The e-volo volocopter won the Lindbergh Prize for innovation in aviation in April, but I didn't hear about it until I recently read this article in Scientific American.
At first glance the thing looks crazy and more than a little dangerous with all those whirling knives. The design calls for a small 50-75 kw engine (typical of ultralight aircraft) that generates electricity for the 18 electric motors that drive the carbon-fiber propellers. There's also a lithium battery backup power supply. It steers by changing the speeds of individual rotors, using a joystick for control rather than standard helicopter rudder pedals, control stick and throttle. A computer will magically translate your directions into commands for the 18 rotors.
Using a bunch of small inexpensive rotors instead of one big rotor and tail boom drastically reduces the mass of the aircraft. Having 18 rotors provides redundancy that standard helicopters don't have—the craft should be able to fly with as few as 12 rotors, as long as they don't all fail on one side. That doesn't really comfort me, though: if you run into a tree or power line you're gonna lose all the rotors on one side.
They've done exactly one test flight as a proof of concept. The test vehicle used an exercise ball as its primary landing gear. The thing looks like something they built in a garage. But the Wright brothers built their first plane in a bicycle workshop, so more power to them.
I don't know if the volocopter will ever get off the ground, but the amazing thing is that the inventors are from Germany. Apparently not all innovation has been crushed by that over-regulated union-run health-care-for-all socialist European economy.
Bladerunner was set in LA in 2019. Maybe Philip K. Dick and Ridley Scott's bleak vision of a future with flying cars and megacorporations where Americans speak a patois of German/Spanish/Japanese/English isn't so far off.
Now, where are those basic pleasure model androids that look like Daryl Hannah?
No comments:
Post a Comment