What little I've seen from the budget reports is extreme. Due to the secrecy involved, it's impossible to tell if Peregrineworks is profitable or a drain on company resources. Something is keeping operations funded here, so I'm going to say that Peregrineworks is beneficial. I could be wrong, but if DARPA can do it, so can we.
You should already be familiar with the first semi-released project from Peregrineworks which is twin turbocharged Fred, our shop peregrine falcon. We are still undergoing final development work on Fred to get him ready to set some speed records. Fred should be smashing through sound barriers by the end of this calendar year. In the interim, I want to assure all interested parties that we have been working every weekday to make this project successful. Even brilliant engineers need weekend breaks to refocus their brilliance.
We have spent hundreds of development hours running high level simulations using several thousand virtual servers to create the most powerful and robust system possible. Once we figured out that the data indicated the original turbochargers we selected were far too big for Fred to handle, we made some changes. The problem was that the theory was sound, but the turbochargers we used came off of a customer's car after we persuaded him to go normally aspirated by not telling him we took his turbochargers off of his car. We thought we could bolt those on and break some records. It became clear after we had attached the water/water intercoolers that the entire system was too large for Fred. The turbochargers, intercoolers, and all related hardware were miniaturized to a scale comparable to Fred's body size and weight. This alone took considerable effort since we had to first develop a working shrink ray with adjustable shrink levels. The stories I could tell about the testing and development on that. Let me just say that our staff reduction wasn't just because people left.
Once the shrink ray was perfected, we took our customer's turbos down to the proper size for Fred. We saw immediate improvements in Fred's flyability, and even though we hadn't solved the over boost problems, we were confident Fred would be ready for his space trip. Once the simulations indicated that Fred wasn't fit enough to handle the g-forces he was going to be experiencing on re-entry, we developed his carbon fiber full body wing suit. One area we neglected was his tail. The suit did not have provisions for articulating his tail during the complex maneuvers that are part of his normal flight routine.
This was an embarrassing oversight because his tail is kind of important. We would not have made this mistake if Fred had mentioned that in the first place. We are still working out solutions for his tail and implementing some form of adjustable air brake. AcMo can't take all of the credit for Fred's development though. We did use an outside firm for engine management and tuning protocols. While Fred's brain is small it is far more complicated than we suspected. It took a dedicated team months to crack his operating system in order to adapt his brain to operating twin turbochargers.*
We have spent hundreds of development hours running high level simulations using several thousand virtual servers to create the most powerful and robust system possible. Once we figured out that the data indicated the original turbochargers we selected were far too big for Fred to handle, we made some changes. The problem was that the theory was sound, but the turbochargers we used came off of a customer's car after we persuaded him to go normally aspirated by not telling him we took his turbochargers off of his car. We thought we could bolt those on and break some records. It became clear after we had attached the water/water intercoolers that the entire system was too large for Fred. The turbochargers, intercoolers, and all related hardware were miniaturized to a scale comparable to Fred's body size and weight. This alone took considerable effort since we had to first develop a working shrink ray with adjustable shrink levels. The stories I could tell about the testing and development on that. Let me just say that our staff reduction wasn't just because people left.
Once the shrink ray was perfected, we took our customer's turbos down to the proper size for Fred. We saw immediate improvements in Fred's flyability, and even though we hadn't solved the over boost problems, we were confident Fred would be ready for his space trip. Once the simulations indicated that Fred wasn't fit enough to handle the g-forces he was going to be experiencing on re-entry, we developed his carbon fiber full body wing suit. One area we neglected was his tail. The suit did not have provisions for articulating his tail during the complex maneuvers that are part of his normal flight routine.
This was an embarrassing oversight because his tail is kind of important. We would not have made this mistake if Fred had mentioned that in the first place. We are still working out solutions for his tail and implementing some form of adjustable air brake. AcMo can't take all of the credit for Fred's development though. We did use an outside firm for engine management and tuning protocols. While Fred's brain is small it is far more complicated than we suspected. It took a dedicated team months to crack his operating system in order to adapt his brain to operating twin turbochargers.*
Now that Fred has had a taste of turbocharged speed, he will never go back to stock again. Soon we will have a fleet of twin turbocharged peregrine falcons who will be trained to knock Amazon delivery drones out of the sky. We will also be developing machines to catch said packages as they fall. We may or may not return the property to Amazon, or we might deliver them ourselves and take over Amazon's entire delivery business. We'll make that call closer to go time.
In the coming months, there will be more announcements of new innovations from AcMo Peregrineworks. Assume that for every five of those, there are at least ten more that we can't discuss due to clearance issues. We never stop innovating at AcMo, and the existence of Peregrineworks is an example of our commitment to innovation at work. As long as the budget exists, we will spend it.
*Fred still hasn't finished a successful test flight to date. All simulations show that everything works as it should, so in our minds, the project has been a total success.
*Fred still hasn't finished a successful test flight to date. All simulations show that everything works as it should, so in our minds, the project has been a total success.
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