What kind of wind turbine is this?

Hi Mitch,
For some reason I'm not getting alerted via email of postings, so I'm glad I happened to stumble upon your posting.  Dave did copy me on his response to your email.

Your project in Maine sounds fascinating, so congratulations.  Not to repeat what Dave told you, I'm really hoping we can work together into the future on projects of mutual interest like this.  We have found that peoples' visceral reaction to the tilt rotor turbine is quite profound when they encounter it for the first time.  I don't know exactly how to explain it, except that it has a sort of presence about it "in person" that doesn't necessarily come across in pictures & videos.  I'm sure you'd enjoy working with the machines. I'm confident the quietness and aesthetics of the turbine will fit the kind of quality plans you have in mind.

We're finishing up the CNC parts for a run of 10 production/Beta site units, which we hope to start installing in January, after evaluating a number of sites near enough to establish a "Pony Express" route for gathering test data.  The current run is also allowing us to capture the true build costs for the unit, which in turn will dictate what we can sell them for.  We've decided to build 100% of the unit here in the U.S., even though we could make a lot more money by having some of the components manufactured in China.  Currently it's looking like the Beta Site units are going to sell for around $5800, but this is UNOFFICIAL.

We plan to go into full production sometime in 1Q09, and will probably be building about 100 units per quarter, depending on demand.  Right now we have approximately 150 requests for the 10 Beta units, but until we actually start qualifying individual sites, there's no way to know how many of those are for real.

I hope you don't have to go back to Iraq, but thanks for serving.  I was an Army crewchief on a DeHavilland Otter, and some of my adventures in Viet Nam have found their way onto the internet.  No telling what the situation in Iraq will be by 2010.  Things seem to be changing pretty fast.  Perhaps in the long run the impact of your work at Wolfe Neck's Farm may be just as important for making our country more secure.

Thanks again for your interest,
Bruce