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Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

volocopter.com

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Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#41

Post by friendzis »

qeternity wrote: post #17
friendzis wrote: post #16

Height control seems to be directly on the cyclic, without the combined height/throttle handle. I do not see yaw pedals, either. Controls of this aircraft seem to be different enough from conventional helicopter (that at least license hours were flown in) to be a serious disadvantage for potential buyers. Another consideration could be how this thing reacts to wind gusts and how different that handles compared to con…

It seems like a big motivation behind this is to appeal to non aviation folk and make it a mainstream offering.

I can understand such motivation, but aviation is extremely heavily regulated area. I am not sure whether non-standard controls would even be allowed, though. While driver's license is granted for demonstration of rather basic ability to handle a vehicle, even non-commercial pilot's license (which I do not have, so) is granted for demonstrating substantial ability to control an aircraft and number of hours clocked. Enough hours that different controls could seem an obstacle.

If it was about new concept self-driving car with manual controls on joystick rather pedals and wheel, I would have my doubts about its marketability also.

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#42

Post by tempestn »

FabHK wrote: post #33
qeternity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a big motivation behind this is to appeal to non aviation folk and make it a mainstream offering.

Indeed, the volocopter breaks with traditional heli modus operandi, but that's a good thing. It is much simpler to operate, with one control stick: * rotate to rotate the craft (replacing rudder) * move forward/backwards/sideways to move (translate) the craft (replacing cyclic) * operate simple switch on top to ascent/descent (replacing collective and throttle) (Disclaimer: 1. As far as I know, 2. I have crowdfund-in…

Out of curiosity, is there a button that's held while rotating the stick to rotate? The stick looks directional, so it wouldn't make sense to just rotate it and keep it rotated...

Anyway, sounds like a cool setup.

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#43

Post by friendzis »

ben_bai wrote: post #39
friendzis wrote: post #16

Height control seems to be directly on the cyclic, without the combined height/throttle handle. I do not see yaw pedals, either. Controls of this aircraft seem to be different enough from conventional helicopter (that at least license hours were flown in) to be a serious disadvantage for potential buyers. Another consideration could be how this thing reacts to wind gusts and how different that handles compared to con…

It's like a drone with GPS. It stays where it is unless you touch the joystick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs

Experienced pilots tell me that automatic position control even in modern (non-military) helicopters work worse than experienced hand in non ideal conditions. YMMV, though :)

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#44

Post by votingprawn »

robochat42 wrote: post #25

Are multiple rotor blades more or less efficient than a single large rotor? Also, could a normal helicopter be adapted to use these control systems to make them easier to fly?

Less efficient, generally speaking you want as few blades as possible. One in the ideal case but that's prohibitively difficult!

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#46

Post by IshKebab »

robochat42 wrote: post #25

Are multiple rotor blades more or less efficient than a single large rotor? Also, could a normal helicopter be adapted to use these control systems to make them easier to fly?

Yeah they are less efficient. The reason to use them is that they can be fixed pitch and you get control by controlling their speed, which is very simple to do (it's basically a huge quadcopter). Normal helicopters keep the speed roughly fixed and get control using variable pitch, which is obviously far more complicated mechanically.

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#47

Post by elmar »

ben_bai wrote: post #31
donquichotte wrote: post #27

What I would love on these kind of announcements is a short overview of the specs (just like they make them for cars and motorcycles!) - range [km] - battery capacity [kWh] - flight time [h] - maximum load [kg] - weight [kg] - price [€] - permissions needed to fly it ... Instead of a very strange and convoluted website with titles like "jump in and take off" (what else am I gonna do with a personal helicopter?) I wou…

range: ~30km battery: ? flight time: ~20min max. load: 2 persons... 150kg? weight: under 450kg fully loaded price: ~300k EUR permission needed: difficult... no airclass yet for those things except. "ultra light" Those figures are from a presentation of the VC200 and might not be exactly right for the 2X.

The current specifications are 15 min max theoretical flight time with one passenger, that never as been proved on real life scenario. Considering that rotorcopter regulation requires 20 min reserve time unless there is an exception the vehicle can even takeoff battery technology will have to double for a 10 min flight time with 20 min reserve one passenger.

Volocopter is a great project and on electrical VTOL is the current "state of the art" but it's very dependent on a massive battery weight to power improvement.

How I know all this, I run a startup targeting the some problem but with a very different approach.

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#48

Post by FabHK »

zuzun wrote: post #20
rdtsc wrote: post #14

I really like these. There is something to these kind of inventions that always puts them "just around the corner" category. This has been going on since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar in the 90's. There is probably a combination of a tendency of people to dream about flying, and how much fun it would be, combined with the ignorance of all possible hurdles, not just physical and engineering ones, bu…

There's a self-flying taxi drone supposed to start operating in Dubai this summer. > The Ehang is electric-powered and can travel for about 31 miles with a person and bag that weigh up to 100kg. It can go at speeds of up to 63 miles an hour and takes two hours to charge fully. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/14/self-flying...

I'm a bit skeptical of the eHang 184, built by a Chinese company that's built toys and commercial 10-kg-drones - it has 8 props, namely 1 coaxial twin prop (presumably counter-rotating) at every corner. Does not look hugely redundant to me, plus they're conveniently located to break legs while on the ground (or heads during take-off/landing).

The Volocopter has had manned and unmanned test flights since last year, has 18 rotors in a rotor plane well above your head, can fly with 4 rotors inoperative, has a ballistic rescue chute, and apparently good initial feedback from the regulator.

(Disclaimer: I've invested 1000 EUR in the Volocopter via crowdfunding, so I might be hopelessly biased.)

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#49

Post by peterwaller »

rdtsc wrote: post #14

I really like these. There is something to these kind of inventions that always puts them "just around the corner" category. This has been going on since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar in the 90's. There is probably a combination of a tendency of people to dream about flying, and how much fun it would be, combined with the ignorance of all possible hurdles, not just physical and engineering ones, bu…

Interesting video of Moller himself talking about it (while sitting in one of these cars):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOR_SzLW2Ns

There's some grainy test flight footage at the end, too.

Re: Volocopter 2x – Safer Alternative to a Personal Helicopter

#50

Post by FabHK »

elmar wrote: post #47
ben_bai wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

range: ~30km battery: ? flight time: ~20min max. load: 2 persons... 150kg? weight: under 450kg fully loaded price: ~300k EUR permission needed: difficult... no airclass yet for those things except. "ultra light" Those figures are from a presentation of the VC200 and might not be exactly right for the 2X.

The current specifications are 15 min max theoretical flight time with one passenger, that never as been proved on real life scenario. Considering that rotorcopter regulation requires 20 min reserve time unless there is an exception the vehicle can even takeoff battery technology will have to double for a 10 min flight time with 20 min reserve one passenger. Volocopter is a great project and on electrical VTOL is the…

Fully agreed.

Two huge bottlenecks for PEVA (personal electric VTOL aircraft) remain, in my view:

* specific energy of the battery. I hope progress is being made there.

* regulation, as you allude to. A VTOL aircraft in VFR with fairly short total flight time could probably reasonably be allowed to fly with lower reserves. Airmen licensing is another huge area - it would be absurd to require a helicopter CPL or even ATPL for shuttling a pax around in this.

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