Jun 162011
I can see this going so very, very wrong so very, very quickly. But if the bike has a sufficiently adequate computer controll and stabilization system, I can see this working fairly well… and being the absolutely coolest thing EVAR.
13 Responses to “A Flying Motorbike”
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My wife has already said I can’t have one.
I’m sorry, without an anti-grav belt or at least a chute, that thing looks suicidal.
Oops, I have a spark plug foul or a fuel line blockage or a gearbox problem. Sorry, you die.
At least in a chopper you have the option to autorotate. Not so on this thing.
Nay, nay, not for me. 🙂
Paul
> without an anti-grav belt or at least a chute, that thing looks suicidal.
Somewhere or other I read the inventor said that a ballistic chute will be standard equipment, at least for the pilot.
A ballistic chute should be possible to lower the bike (alone – pilot recovered under his own chute) slow enough so that it should be at least partially recoverable. The front or rear duct & prop would probably be sacrificial.
We’ve seen this before, but larger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_VZ-8_Airgeep
One of the uses it lists would be for powerline inspections, must make sure life insurance is paid up.
> powerline inspections
Perhaps useful for short lengths of line. It could probably be easily carried in the bed of a pickup truck and driven hither and yon. But for long stretches of powerline inspection, a much more efficient helicopter would be better (and safer).
I knew a pilot who did that, and around here it was done with small aircraft, which would scare the hell out of me, particularly in windy or bad visibility conditions.
He used a modified Maule Skyrocket with high lift flaps on the enlarged wings and a larger engine. The idea was to let it fly at very low speeds under good control, and give it a very high climb rate if it got into trouble.
I think it would be best to fly it at a few feet altitude with a crash helmet on, or at a few thousand feet attitude while wearing a parachute.
The FAA will have fits over this thing if it gets into production.
Is it a hovercraft or aircraft? depends on how high it’s flying I suppose.
Flying at very low altitude might extend its range by getting a semi-hovercraft effect from the downward air blast bouncing off the ground or water and coming back up under the thing’s bottom.
Just slap on an altitude limiter so it can only fly under 10ft and classify it as an “exotic hovercraft utilizing ground effect…” to get around the whole FAA issue
Then the hacking begins…
As pointed out in the article, by weight it falls into the ultralight category, and theoretically needs no pilot’s license to fly it under present US law.
I don’t think when they came up with that law they pictured things moving along at 130 mph at 10, 000 feet altitude, but I’d sure dream of taking one of those little gizmos up on a warm summer night under the stars.
In fact, I’d think that was one of the coolest things to do imaginable.
I think this so call flying bike lack of turn lef and right control, huge cornering will be needed when flying in high speed… i think it stil need flap.
..wide…