Looks hella fun! Imagine the noise though, you'll get tinnitus riding that thing all day.
Did you see the "20 minute flight time"? Your ears will get plenty of rest waiting for it to recharge.
Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
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Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#12Almost looks like a ground-effect vehicle. Doesn’t go too high; which may not really be an issue. Just high enough, so tarmac isn’t necessary.
I seem to recall a discussion on HN, where it was explained that quadcopters don’t scale up too well. I don’t remember the reasoning.
The one thing that concerns me about commodity-level flying vehicles, is the way people drive the ones that are stuck on the ground. I would want autonomous vehicles to be devloped and refined, before flying ones.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#13I was about to leave a snarky "glide ratio = 0" comment until I saw the note about the ballistic parachute. Wish they included the effective altitude though. I assume it would be effective from a lower altitude than the Cirrus, as this thing weighs only ~400 lbs with a human in it.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#14I swear I saw something like this in some kids magazine 30 years ago. It was supposedly powered by a vacuum motor. I now understand that can’t possibly work, but for many years I thought it could. I’d love it if someone else knew what I’m talking about and could send me a link to the magazine article. I assume it wasn’t trying to be a joke, this was a relatively serious kids magazine, but maybe I’ve been wrong.
That's an air bearing. Those are used in industry for moving heavy objects on flat floors.[1] Needs a very flat surface.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#15Almost looks like a ground-effect vehicle. Doesn’t go too high; which may not really be an issue. Just high enough, so tarmac isn’t necessary. I seem to recall a discussion on HN, where it was explained that quadcopters don’t scale up too well. I don’t remember the reasoning. The one thing that concerns me about commodity-level flying vehicles, is the way people drive the ones that are stuck on the ground. I would wa…
Because smaller prop means you need to spin faster to hit the same airflow. And efficiency usually drops by x^2 as a function of rotation velocity. Also, at high speed you have vacuum issues near the tip of the blade. Therefore, having four small rotors can easily be up to a magnitude less efficient than a helicopter.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#16I never understood why startups are so infatuated with quadcopter designs. Just design a small electric gyro-copter and you'll get 10X range and half the complexity.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#17EHang has a vehicle like that.[1] There are a few other quadcopters big enough to carry a human. So far no real products, but some nice demos.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#18I never understood why startups are so infatuated with quadcopter designs. Just design a small electric gyro-copter and you'll get 10X range and half the complexity.
Doesn’t that require a runway?
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#19Isn’t it crazy that Moller spent decades trying to get the basics of their flying car, only to give up inches from the finish line?
Tech has evolved so fast in the past few years that a brand new vehicle like this can go from design to production in a few years, and anyone can build a rough working prototype in their backyard.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#20Isn’t it crazy that Moller spent decades trying to get the basics of their flying car, only to give up inches from the finish line? Tech has evolved so fast in the past few years that a brand new vehicle like this can go from design to production in a few years, and anyone can build a rough working prototype in their backyard.
Moller tried making an actual car-sized vehicle with 2 seats.
The Jetson One produced a minimalistic 1 seat vehicle.