Interview with Soma Varga
Interview about Orca eVTOL Emergency Medical Aircraft Design Interview
Designer Interview
8 May 2021
At Orca Aerospace each founding member has a different background in engineering sciences. We cover fields such as aerospace engineering, avionics, or vehicle engineering. The desire to create was always a strong motivating force for us, thus not only follow the technological trends but to create a forward-looking innovation.
Orca Aerospace was founded in 2020 in order to organizationally support the development of the Orca electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Our headquarter is based in the mediterranean city of Pécs in Hungary.
Design is the combination of superior functionality and aesthetics.
We prefer designing aerial vehicles, let them be piloted or remotely piloted architectures. The essence of preliminary aircraft design is to combine different engineering solutions and available technologies into a complex system working together.
It is the British Supermarine Spitfire aircraft for subsonic flight and the F5E fighter aircraft for supersonic flight. The Spitfire was the first serial produced aircraft using elliptical wing layout to achieve the lowest possible induced drag during cruise flight, while the F5E was the first aircraft to use the so-called wasp-waist shape to reduce the drag increase while approaching transonic flight speeds.
For the Orca Aerospace, the Orca eVTOL is the first design. We work on this project for ourselves and not for external customer.
It is the carbon fibre composite because of it's high strength and low weight. Furthermore, it is possible to manufacture complex shapes with it that was not feasible with the duralumin.
With the right project to work on the motivation is continuous.
The main focus is always on the highest achievable performance. To reach this, we have to merge aerodynamics, structural design and subsystem integration.
Excitement when envisioning the final prototype during its first flight.
We will be inexpressibly proud.
For a new and novel aircraft it is finding the barrier between innovation and feasibility or manufacturability.
If it is clear that the design is feasible and the communicated performance measures are realizable.
To provide solutions for problems affecting a wide range of the population.
The future of design is in rapid prototyping and using virtual reality or augmented reality already during the preliminary stage.
It was in Nov.2020 at the General Aviation Conference of the British Royal Aeronautical Society.
We live in Hungary. We are affected more of the international design trends in the aeronautical society. We strive to be an internationally know company in order to reach the broadest possible audience. In Hungary the development costs are significantly lower compared to USA or Germany, but of course since lower number of companies are working here in the aerospace sector, finding suppliers can be more challenging.
First is always gathering engineering studies in the very specific topic we are working on. This is continued in the filtration of different concept and working towards a selected one that best suites the initially specified requirements for the aircraft and its mission. This selected base model is than worked out in detail and is iterated several times. The preliminary design concept is closed with going back and checking if all the requirements are fulfilled perfectly. The next steps can be subscale model manufacturing, simulation file build up, but is always having the concept virtually modelled.
There should never be an end to studying and broadening the knowledge of the filed they are working in.
professional knowledge, creativity, technical skills, perseverance, sense of beauty
Wide variety of aircraft design textbook, from the general rules to the very specific topics as well. We use the classical spreadsheet for calculation and CAD software for visualisation.
The conceptual phase of an aircraft design takes up to a few weeks if the background knowledge is already available. The next stage of conceptual design will be up to a few months while the detailed design is measured in years.
Flight testing of a light sport aircraft and following through the process of aircraft development from design to manufacturing.
Currently we work for ourselves.
Preliminary design of aircraft. We especially enjoy discovering new technical solutions and merging them in a functioning and well performing system.
With our team, we plan to make the Orca eVTOL a reality and build the fully functioning prototype. We plan to have the aircraft ready to enter into service by 2026.
We prefer working in a team.
soma.varga@orca-evtol.com or zsolt.koltai@orca-evtol.com
No additional information.