Monty Roberts wrote:

Paul,

I haven't had much time to read or reply to the newsletter lately because of my never-ending
housing project. Much of which was designed in Rhino. I designed a composite roof structure of
wooden beams, cables and steel trusses to make the existing column supported roof self supporting.
I sent the DXF files for the metal plates to a local metal fab shop with a water jet machine and
picked them up a week later. They fit perfectly and were easy to weld up. It really beat the hell
out of cutting them all out of plate with a torch, grinding them smooth and dealing with all the
associated fitment problems. All of this got me to thinking.....

It is really great to see you guys adopting these new technologies. It really is a new age, its
just that nobody knows it yet. Just ten years ago the thought of all of these rotary enthusiasts
from all over the country (world?) collaborating and sharing ideas based on common interest was
unthinkable. Let alone collaborative design efforts and the ability to rapidly produce prototypes
and real hardware from computer based models. Online collaborative design efforts and
decentralized product development are already a reality in my world. It is now trickling down to
the garage of the gear heads of the world. HOW EXCITING!

Acre is an organization dedicated to the development of an affordable GA engine. Something the
bureaurats at NASA have been struggling to do for decades while spending supertankers full of our
hard earned cash. ACRE is privately funded and staffed by individuals who stand to benefit
directly from this effort. They have a vested interest in keeping operational, development, and
production costs low. Profit is the motive but in a different way than more money for the
shareholders. Not profit at the expense of the employees and customers. Profit in the form of a
useable, affordable product for the individuals involved. The wonderful thing about these profits
are they are in the form of cost savings. Last time I checked it is impossible to tax a savings
(you could argue that there would be extra profit to be taxed, but since most of us spend after
tax money on our projects this is irrelevant) Better yet there are no assets for the predatory
lawyer types to attack. No expensive liability insurance needs to be added to the cost of the
products. All developments are also published and in the public domain, thereby thwarting attempts
of someone to patent and control the market and price. It also bypasses the massive expense of
patent filing, litigation, etc. While Lyconental et al are trembling under a rock afraid to do
anything new for fear of litigation. We are forging ahead, because it is in our collective best
interest. In short, massive gains in efficiency are realized by cutting out a lot of parasitic
capital drains that occur with any commercial enterprise. And we and society benefit collectively.

3D modeling, rapid prototyping and CNC technologies WILL and already have revolutionized the
manufacturing sector. However, I am still amazed at the number of household names in consumer
products who have yet to adopt these technologies. Believe it or not some of them still use 2D and
do not use rapid prototyping to verify designs before tooling is made. So rest assured you are way
ahead of the pack by using these technologies. Hats off to everyone involved. Paul, I don't know
how you have the energy to keep up with this news letter, but I for one am grateful that you do.

Now if someone could just produce a decent, affordable, finite element package, and if we had a
CFD expert on this list................

Monty

Thanks Monty. Sometimes I feel under appreciated :-)
Here is the first half of the first of four core box patterns for the new intake
manifold. There will be eight parts like this. This will be cast in aluminum and 
polished. The thin end will be fixed by gluing on a piece of high density foam.
I fixed the drawing in the next mating part that is in the machine as we speak.
 
Paul Lamar
 
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