Impossible Aerospace - Lead Mechanical Engineer
Oct 2017 - Present
Leaving my job at Tesla, was one of the hardest decisions I made in my life. I firmly believe, that only companies like Impossible Aerospace can solve the issue of growing emissions caused by air traffic and enable affordable air transportation for everyone on the planet. It has been an amazing journey and I was able to grow into a successful team leader.
Please note: I am only able to share very limited and mostly public information about my work due to non-disclosure agreements with my employer. Please reach out if more specific information on a certain topic are required.
Instead of jumping straight to building a large passenger aircraft, we started by creating a sustainable business with a small team, a groundbreaking product, and a more favorable regulatory environment.
The Product
The Impossible US-1 is an 8kg, 1.2kWh drone, initially meant for first responders. Ultimately, the platform with up to 2hrs flight time on a single charge, will break into many markets, like organ delivery, aerial mapping and gas leak detection. Industry standard flight times are below 30min.
The US-1 helping to fight a fire in Santa Clara, California.
Our initial public safety customers love the product and our factory in California is working hard to keep up with orders.
The Team (early 2019)
My Contributions
Developed the airframe using battery cells as structural members, achieving 70% battery mass fraction enabling 2hrs flight time
Designed all other mechanical parts, incl. avionics integration, landing gear, payload interface, lightweight enclosure
Defined and executed product reliability testing incl. UN/UL battery safety
Interfaced with electrical/software engineers and worked with sales/customer relations team to define and iterate product specification and scope
Performed modal/vibration analysis and testing as well as remedy design
Developed and validated composite material to battery cell epoxy joint, as key to structural battery
Designed electromagnetic layout and mechanical parts/assembly of in-house brushless DC motors
Designed and built electric motor dynamometer to measure motor efficiency and performance
Integrated variety of sensors, using a National Instruments data acquisition system to collect data
Further Contributions:
Design of prototype and series production components:
Injection molded, 3D printed, vacuum formed plastic, machined aluminum/steel, 2D composite parts, rubber seals
Set-up and administration of CAD and PLM system, incl. part numbering, release and change management
Purchase, set-up and use of: CNC router, thermoforming machine, vertical mill, other machine shop equipment
Actively contributed to Series A funding process, e.g. co-authored white paper on company’s vision for electric passenger aviation, resulting in Airbus Ventures investment
Contributed to staffing strategy, growing company from 5 to 30 people
Planned and layed-out a 110 square meter R&D and prototyping shop in new facility
After moving out of our garage, into the new production and engineering facility, I took the liberty to modify our old door.