rudder pedals for the DarkAero 1 are made from an assembly of carbon fiber tubes. Our initial design employed welded steel tubes but we found we could shave a few pounds of weight by moving to a carbon fiber tube design. The new design required some development work to bring it from a concept to reality. Two of the main development details include the construction of the connectors for the carbon fiber tubes and the bearing blocks that the tubes interface with.  

The tube connectors are manufactured by molding randomized carbon fiber into the external shape of the connector and then the inner bores are machined. In December we machined the tube connector mold and molded the first set of connectors. In January we plan to machine the inner bores and assemble them with the carbon fiber rudder pedal tubes. 

The bearing blocks that will allow the rudder pedal tubes to pivot are machined from Delrin. We initially planned to make the bearing block fabrication a task for builders but we found that they were difficult for the average builder to make to the required level of precision using simple tools. For production we are planning to make the bearing blocks and ship them complete in the kit. We tried a few different methods for manufacturing these bearing blocks and arrived at a final process we believe will be suitable for production.

Canopy Mold Progress
After completing construction on our revised canopy mold in November, we moved on to the installation of internal heating elements for this mold. Heating the mold is critical to achieving a high quality canopy form by lowering the temperature gradient between the canopy plastic and the mold prior to forming. The internal heating elements consist of strips of nichrome wire that are bonded in using a high temperature epoxy. We performed a set of experiments on a small section of the mold to determine the heating arrangement for the rest of the mold as well as what our power requirements will be to heat the entire mold. We will be ready to perform a full form on this mold with these upgrades in January.

Build Instruction Roll Out
We have been working through writing up the build instructions for the DarkAero 1 and also starting to seek feedback on them. As of the end of December we have shared a draft version of part of the build instructions with all of the reservation deposit holders of the DarkAero 1 kit. The feedback we received so far has been extremely valuable for us. One of our goals has been to create an easy and enjoyable build experience and we believe getting early feedback on the build process will help us achieve that goal.

DarkAero Article in Sport Aviation
We are excited to announce that we were recently highlighted in the EAA's January 2020 issue of Sport Aviation. We have been reading Sport Aviation since we were little kids so being featured in this publication is humbling and surreal for us. We'd like to thank Beth Stanton and the EAA for sharing our project with their audience. If you haven't done so yet, please check out the article in print or online!

Year in Review and Year Ahead
As we head into 2020, we wanted to highlight what we accomplished in 2019 and review the goals we have for the coming year. In 2019 we:
-Completed construction on all production molds
-Completed construction on the airframe of the DarkAero 1 prototype
-Increased our total reservation deposit count to 16 kits
-Advanced to the final round of the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Competition
-Featured by the EAA in their Innovation Showcase at AirVenture 2019
-Brought our first intern onboard
-Identified several potential locations to move into for kit production

We also grew our audience considerably through various online and social media channels this year. Stats for this growth included:

Instagram: grew 448% from 590 to 3237 followers
YouTube: grew 716% from 108 to 881 subscribers
Facebook: grew 280% from 250 to 950 page likes
Email List: grew 245% from 247 to 853 subscribers

We'd like to thank everyone that has joined in to follow along with us and we hope you will stick with us on our journey.

We are proud of the progress we made in 2019 and are looking forward to what is yet to come in 2020. Things are looking to get very exciting at DarkAero! We are working to complete final assembly of the DarkAero 1 prototype and begin flight testing before the end of spring. Following this, we will be moving into a larger production facility in order to begin construction on the first several kits for customers. Production demand will require that we bring more team members onboard as we grow our output. We are excited to have built DarkAero to this point and can't wait to soar into the future.