Lotus Aero Ventures? The Lost Sky Roads Of Hethel.

I don’t think that many of Proton senior management today even knows that Lotus was at one time an aircraft manufacturer. Let’s not talk scale yet, let’s not talk sales yet; let’s just focus on plain and simple chronological fact that Lotus was once an aircraft maker.

But that was never revived again after the passing of Lotus founder, the late Colin Chapman. When Danny Bahar came to Lotus from Ferrari, many were waiting to see how much of Ferrari would follows and I shall leave that at that really.

Chapman aero vision was all ancient history and ignored, and by now; a forgotten near shipwreck relic status, some 2,020 feet deep under the waters of Shah Alam Proton politics. Even the rusted and unsalvageable Titanic gets recounted more and gets more media space than the Lotus Model/Type 91ML that has great future potentials in the light of Honda Jet.

These days, the world has become globalized. It would means that the Ratification to the UN Charter of 1945 has been brought about more, a lot closer to reality than just dusting lines in old scribes. In America you would commonly see farmers and businessmen piloting themselves in their own light aircraft, making their way from airport to airports, airfields to airfields, in the cause of conducting their daily business affair. A farmer in Arizona could push off in his single engine Cessna 172 for Los Angeles in order to catch that 10 AM meeting with the Fresh Farm Producer Exporters of California, then by 12 noon, the same farmer who holds a valid PPL (instrument rated) would be swinging by Utah for a meeting with his construction crew who has been entrusted with building that new City Hall Building in Salt Lake City (yes the farmer dabbles in about every aspect of the economy for income). Then on his way back to the Utah St. George Municipal Airport he would stop by the fresh produce store for some pasta, and oregano powder (that’s what the missus had asked him to get on his way home), and a bouquet of fresh red roses to surprise his lady who’s waiting at home some 500 miles away. By 5 PM the same farmer was already throttling his faithful Cessna 172 and catching the down-wind drift for a landing on his private airfield just 5 minutes walk from the kitchen door.

Some 2 years later we visit the same farmer again. This time there’s a stretch Lincoln in front of his door at sunbreak with a chauffer who would drive him to the Benson Airport that specializes in the handlings of private jets. This time we see the farmer making his way to a Cessna Citation Jet II that’s going to take him for a meeting in Washington DC with the US Senate Agricultural Committee. Then by 2 PM he would have to make that appointment in Kentucky with the Builders Association there and on his way back to the airport he should stop by for some fresh Pecan pie the wife had been craving for. Cruise at FL410 and in just 2 hours and 45 minutes later; he was again back in Arizona. All in a day’s work for the hard working farmer who had miraculously sailed above the 2008 US sub prime crisis unscathed and who had voted for the other guy in the 2008 Presidential run.

Was that the origin of globalization? Maybe... but some say a lot earlier, and then some even say that it was in the 90’s, but undeniably, in its proper and successful definition; that’s what globalization should do for us. We need technology and ability to conquer globalization. Or else it shall conquer us.

The late Colin Chapman was an avid flier. He was a certified PPL holder and Chapman believed that Lotus composites lightweight technology could be applied to build an aircraft that could still qualify for ultra-light ratings and rules would be cheap and easy to fly, and be very attractively priced to buyers. We may not have the economic scale of the Americas, but we have Asia and Australasia to build on. Then we also have the Indian continent and the Chinese waving to us as well. In China they have about 390 million mobile phone subscribers, and this is expected to touch 600 million in the next 5 year frame. In India the number was 5.5 million in year 2000, but shot up to 55 million in 2008 and by 2050 India’s population has been expected to touch 1.6 billion. But China too won’t be outdone that easy, they are expecting to produce more skilled workers to the tune of 220 million strong by about the same time too. Let the numbers tell you something. I say pass me the Chapatti and then the Chicken Rice too!

Now imagine what we can do with aero mobility in this frame of Asian and the nearing expanding economic civilizations? As I have said before, to conquer anything, we need technology and knowledge. We need ability and might, we need wings and winds!

In 1982 Lotus visionary founder Colin Chapman had then commissioned Burt & Susan Rutan of Mojave Desert, California to design a new type of reverse swept-wing micro-light to be built based on composites for maximum efficiency and value. Burt and Susan Rutan had earlier designed the “Rutan Voyager”, which the husband and wife team had flown around the world non-stop in 1981.

By the month of December of 1982 the Bert Rutan designed prototype N97ML, which was built by Scaled Composites Inc. USA, arrived at the Group Lotus airfield at Hethel in Norfolk. The first flight was schedule on the 17 of December 1982, but the hard working Colin Chapman was finally called home to eternal resting at the age of 54 a day before that.

But prototype Trials continued with a little Italian KFM 109 ER two- stroke 23HP engine, but it never went any further than after a 25HP engine trial after that.

However, there was another Colin Chapman design that was penned by the man himself, and that very design had proved to be perhaps the ultimate end product of Chapman aero vision for Lotus. It was of a “side by side” seating configuration for a two seater with an enclosed glass cockpit, retractable wheels, T-Tail and it was jet powered and it was called the Lotus Model/Type 91 ML, and it was planned to be marketed in Britain by Lotus.

I have included the drawing below. The one in the middle is authentic; the ones at the bottom and top had been Photoshop.

I am writing this fresh from the perspective of Honda Jet. What’s next? The Hindu Jet? What about the Lotus Jet? Well, you have the composite and the cash (just print more), so why not make something airworthy out of all that in memory of Chapman, and more importantly in honoring the incoming borderless and fierce; the all occupying, globalized era of humanity’s next phase: globalized capitalism in its full lust.

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