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Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

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Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#51

Post by mannykannot »

e12e wrote: post #46
starpilot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quote refers to the "jesus nut": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut , which doesn't apply to newer helicopters.

I'm curious - surely there's still some single point that would let the rotor fly away? What does it mean that newer helicopters "doesn't have" this? I mean the rotor is attached? It's a single axel? There are scenarios where the rotor falls off?

Conventional airplanes also have single points of failure, such as the main spar or the empennage. Granted, they are not moving parts.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#52

Post by SeanBoocock »

lmetro wrote: post #30

[I've been an engineer working on this vehicle for the past 2 years.] Hi HN! It's great to see lots of interest. One big reason we went public with the project is to help with recruiting, as we're starting to scale up our hiring for lots of positions, including testing, manufacturing, and every sort of engineering that you can think of. The team is super strong technically, and is full of people with interesting back…

This looks really exciting but I'm curious about the intended market. Is this a "level 5" vehicle in terms of autonomy? What sort of license would be involved for an owner and operator? Do you foresee people having these in suburban driveways or operating them between small airports? Willing to comment at all on target price (brackets)?

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#53

Post by mannykannot »

mortenjorck wrote: post #19

When they led with “100x quieter than a helicopter,” my first reaction was a skeptical “well sure, decibels are logarithmic!” But 40dB from 600ft away is impressive, and within the range of what I would consider acceptable for residential flyover (though not takeoff and landing) in a medium-density area.

40dB at 600ft is impressive, especially if it is carrying a payload equal to that of a passenger, and is maintaining altitude. That 100x quote, however, has a whiff of an intent to deceive people who are not familiar with the technicalities of loudness measurement.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#54

Post by rrss »

dmix wrote: post #15

> The Mountain View, California-based company calls it Heaviside, after noted physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, who advanced a variety of theories and innovations in mathematics, electronics, and communications in the early 20th century. I like this idea of naming things after people who've contributed to the field. Mount Everest's name came from a British surveyor and geographer George Everest. Bra…

I'm psyched they named it after Heaviside. For the caliber, scope, and importance of his contributions, he is extremely under appreciated. Most of the people who have heard the name only know of the step function, but much of how electrical engineering is done (and named) is due to him.

Some things that could reasonably have his name attached (intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive):

Maxwell-Heaviside equations

Heaviside-Gibbs Vector calculus

Heaviside transmission line equations

Poynting-Heaviside vector

Heaviside loading coil

Heaviside-Cherenkov radiation

Heaviside-Lorentz force

Heaviside s-plane

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#55

Post by zizee »

dchichkov wrote: post #10

It would be a good idea to use better baselines for noise pollution than helicopters and airplanes of today. Perhaps like this - Life in the Spanish City that banned cars. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life... This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. What you should be able to hear in the street are "the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons…

> This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create.

Sounds good. The same rules should apply to lawn mowers, motor bikes, construction, bars, stereos, drones, public transport, bands, dogs, children...

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#56

Post by trhway »

heyflyguy wrote: post #24

Every time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally. These do not have a glideslope! Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying ca…

>I want to know how this makes a safe unpowered descent.

the wings seems to be enough for reasonable unpowered gliding. The canard design naturally helps prevent stall. And i'd be surprised if the engines on production models aren't split into 2 completely independent groups (given their number - 3 per/wing - on that prototype i think they aren't split) with completely separate power, controllers, etc, so even relatively serious failure would still leave you with half the engines - that would allow while uncomfortable, yet still controlled even vertical landing from lower hover which i'd suppose would be the worst situation to lose engines.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#57

Post by Tossrock »

mysterydip wrote: post #22
dmix wrote: post #18

When a VTOL vehicle switches directions of the blades in the air, is there any sort of drop in altitude as it moves into the forward direction? Or is it a gradual type of thing as it starts angling forward? I could see any drop before it kicks in being startling for customers, especially if the motors are less powerful than a helicopter or jet. I noticed the video makes a cut from flying to the landing part, without…

May not be exactly the same, but I don't believe there's an appreciable drop on a tiltrotor like the V-22.

There isn't - the V-22 rotors tilt continuously from vertical to horizontal rather slowly as it builds up enough speed to transition to forward flight. Same thing with Quantum's VTOL UAVs.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#58

Post by Atheros »

zizee wrote: post #55
dchichkov wrote: post #10

It would be a good idea to use better baselines for noise pollution than helicopters and airplanes of today. Perhaps like this - Life in the Spanish City that banned cars. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life... This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. What you should be able to hear in the street are "the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons…

> This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. Sounds good. The same rules should apply to lawn mowers, motor bikes, construction, bars, stereos, drones, public transport, bands, dogs, children...

Construction is temporary. Stereos and bands are played to bring enjoyment; the sound produced is the point, not a byproduct of some other motivation so those should get more of a pass. Many cities already enforce laws against persistently barking dogs and those laws can work just fine.

I'm with you regarding motor bikes and public transport but the same rules should not apply to the others. They can have their own rules.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#59

Post by semantics »

darawk wrote: post #41
dmix wrote: post #15

> The Mountain View, California-based company calls it Heaviside, after noted physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, who advanced a variety of theories and innovations in mathematics, electronics, and communications in the early 20th century. I like this idea of naming things after people who've contributed to the field. Mount Everest's name came from a British surveyor and geographer George Everest. Bra…

I'm also guessing that the name 'heaviside' is a reference to the Heaviside step function. Which of course, looks like a vertical takeoff, and implies that this project is a "step function" in flying transportation, etc..It's a pretty great name.

The function is named after the person.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#60

Post by dchichkov »

zizee wrote: post #55
dchichkov wrote: post #10

It would be a good idea to use better baselines for noise pollution than helicopters and airplanes of today. Perhaps like this - Life in the Spanish City that banned cars. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life... This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. What you should be able to hear in the street are "the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons…

> This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. Sounds good. The same rules should apply to lawn mowers, motor bikes, construction, bars, stereos, drones, public transport, bands, dogs, children...

Sound from a lawn mower or a leaf blower is local and temporary. Yet cities do ban gas-powered leaf blowers.

http://files.meetup.com/4709972/Leaf%20Blower%20bans,%20etc....

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