Another Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle which looks promising: https://www.volocopter.com/solutions/volocity/
Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
151–160 of 246 posts
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know - 10 miles across impassable terrain sounds pretty good if the alternative is a 60 miles detour driving around a fjord or Forrest or something. Still I don't think this is designed for "utility" - seems to me it is more for the fun of it.
Totally agree it’d be great in those situations, but I just don’t think there are a lot of people who need that. It’s probably a lot of fun to fly. It’s just stressful to think if something isn’t going right in flight and I want time to think and react.. every minute is 5% of my battery. I also saw in another post that fully loaded the battery life is 12 minutes total.. nearly 10% a minute brand new (which every char…
Better have an emergency parachute for when power fails. Doubt autorotation is an option here.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#153Don't think I'd drop $90k based on a spec sheet like that. I assume all this is at sea level? What if I live in Denver?
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least small planes in europe (CS-23) aren't allowed to have humans within an (iirc ~15 degree) cone of them. This approach here seems to be done with no regards to such regulatory (and well-meant) requirements.
Sweden is very much "in Europe" and according to the company it's legal to fly it there.
1) This is a powered lift craft, not a plane, so it doesn't even fall under CS-23.
2) There are classes where you're allowed less in exchange for easier certification. If the craft isn't operated commercially and doesn't need to leave national airspace, certification is typically far easier (at least for anything not heavier than a medium SUV).
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
helicopters also have one major advantage for manned applications: autorotation. there's at least a chance to survive loss of power in a helicopter. a quad with no power just falls.
I'm kind of surprised they use only 4. There are drones with 6 and 8 rotors, which can still fly if 1 fails, which they use in the film industry to fly heavier, more expensive cameras. There are also ways to get quads to fly on less than 4 rotors if one becomes damaged, although as a human I'm not sure I'd want to be in one doing it. Here's a Ted Talk with a live demo from 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwF…
The site says this can fly with one motor out.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#156If you're interested in the components, looks like both motors and propellers are from https://www.mad-motor.com It's quite hard to find high quality electric drive components in this size – too big for drones, too small for full scale airplanes. https://store.tmotor.com/ is another alternative.
Where do Tesla's motors fit in on that scale? They don't (afaik) wholesale them, but used drive units are purchasable.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#157Lacks the safety features of airplanes (gliding) or helicopters (autorotation), has terrible rotor placement and small air time. I would advertise it as "your personal death machine". :)
No amount of money would make me use that thing.
EDIT: Ok, sorry, it says it has a parachute, but I still would not use it.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#158Isn’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.
I feel like Moller was miles away from the finish line... but maybe I'm just being pessimistic.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know - 10 miles across impassable terrain sounds pretty good if the alternative is a 60 miles detour driving around a fjord or Forrest or something. Still I don't think this is designed for "utility" - seems to me it is more for the fun of it.
Totally agree it’d be great in those situations, but I just don’t think there are a lot of people who need that. It’s probably a lot of fun to fly. It’s just stressful to think if something isn’t going right in flight and I want time to think and react.. every minute is 5% of my battery. I also saw in another post that fully loaded the battery life is 12 minutes total.. nearly 10% a minute brand new (which every char…
If something goes wrong, you're done for. If you're close to the ground, you have no time to do anything. Even if the flight controller discovers the failure early enough and cuts the motors, you'll still probably flip over/smash into the ground. If you're high enough, you'll just fall to your death.
Re: Jetson One – Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
This comment makes me wonder if something like this could be supplemented with human power to extend its flight range.
Not enough to be useful, I think. The Jetson One has a maximum power output of 88kW, and a very fit human (e.g. elite sprint cyclist) can briefly reach up to 2.5kW (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:tex....).