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Kitty Hawk Corporation has unveiled its first electric personal recreational aircraft. The Larry Page backed company has showcased a 10 propeller, singe seater electric aircraft to limited audience recently.
The 113 kg aircraft has space for one person and comes with electric motors to give it lift. Currently, the maximum height of the vehicle is capped at 10 feet while the top speed has been restricted to 32 km/h. The Flyer will be controlled with the help of two joysticks. Unlike other aircrafts, leaving these control sticks will not cause the aircraft to fall, but rather it will hover in the same place. The company claims that the process of learning to fly this aircraft is very easy and prospective owners could be flying within 2 hours of getting familiar with the controls.
Kitty Hawk is currently testing the units at a facility in Nevada. Test flights are conducted over a waterbody. As of today, the vehicle does not require any type approval from the aviation authority. A pilot's licence is also not required. While official bookings have not begun, the company website allows interested customers to register their names. The company plans to open bookings for the same by the end of this year. Prices have not yet been revealed.
Source -
The Verge Link to the Team-BHP News
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackwasp
(Post 4413349)
Kitty Hawk Corporation has unveiled its first electric personal recreational aircraft. The Larry Page backed company has showcased a 10 propeller, singe seater electric aircraft to limited audience recently.
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One of my favorite filmmaker and youtuber got a first look at the flying car.
I FLEW THE FIRST FLYING CAR! VISITING THE FLYING CAR SECRET FACILITY!
All Bangalore software engineers who commute to work would now be calculating if 10 feet is enough to safely fly over cabs and autorickshaws.
So it is basically a drone, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by smartcat
(Post 4413356)
So it is basically a drone, right?
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Erm...aren't drones by definition unmanned aerial vehicles (or UAVs)? please:
These need to be completely autonomous if more people are required to use it. Else you can imagine the chaos in the air.
I guess Dubai has already done similar things and we could see drones earlier there.
For now I think these are nothing more than a proof of concept. Once there are proper rules laid down by the authorities, we can see them being used a mode of transport by few people. Don't see this happening over crowded cities as it could be a safety concern as well.
Potential is obviously there. I would love to have this to commute on my way to the office to beat the morning rush, land of the roof and then leave it on a charge till its time to go home. Future iterations could incorporate a driverless element in it (autopilot?), so that the user just has to put in the destination and the aircraft will go there.
Compared to road vehicles, getting autonomous vehicles in the sky, where you won't find cows, pedestrians, dogs, bad roads, people jumping signals etc. would be easier.
This seems exciting but I feel there's a long way to go before these MAVs (Manned Aerial Vehicles) become mainstream.
The first problem to solve would be the airspace/air corridors (longitudinal flight path / vertical separation).
People in residential areas may not want these things flying overhead. And the same may be the concern with having these things flying directly above highways/city roads.
There would need to be an agency that would regulate this mode of transport and also monitor these flying pods.
It's still at a very nascent stage in my opinion. But it's going to be most certainly needed as expansion of road infrastructure has reached a saturation point in many developed cities.
PS: is it just me or does anyone else feel that those exposed rotor blades are rather scary? :eek:
I would personally be quite scared to fly this. I am extremely nervous about heights and I believe there are quite a lot of people like me ( ?? ). Flying inside a commercial jet is different with that cocooned feeling and no reference to the height you are at. But this can be quite scary even at modest heights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackwasp
(Post 4413349)
Kitty Hawk Corporation has unveiled its first electric personal recreational aircraft. The Larry Page backed company has showcased a 10 propeller, singe seater electric aircraft to limited audience recently.
|
Very interesting to see these innovations. Thank you for sharing this. The energy density needed in the fuel for any manned flying object is so high that we will need a quantum break through in battery technology to get to really viable electric flying machines that can do useful work. As a proof of concept this and other experiments are encouraging steps forward. Two aspects which non-aviation may want to know are - (i) a quad rotor or multi-rotor craft is actually the most inefficient way to fly. It is popular with drone makers because of the simplicity of controls, eliminates the complexity of flying surfaces and enables a vertical take-off. That's why we almost never see a chopper with more than two rotors. (ii) In a conventional airplane as you fly longer the aircraft gets lighter due to fuel burn and this helps range and endurance immensely. In a battery powered flying device the deadweight of all the battery has to be carried even as the energy inside it gets lower and lower. This puts a huge limitation on the range and endurance a battery can give. To compete effectively we will need batteries with an energy density greater than aviation fuel today.
Quote:
The company claims that the process of learning to fly this aircraft is very easy and prospective owners could be flying within 2 hours of getting familiar with the controls.
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Sounds optimistic. But they seem to have worked hard at avionics that simplify controls and flying. Controlling in 3 dimensions and estimating height above the ground is more difficult than it seems - every other flying pupil will vouch for that :-)
We will see more of these electric powered aircraft for sure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by smartcat
(Post 4413356)
So it is basically a drone, right?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smartcat
(Post 4413591)
The word "Drone" is mostly used for flying craft that has multiple rotors. We now have unmanned drones and passenger drones.
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Dear smartcat, permit me to jump in. A drone is strictly an unmanned aerial vehicle. They come in many different shapes, propulsion systems and sizes. It is just that over the last 10 years the common notion of a drone is one of those quad-rotor devices so the popular press talks of anything with 3 or more rotors as a drone. A drone could as well be powered by a pusher propeller or a jet engine. All of these are drones....
Seen on TV often...for remote bombing, wings and pusher propeller
Note no pilot. A regular F-4 Phantom converted to a drone.
...and this is a drone too!!!
Here's an excerpt from an
earlier Team-BHP thread taking a humorous look at the Kitty Hawk debuting in Bangalore.
I've been told the Kitty Hawk project leads did read the thread and quite enjoyed it! :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretariat
(Post 4188719)
Did you see the news item about a flying car, revealed by Kitty Hawk, a Silicon Valley startup funded by Google's founder, Larry Page ? If you didn't , I'm sure there's a thread on it started by the alert (and not working at office) BHPian somewhere ; if not just go to YouTube.
I now petition Kitty Hawk that the best place in the world to launch it first would be Bangalore. Everybody knows that a basic version of this already exists in the wonderful city's roads , for after all, a two wheeler can come from all 360 degrees to dent your car even today. But passing over that lightly, let's examine how and why this would be a major hit in Bangalore.
Everybody who works in the world famous Ecospace building would buy it immediately. The app that shows current moving time between parking lot and the gate (45 mts) will become obsolete. With a flying car, the IT guy will simply jump out of his office window in it and zoom away. Similarly IT types in cubby holes in every other monstrosity - Maanyata, ITPL, Bagmane in that order - are enough to ensure that Kitty Hawk's order book for the next 10 years is filled up.
Two wheeler riders of Bangalore migrating to the flying car are likely to be confused initially as they are genetically programmed only to ride on the pavement or on the wrong side of the road. They will need some significant retraining to take to this new vehicle. Two wheeler riders are also currently used to taking the wife and both kids along with them. It is unclear from the prototype of the flying car as to where the two kids can be placed. Perhaps they ... ...
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