Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle • Hacker News Board

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#101

Post by Tuxer » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:37 AM UTC

rajup wrote: post #92

skykooler wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's less than 51% assembled by the manufacturer it's classified as "home built" and the manufacturer assumes no liability in the event of a crash.

Wow very interesting. Curious if you have any source?

Thats not exactly right. It’s simply that you cannot sell something built >51% by the factory under experimental rules, you’d need to have it FAA certified which this isn’t ( for thousands of reasons ).

The 51% rule is extremely common in experimental aviation.

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#102

Post by teeray » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:41 AM UTC

satisfice wrote: post #65

Maximum pilot weight of 210lbs? I suppose if I were rich enough to buy this I could also get myself a personal trainer.

They’re limited to 254 pounds empty, and I imagine batteries behind the pilot constitute an appreciable fraction of that weight budget. More pilot weight would probably push your center of gravity too far forward which would put undue strain on the front motors, causing them to fail.

EDIT: CG = center of gravity, for clarity

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#103

Post by RachelF » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

I guess when the pilot falls out they will be called "The Jetisoned One" ;-)

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#104

Post by bullen » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:46 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #24

We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B. The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me. These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B.

At 100km/h this thing only has a roundtrip range of ~15km with the 20 minute onboard energy.

I'm not complaining about the vehicle to transported ratio though, it's about the same as my lead-acid e-bike: http://elhjul.se

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#105

Post by edrxty » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:48 AM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #13

I 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.

The official number is 400ft but I've heard anecdotes that there have been successful deployments lower. That said, I see this being operated in the "dead mans curve", ie well below any effective height, for a significant portion of it's flight

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#106

Post by pininja » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

augstein wrote: post #71

nine_k wrote: post #7

I wonder why the rotors are positioned so low. Should a propeller get fractured, the splinters would hit the pilot's chest and neck. OTOH putting the propellers above would change the shape and thus the aesthetics seriously.

Was wondering that too. Also can‘t the rotors be shrouded or does that affect the power/agility negatively?

It’s a lot of weight for little reward. A duct/shroud may not even improve the safety in a significant way (if it were thick enough it could, but it’d need to very light)

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#107

Post by pininja » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

edrxty wrote: post #105

voldacar wrote: post #13

I 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.

The official number is 400ft but I've heard anecdotes that there have been successful deployments lower. That said, I see this being operated in the "dead mans curve", ie well below any effective height, for a significant portion of it's flight

There are also enough false deployments that caused harm with these parachutes (edit: instances where pilots didn’t deploy when they should have) that the jury is out on how much of an improvement these are to safety, overall. Operator skill and training is a big factor and this product isn’t targeted at highly trained pilots.

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#108

Post by edrxty » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #16

I 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.

Because it allows you to skip the entire aerospace engineering portion of the design process. Airframe design is complex and requires a lot of domain knowledge in fluid dynamics. Quads just muscle their way along and only require simple control theory to maintain flight so anyone can design and build them effortlessly.

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#109

Post by edrxty » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

pininja wrote: post #107

edrxty wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official number is 400ft but I've heard anecdotes that there have been successful deployments lower. That said, I see this being operated in the "dead mans curve", ie well below any effective height, for a significant portion of it's flight

There are also enough false deployments that caused harm with these parachutes (edit: instances where pilots didn’t deploy when they should have) that the jury is out on how much of an improvement these are to safety, overall. Operator skill and training is a big factor and this product isn’t targeted at highly trained pilots.

I haven't heard of any deaths as a result but I'm sure there are a few. Usually it's just a hull loss.

That said, this looks like another Icon A5 situation...

Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

#110

Post by james_in_the_uk » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 6:00 AM UTC

peter_retief wrote: post #100

satisfice wrote: post #65

Maximum pilot weight of 210lbs? I suppose if I were rich enough to buy this I could also get myself a personal trainer.

I had to do the conversion to kg which is 95.25kg. My naked weight is 93kg but with clothes/wallet/keys goes up to about 95kg. I guess I will have to wait for the family version to come out.

15 stone for us Brits