Bizarre Volerian aircraft design replaces jets and props with flapping wings

Like a flying set of venetian blinds, Volerian's aircraft designs are build around the idea of oscillating flappy wings sandwiched inside specially shaped ducts(Credit: Volerian)

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature. When evolution has found an advantage to producing thrust in a fluid, it has done it mainly by flapping things back and forth. This new VTOL aircraft propulsion system aims to do the same with a series of flapping wings mounted in large ducts.

What's wrong with the prop-powered, drone-style VTOL flying car designs we're seeing all over the place? Ignoring the energy density issues that are holding the entire electric aviation industry back, multirotors are quite noisy, and they have basically no adequate safety systems in place if the power systems fail.

A somewhat mysterious startup called Volerian claims to have a solution for both these points, and it uses a very odd propulsion system we've never run across before.

Volerian is dreaming big, though, planning a modular factory design that can be rolled out to multiple production partners. Slow down, guys, how about we get some scale models flying first to assuage our doubts about the propulsion system?

For example, it seems to be reliant on a heck of a lot of moving parts, any of which could be easily damaged by a bird strike, or anything else dropping through the top of the ducts. If something gets wedged in there, does it take out all the wings on the same cam?

Also, does it provide thrust that rises consistently with flapping speed, or does it, like fish tail flapping (which produces a similar "reverse Kármán vortex street" effect) have "a narrow range of frequencies of maximum amplification" in which it can efficiently produce thrust?

Furthermore, how does it handle high-speed incoming wind? And how would a VTOL craft be designed in order to balance itself in the air and provide forward, sideways and rotational motion?

Many questions remain to be answered before this design can be seen as anything but a set of CAD renders. Still, brand new propulsion systems certainly don't pop up every day, so the Volerian is certainly worthy of a good bit of chin-scratching.

Source: Volerian

Heaps of drag in cruising flight I think.

Bloody hell controlled “flutter”

I still think the Flettner rotor is less energy demanding, however an inherent safety concern is that if power to the rotating drums was lost—even if thrust was maintained—the aircraft would lose its ability to generate lift as the drum slowed down and it would not be able to sustain flight.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-weird-vintage-airplane-flies-with-cylinders-instea-1663010423?IR=T

And for the techno's https://oppositelock.kinja.com/the-magnus-effect-is-how-a-wing-with-backspin-can-fly-1718318501

IF birds do it it's going to fly right. They've been evolving for a while and can fly long distances on little fuel. Nev