“I try to make it look dangerous and death-defying, but in reality it’s the opposite,” says Ultimate High founder Mark Greenfield, a former fighter pilot, who teaches military and commercial pilots how to deal with emergencies.
Pilot skills have always been vital to ensure safe flight. But, with a broad range of next-generation aircraft expanding the personal flight market, technology is becoming increasingly important too.
Some of these aircraft, such as German E-Volo’s two-seater Volocopter, resemble drones and will “mark a step forward in urban mobility”, according to E-Volo’s managing director Alexander Zosel.
Sarwant Singh, senior partner at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, likens these small, autonomous or semi-autonomous aircraft to “flying scooters”, and predicts that they will soon become ubiquitous.
Flying cars, by contrast, such as Slovakian AeroMobil, combine long-distance flexibility with on-the-road utility for journeys within and beyond city limits.
The AeroMobil does 750km/h (466mph) in the air. On the road, with its wings retracted and stowed along the fuselage, its top speed is 160km/h. AeroMobil chief executive Juraj Vaculik believes these vehicles make up part of a “a transport revolution”.
AeroMobil showcases engineering innovations derived from a marriage of expertise from the automotive and aviation sectors.
Its creators have come up with a flexible suspension system that can run in three modes. One mode aids road handling, a second ensures the vehicle can take off and land on grass, concrete or tarmac, while in the third mode the suspension and wheels retract during flight to minimise drag, ensuring that the aircraft is both stable and highly manoeuvrable.
The carbon composite material used to build the aircraft is not only strong and easy to shape, but very light too. Another aspect that has kept the weight down is the use of turbos, which have made it possible to use a smaller petrol engine than those in similarly-sized aircraft. On the road, the same engine is used to charge batteries in a petrol-electric hybrid system.
The Volocopter is a very different aircraft. It is much slower, with a top speed of 100km/h and a flight duration of just 20-30 minutes, and it is “extremely easy to fly”, according to Zosel. This makes it well suited to short flights within cities.
The Volocopter is operated with a one-hand joystick that is aided by a flight control system made up of several independent units. Each contains positioning sensors that consist of pressure gauges, gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers for all three spatial axes, roll, pitch and yaw. Take-off and landing, and adjustments to altitude, are controlled with a thumb button, with the semi-autonomous system ensuring that landings are gentle.
And the aircraft can be flown in autonomous mode, making it suitable for use as an air taxi. Autonomous air-taxi trials will take place in Dubai later this year.
“Flying is going to become primarily automated,” says Greenfield. “Overall, it’ll be safer.”
The Volocopter’s 18 rotor blades are driven by individual electric motors, which means any faults during flight can be isolated without any risk to safety. The motors are powered by nine independent batteries that can quickly be changed.
The flying scooter and the flying car are but two of a growing range of engineering innovations and aviation software solutions that promise to make ‘personal flight’ commercially viable.
Not only will they help to solve urban mobility challenges, says Singh, but “the recreational potential of flying vehicles is limitless”. Proof, if proof were needed, that engineering not only offers practical solutions, but can be great fun too.