Re: Flying cars and jet pack news and discussion thread
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:45 pm
A community of futurology enthusiasts
https://www.futuretimeline.net/forum/
https://www.futuretimeline.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=277
The UK's Bellwether Industries has built and flown a half-scale prototype of its stunning Volar eVTOL, and is preparing to release footage. It's the most brazenly futuristic design we've ever seen, a flying hypercar for a utopia even sci-fi doesn't dare dream up.
I mean, look at the thing. It looks like it's doing 200 miles an hour sitting still. The lines are graceful, even sensual. The profile razor-sharp. The slanted louvers give it a rib cage and warn of frightening velocities. The stubby vee of the tailfins evokes the threat of a fighter jet, but the layered bodywork and its sumptuous, gleaming finish tell us this is a design of peace, hope and ambition.
This is a design to stir the imagination and the passions. You can picture it knifing into a cloud bank, leaving gently swirling vortices of vapor as the only calling card of its silent visit. You can see it gently touching down on an impossibly high-rise vertipad, its sleek glass roof retracting to let a lady and a gentleman out, dressed for the opera and right on time.
A stunningly-designed flying supercar for a sophisticated and genteel utopian future
Chinese eVTOL company Autoflight has released video of its first unmanned transition flight, moving from vertical lift to wing-supported cruise at speed. The video is a perfect demonstration of the common "lift & cruise" style of eVTOL design.
It's a significant milestone for Autoflight, which has opened an office in Germany recently in order to take aim at the European air taxi market. The aircraft, Prosperity I, is a 4-seat piloted design that promises a range of 155 miles (250 km) at cruise speeds up to 124 mph (200 km/h).
It's a lift & cruise design, with the passenger pod supported on a pair of large wings. These feature long propulsion pods running front to back, which hold three large lift props apiece, and a fourth pair are elevated to a higher plane to keep the aircraft compact. The propulsion pods are linked at the front by an additional front wing, complete with control surfaces, and there's a pusher prop at the rear of the cabin for horizontal flight.
https://news.yahoo.com/vertiport-drones ... 21868.htmlThe T150 Malloy Aeronautics drone in flight at the opening of the Air-One vertiport in Coventry on Monday. (PA)
The world's first vertiport - a transport hub for future vehicles like drones and air taxis - has opened in the UK.
The Air-One hub has launched in Coventry and will allow manned and unmanned vehicles to take off and land.
Proponents hailed Air-One as the first of its type, ushering in a new era of low-emission futuristic air transportation. Air-One is a so-called "vertiport" for drones and future electric vehicles taking off and landing vertically.
The property will be used for a month-long demonstration of the expanding industry in Coventry, a former car manufacturing powerhouse in central England.
The six-bottle crate of sparkling wine, weighing roughly 12 kilograms, was symbolically lifted from the launch pad during the initial flight.
According to Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of Urban-Air Port, the British corporation behind the vertiport endeavor, the commercial drone used—Malloy Aeronautics' T150, on loan from its day job performing logistics for the British military—is the largest ever to operate in such an urban area.
"You're standing in the world's first fully operational vertiport," he told the crowd of hundreds, which included the start-25 up's employees and government backers.
A three-hour drive away from the busy streets of London, Air-One has been set up in Coventry, a city that gave us the inventor of the jet engine and the Jaguar brand of cars. The project is a partnership between the Coventry City Council and Urban Air-Port to demonstrate how urban air mobility can reduce air pollution and congestion on the roads.
Powered by hydrogen fuel cells, Air One is designed to be fully autonomous and integrates with electric vehicles to deliver a zero-emission urban public transport system. The airport can handle electric drones and air taxis and has collaborated with Hyundai's air mobility arm, Supernal, to use a full-sized model of their SA-1 air taxi as a demonstrator.
At the airport, one can witness all the elements of urban mobility such as passenger taxi processing, command and control center, logistics, charging infrastructure as well as disaster management and security services. One can also experience live-flight demonstrations with drones that will also see the local police participate in operational scenarios, Air One's website reads.
Air One has an address in Coventry but only till the 15th of May. After that, the company plans to wrap up the airport and then set it up again at other sites in the U.K. to take the experience closer to people.
Didn't the nazis do one like this? Every time the History Channel here in the USA does a coverage of cool technology in World War 2 their saucer makes an appearance. Then again maybe the public isn't ready for jet equipment style ones and these propellor ones will have to do.