Something known since the 1950s, yet hardly acknowledged, is that even though some airplanes fly at very low speeds efficiently, and others fly at very high speeds efficiently, all prior aircraft waste enormous amounts of energy to fly in the mid-subsonic speed range. The present economics of on-demand regional flight are abysmal, and that is why we don’t ‘all have our own airplanes.’

The problem is the way that existing aircraft (don’t fully) deal with aerodynamic drag. Through its comprehensive, patented design, Synergy became the first aircraft to directly attack the hidden issues causing the problem, then simultaneously apply six of the most advanced drag reduction technologies to fix them.

The first key is its distinctive “double boxtail™” wing-becomes-tail configuration. (Similar-looking but inferior “box wing” ideas have been rejected for decades because they’re unstable, structurally vulnerable, and create interference drag. In contrast, Synergy’s DBT configuration provides rock-solid stability and control by reducing the dominant cause of drag at lower speeds and/or higher altitudes, which is called “induced drag”.)

Unlike every boxwing design, the twin horizontal tails -above and behind each wingtip- aren’t ‘wings’ to make more lift. In fact, these control surfaces actually create a downward force most of the time. Putting the right amount of this downward force in the right place above the wingtip reacts against ‘induced drag’ so well that it actually reduces the total drag, a lot like a sailplane reduces its total drag by adding wingspan.  Some think of it like origami: folding up a long wing in 3-D space to achieve stable, high-speed flight while carrying a lot more useful load than a glider.

Synergy’s unique configuration puts the tail on the wings, with many benefits. Getting a tail out of the way shortens the fuselage and makes all the proven high-speed drag reduction technologies (such as laminar flow, pressure thrust, and powered drag reduction) easy to implement. The high “span efficiency” of the configuration helps it reach the speeds over 200 MPH where passive and “active” drag reduction begin providing major efficiency gains, and yet higher speeds. These features in combination allow Synergy to double the speed per HP of General Aviation.

Our turbocharged jet-fuel diesel engine, ballistic parachute, and next-generation, self-flying smartplane electronics are other key technologies to help lower barriers to personally operating an airplane. Future versions accept many options for energy source and powerplant, because the fuselage is accommodating, and Synergy aerodynamics unlock the door to practical electric flight.

Roomy, affordable personal aircraft supply a fundamental need: on-demand mobility for small groups, over regional distances. Neither jets nor cars will get you from random Town A to random Town B in a reasonable time, conveniently. Most species on earth fly, for the simple reason that it is by far the most efficient way to travel.

Synergy brings the right innovations to finally make direct, on-demand regional travel a financially sustainable reality for humans. Operational costs can be expressed as mere pennies per passenger-mile. Thanks to its tiny number of simple, modular parts, the design is able to scale into low cost mass production, and to adapt in its details to accommodate a multitude of priorities, such as different ways of loading and entering its spacious interior.  Many additional designs are in the works, and our future products are even more exciting than the one we are bringing to market first: We call it Synergy Prime.

Our bottom line is that Synergy and its progeny are the future our great-grandparents built 20,000 rural airports for. The irony is that its capabilities reward their foresight with the most daunting business challenge their forgotten industry has seen in decades: extreme demand, but near-zero institutional investment, awareness, or long-term industrial vision.

A billion cars prove the demand for user-operated, unscheduled private transportation. In 2015, auto manufacturers produced an average of 246,000 vehicles PER DAY.  Today, a phenomenal aircraft success story might reach the stunning volume of… one overpriced, impractical vehicle per day…yet orders still backlog into the thousands. And unlike waiting patiently for your Tesla while driving your Toyota, reasonable interim options for the future smartplane buyer are nil.

This latent demand, acquired during half a century of waiting for affordable personal flight to arrive, cannot be met as quickly as mass markets require. Even with Synergy’s ultra-simplified modular design, low cost tooling, and revolutionary process times, the hype cycle of exponential demand will never align to a linear pace of delivery. We are tackling that problem foremost by developing brilliant, scalable methods for low cost mass production and by making the case for massive societal investment in the overlooked opportunity of personal flight.

Positive regulatory progress is already happening swiftly in response to the safety and cost advantages of smart, semi-autonomous technologies for simplified operations in small aircraft. Whereas self driving cars are just emerging, self-flying airplanes have been a reality for decades. (There’s literally an app for that.)

Long before mass production can create any potential for significant numbers of people owning aircraft, new regulations and smartplane (TM) operator requirements being considered reflect an enlightened regulatory awareness of their potential for increased safety. What holds things up right now isn’t the technologies, but rather the airplanes that could use them. When growth begins, most of the work allowing responsible deployment of newly demonstrated and certified capabilities will already have been accomplished.

The vast empty skies can stay that way, too. Actually, “air traffic” is a bit of an oxymoron; a concept related to scheduling huge airliners onto the same patch of urban concrete every few minutes. The narrow, 2-D ribbons of vehicular congestion we drive on the ground also paint a greatly distorted picture. Pilots escaping the traffic prison marvel at the truth, which is that one can fly all day yet never even see the occasional fellow aviator pointed out on his screen, many miles away.

Really, the potential for quiet, roomy, fast, fundamentally efficient personal aircraft is many times beyond typical estimates, in which the above has been far out of reach. With early adoption will come the realization that a mile of old highway can only take you a mile. In Synergy, a half mile of grass strip can take you ANYWHERE.

Many today confuse the relatively tame technological risk of new airplane development with the epic business risks that have led to countless prior failures. We have taken none of those paths, arriving at launch altitude on a sensible course and at a cost that is a small fraction of that already lost by failed contemporaries.

To finally succeed means knowing where things really have been until now and where they are really going. It especially means to not repeat the mistakes of the many who came before. Flexible, adaptive, strategically focused leadership is required. Above all, courage to address the real market and to stop using the customer as a bank while selling them vaporware.

To keep their profound innovations safely headed toward broad adoption, Synergy Aircraft founders continually refine a comprehensive, far reaching plan. To help offset the technology risk, more than a thousand Team Synergy volunteers and financial supporters from around the world united to help John W. McGinnis and his small team build numerous prototype Double Boxtail™ aircraft… starting, naturally, in his father’s garage!

This intentionally ‘grassroots effort’ permitted thousands of engineering challenges to be met without the risks, distractions, or ‘shortcut-itis’ brought by premature business hoopla. New facilities, contracts, licensing, and investment are helping us to continue building that momentum. As garage-level R&D wraps up, we’re searching for the all star team it will take to launch our next secret: the most advanced production scheme yet seen in general aviation.

Now is the time when we gather the resources to transition into a high growth startup company. Now is when we want to hear from those who want to see it happen. Soon, Synergy Aircraft will reveal a team and a scalable production vision of the same caliber as the airplane…and begin working with industry to make history.

It’s been more than a lifetime since aviation captured our collective attention.  It will take a perceptive long-term effort, in well-managed phases, to deliver its true potential. Making it possible in this case is a product concept with the required demand and profitability to reward large scale investment at each level of adoption, and a tenacious, inspiring vision. We invite your interest with appreciation.