What ever happened to the Tanto project

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Greetings from the USA
Sorry I do not speak German but I was wondering what ever became of the TUM academic speed endeavor "Tanto"? I know it had issues in 2013 but was to return to try again. What ever came of this?

http://www.akamodell.vo.tum.de/projekte/am13/index.htm

It is interesting to me because I like to see what academia's take is on these things.
 
First I have to say that I was never involved in the Tanto project since it was before my time in the AkaModell. But I spoke to some of the people who were involved, so I might still be able to give you an adequate answer.

There were multiple reasons why the Tanto-project was never as succesfull as intended.

The first problem were the batteries itself, which were located inside the wing. Due to the very long battery cables, there was a lot of resistance and powerloss on the way towards the speed controller. Additionally, the batteries expanded while being under heavy load which led to a deformation of the wing surface.

Coming to the second problem: the wing itself. Since the wing airfoil was designed as a laminar flow airfoil, the surface quality plays an important role. As already mentioned, because of the expanding batteries the surface was already deforming which led to more aerodynamic drag. Additionally, the wings were built out of negative molds which were milled in Ureol. The material which was used had not visible porosity in its surface. As a consequence the built wings had a rough surface which disturbed the laminar flow and increased drag.

Because of the increased drag and the resistance losses in the cables the optimum flightspeed couldn‘t be reached.
All these problems could be solved with existing technology: speed lipo-batteries are available now (which can take much higher currents) and the wing could be painted with clear cote and polished.

Since the Tanto was designed for the F3S rules of 2014 (as far as i rember correctly), it is also questionale wether the airplane would still fit the changed rules and wether its design point is still suitable.

Sadly the motivation of the team decreased after the failed atempts to reach 500 km/h and the project is on a hold since 2015.
Furthermore, our pilots who are capable of flying an airplane over 500 km/h have either quit their active time at the AkaModell or have very limited time because of their jobs or ongoing studies.

I hope this answers your question. If you have more questions about the project feel free to ask or PM me.

Greetings

Maxi
 

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Thank you Maxi,
I'm glad you answered. I was beginning to think this was a highly classified stealth bomber I was asking about and just assumed I'd give up my query versus pushing harder. It's very unfortunate what has happened. I love to see knowledge at work. Certainly you all have that. I truly hope the team can give the project another go and see where it goes. There are some ideas like batteries in wings that may play a role in further development. Just a thought to myself as I'm certainly no expert on airframes wings or just planes in general but I do understand the basic concept. I remember as a child around 6 or 7 years old my cousin and I would build gliders from Macdonald's food restaurant packaging. We used the foam container the burgers came in to make our wings and the straws were our airframes. We had swept wings and had enough insight as kids to lengthen the straw airframes till the cg was right for significant duration of smooth and level flight. Admittedly my cousin simply loves airplanes and is literally a genius in just about anything but is very introverted. He honestly finished first of the class at his university in the RTP area of North Carolina. I wonder sometimes what he could truly achieve if he wasn't so in his own private world. Because of his sheer knowledge about airplanes and time logged in flight simulators I'd choose him as my Pilot. We both thought we would be AE's but he is an Artist and educator and I am an EE. Wow do plans change. You may be asking what's the point of this story? Well it's truly to make everyone feel comfortable here as my human questions are not loaded in any way. I'm truly interested in the technical things that make good speed planes. I am an EE , hold diplomas in CAD/CAM and am also a certified CNC and manual machinist. I'm a fairly fast learner so I thought learning about the ground up development of this project plane I may actually learn something of how to make my own. Please don't be upset if I take you up on your offer and ask you more in private. This doesn't mean if someone else chooses to share here openly It would be objectionable but I will not ask for it here.

Thank You for your time and patience.
Hubert
 
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