A recent series of patents has received some press, where some people suspect that this VTOL aircraft concept is a “flying car” from Google. The company is “Zee.Aero,” the inventor is Ilan Kroo, aeronautics professor on leave from Stanford.
The design features a multitude of small vertical lift fans and two forward thrust props. The vertical lift fans are each provided with an electric motor. The power would seem to be provided by a gas motor/electric hybrid system.
The system would seem to be fairly draggy, so it’s probably not intended for high speed. One of the patent illustrations shows one parked with folded wings in a conventional parking lot between two automobiles, indicating that there is some thinking that the inventors want this to be used as a “flying car,” It really doesn’t look roadable, so you’d have to land it at the destination. I shudder to imagine what would happen to one of these if left in a packed Wal Mart or Best Buy lot on Black Friday…
