Cleaning up Melmoth

FLYING Staff

Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 08:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The author details efforts to reduce drag on his homebuilt "Melmoth 2," finding that seemingly minor changes, like closing the nosewheel well, unexpectedly yielded significant performance improvements.
He critically questions the real-world necessity and viability of supersonic business jets, citing socioeconomic concerns, physical limitations (e.g., airframe heating), environmental impacts, and the diminishing returns of saving increasingly small amounts of travel time.
The article also speculates on the long-term future of aviation fuel, anticipating a necessary transition away from avgas and fossil fuels, and even entertains the radical idea that virtual reality could eventually render physical air travel obsolete.

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I have been flying my homebuilt for more than four years now, and have been recording performance points on almost every flight while looking for ways to reduce drag. The homebuilding community is full of stories about huge successes in drag reduction, but I think those guys must be starting with Wilgas. It turns out that if you begin with a fairly clean airplane, it’s not that easy to find ways to make it cleaner.

Mine is a somewhat old-fashioned looking airplane, seating four under a bubble canopy – I like the all-around view – like a Navion or a Meyers. If I wanted to be stylish and up to date, I missed the boat. Though it is built of composites, Melmoth 2 does not have the sweeping curves, artfully blended intersections and gracefully cusped afterbody of a Columbia or a Cirrus. It has a 200 hp engine – a Continental TSIO-360 – which seems pathetically weak compared with the 300-plus horsepower of today’s high-performance cruisers.