I had never heard of this really cool thing until a friend mentioned it today.

There may be a prior thread discussing it, but it seems like the dawn of computer aided electrically powered flight. The website (http://www.e-volo.com) says:

The Volocopter by e-volo is a completely novel, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) manned aircraft, which cannot be classified in any known category. The fact that it was conceived of as a purely electrically powered aircraft sets it apart from conventional aircraft.

Through the use of its many propellers, the Volocopter can take off and land vertically like a helicopter. A considerable advantage, apart from the simple construction without complex mechanics, is the redundancy of drives. This enables the safe landing of the volocopter even if some drives fail.

The controls work according to the fly-by-wire principle very easily by means of a joystick. As opposed to any other aircraft, the operation is child’s play. It takes off and lands vertically and the pilot pays little or no attention to the flight path angle, minimum speed, stall, mixture control, pitch adjustment and many other things which make conventional aviation so demanding.

The propellers generate the entire ascending force, and by means of a selective change in rotary speed they simultaneously take care of the steering. Furthermore, as opposed to helicopters, no mechanical pitch control of the propellers is necessary whatsoever.

The automatic position control and the directional control take place by means of several independent and mutually monitoring airborne computers which control the rotation speed of each drive separately.

An optional, additional pusher propeller enables an even faster flight.


And here's are some cool videos:

http://youtu.be/RUGfXD0SW5Q
http://youtu.be/MivVSggIoCA
http://youtu.be/tNulEa8LTHI

Very cool. The rules are changing faster than most can keep up

my favorite is http://www.cartercopters.com

Marcus - the cartercopters are cool but they are an evolution of the gyrocopter, requiring a pilot with some level of training and skill as well as a gas powered engine.

The Volocopter is an evolution of UAV drones where flying it does not even require a "pilot" or operator as it is assisted by a computer and GPS positioning, it is electrically powered and could be the dawn of pilotless vehicles. You can teach a pedestrian to operate one of these in a question of hours. That's what I think makes this game changing.

To be perfectly honest, the rules aren't changing... Because the FAA can't (won't) keep up.

Marcus - the cartercopters are cool but they are an evolution of the gyrocopter, requiring a pilot with some level of training and skill as well as a gas powered engine.

The Volocopter is an evolution of UAV drones where flying it does not even require a "pilot" or operator as it is assisted by a computer and GPS positioning, it is electrically powered and could be the dawn of pilotless vehicles. You can teach a pedestrian to operate one of these in a question of hours. That's what I think makes this game changing.

Triple and quadruple redundancies will be required, and this is probably years away from being ready for prime time, but the general concept is intriguing.

Problem is unlike a real helicopter there are no "engine out" options such as autorotation. Any kind of catastrophic battery failure and you drop like the proverbial rock. Maybe ok for a light drone but not for a manned aircraft.

BRS.

The trick will be designing a system that works with adequate redundancy. It will be challenging mostly for the control system not so much for the lift systems as they will have independent battery and drive.

I'd have to believe the autonomy of such a flying machine would be limited, less than an hour. The entire time of operation seems like it would be expending energy equal to hover or nearly so.

I imagine the next step is putting an APU on the system to generate electrical energy, possibly turboshaft based. The batteries can be downsized a bit and serve as emergency power, say 30 minutes, enough time to land, and as reserve power for momentary heavy loads.

Ultimately, though, I see this as mostly being a larger UAV platform.

Mike C.

BRS.

been watching the Cartercopter for years. I know the testpilot and have seen it fly in Wichita Falls. It is a very cool design but Carter is a bit eccentric so I doubt it ever goes anywhere unless he sells the concept to an existing manufacturer.

BRS.

I think you would have a pretty good chance of launching it out of the middle right above the cabin. That area will be the center of gravity anyway. I can imagine them getting inverted, if they loose engines or a computer they will spin like a frisbee but stay upright.

I think you would have a pretty good chance of launching it out of the middle right above the cabin. That area will be the center of gravity anyway. I can imagine them getting inverted, if they loose engines or a computer they will spin like a frisbee but stay upright.