WHO'S TINKERING WITH VTOL

[Blackhawk]

Interested to know if anyone here is tinkering with 1 or 2 seat VTOL-PAV.

 

Surely with our aussie 'can do' attitude there must be ideas floating around that collectively would get us up on the world leader platform.

 

The American's have been trying for decades without much success; so if anyone is interested, lets get something started.

 

Blackhawk

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

The Kiwis with the Martin "jetpack"

 

Just watched it again on the Airventure 2008 DVD that arrived in the mail yesterday.

 

pretty cool but still a little way to go with it.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[Blackhawk]

Well, its been a bit over 6 years since I started this thread and it looks like there is no development here in Australia

 

for VTOL aircraft; other than what I have been doing.

 

I have been working very hard on my 2 seat Hybrid VTOL design which is ready for the 1/3 scale Proof of Concept model to

 

go into the testing stage in about 3 to 4 months.

 

The whole design is under Patent Pending and therefore all intellectual property is protected.

 

Until the full Patent application has been filed I will be restricting any replies to basic information only, so please don't be offended

 

if I do not answer you questions to your satisfaction.

 

I hope you like what could be the new era of aviation!

 

 

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

That looks interesting....When I fly up to pay Brian G a visit is it possible to see anything? Will it be classed as a heli?

 

Mark

 

 

[facthunter]

Heli should be classed as rotary wing, I feel. Nev

 

 

[Blackhawk]

Mark, if your trip is about 2 to 3 months away, then yes.

 

I wouldn't like to show anyone a half finished project.

 

I have had discussions with CASA and at the moment they don't know what it would be classified as; but it will more than likely be administered by ASRA

 

The MTOW will be <600kg.

 

 

[Mike Borgelt]

Interested to know if anyone here is tinkering with 1 or 2 seat VTOL-PAV.Surely with our aussie 'can do' attitude there must be ideas floating around that collectively would get us up on the world leader platform.

 

The American's have been trying for decades without much success; so if anyone is interested, lets get something started.

 

Blackhawk

Distributed electric power for vertical flight is the key. Overcomes the one engine failure case. Batteries need not be huge. I've got a few sketches and a preliminary weight estimate for a two seater of 600 Kg.

 

There are quite a few companies working on this idea with varying size aircraft. (some very large aircraft)

 

Basically you need 10 times the power for vertical flight than you do for horizontal wing borne flight. Nothing beats petrol or diesel for range in horizontal flight.

 

The electric motors are merely power for high lift devices for takeoff and landing :-)

 

 

[Marty_d]

Well, its been a bit over 6 years since I started this thread and it looks like there is no development here in Australiafor VTOL aircraft; other than what I have been doing.

I have been working very hard on my 2 seat Hybrid VTOL design which is ready for the 1/3 scale Proof of Concept model to

 

go into the testing stage in about 3 to 4 months.

 

The whole design is under Patent Pending and therefore all intellectual property is protected.

 

Until the full Patent application has been filed I will be restricting any replies to basic information only, so please don't be offended

 

if I do not answer you questions to your satisfaction.

 

I hope you like what could be the new era of aviation!

Interesting design Blackhawk, hope you have success with it!

 

Looks a bit like the choppers in the movie Avatar. I remember seeing a youtube video about an electric r/c model of that. As I recall it was a twitchy little beast.

 

 

[Blackhawk]

The rapid advancement in lightweight, high power brushless electric motors is the key to this type of aircraft; any other type of propulsion kills it off with excessive weight.

 

I have had a passion for ducted fans and shrouded props for over 20 years and about 11 years ago I roughly sketched up this design but couldn't get over the weight problem,

 

having to use shafts and right angle drives and reductions etc.

 

After watching the Avatar movie in 2010, it got me all fired up and motivated to revisit my design (which at the time didn't look like the finished version).

 

Now that there are brushless motors of up to 80hp and weighing less than 15kg, with almost 95% efficiency; almost anything is now possible.

 

And with the big advances in lightweight batteries, which keep coming every couple of months the future looks very electric.

 

 

[pylon500]

I had been digging through old youtube clips of the Convair Pogo, and got to thinking the amount of power required for vertical lift, if converted fully to thrust by becoming wing-born, should come back with a fairly high speed (as with the Pogo)

 

Although I never did any structural layouts, I did a lot of thinking on the control layout and modes of flight.

 

Basic structure was a large glass/epoxy covered polystyrene delta, powered by a Rotax 503 driving contra-rotating lift blades, that employed 'floating, self pitching blades', all sitting atop a universal mount with a T bar control arm with throttle grip and a brake lever used to de-pitch the blades for power-up/decent/auto-rotation.

 

The T bar could be twisted like a pushbike handlebar, and was connected to the ailerons (elevons actually) giving roll in normal (horizontal) flight, or yawing motion when hovering.

 

The T bar was moved laterally, and for and aft (similar to a hang glider A frame) which while hovering gave translation control and in level flight would couple to the elevons for pitch and roll as described above.

 

Sidewards movement of the T bar in level flight would give yaw control, but not really needed and would possibly be locked out until hovering again.

 

Some people would take a bit of getting used to being strapped up what would be 'underneath' while in level flight, but most hang glider pilots would take to it.

 

Cant find any of my drawings just now, but did make a little animation some years back, but only have one frame.

 

This is very rough, but gives the idea...

 

 

Flying techniques needed a bit more study, but hovering would be fairly intuitive, level flight is fairly straight forward, but decent and transition to hover would be a bit 'trick'

 

There are a few choices with engine failures, all dependant on height, usually ending up under a ballistic chute.

 

Don't know how it would be registered and dare say no-one would want to be first to accept it...

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

The rapid advancement in lightweight, high power brushless electric motors is the key to this type of aircraft; any other type of propulsion kills it off with excessive weight.I have had a passion for ducted fans and shrouded props for over 20 years and about 11 years ago I roughly sketched up this design but couldn't get over the weight problem,

 

having to use shafts and right angle drives and reductions etc.

 

After watching the Avatar movie in 2010, it got me all fired up and motivated to revisit my design (which at the time didn't look like the finished version).

 

Now that there are brushless motors of up to 80hp and weighing less than 15kg, with almost 95% efficiency; almost anything is now possible.

 

And with the big advances in lightweight batteries, which keep coming every couple of months the future looks very electric.

I have to agree with you about the electric motors development - but batteries ...? What do you know that I haven't come across yet?

 

As far as I understood nothing at all of any significance has happened for many years. For any reasonable power density we've been stagnated on Lithium based batteries for a long time with no plausible real developments likely in current technology since Lithium is the lightest metal. Hydrogen fuel cells might have a future but they're not cost or weight efficient yet as far as I know.

 

I'd be very interested in your take on what battery power/weight advancements are likely to come about in the foreseeable future. I'd love to think that you're right because it'd be wonderful to see electric flight develop much more quickly than it has done so far.

 

 

[Blackhawk]

Although my VTOL is a Hybrid and not relying on batteries, here is a link to some very forward thinking by Volvo and other European companies.

 

http://www.wired.com/2013/10/volvo-supercapacitors/

 

Imagine all the fuselage and wings of an aircraft made like this.

 

 

[Blackhawk]

Here is another 2 from my files.

 

http://inhabitat.com/rice-universitys-carbon-nanotube-paint-turns-any-surface-into-a-solar-battery/

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/153614-new-lithium-ion-battery-design-thats-2000-times-more-powerful-recharges-1000-times-faster

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Yes, all interesting stuff, but note that the articles describing the two more promising concepts, IMHO, the first and last, are getting on for two years old and not been heard of since. This is the problem with the vast majority of genuinely impressive new developments, they might work but are prohibitively costly to bring to market or they're too demanding in production technology.

 

I wish them well and sincerely hope that something useful is developed in the near future but I've been following EV technology for years now with a very great interest in developing something using a series hybrid power-plant but not yet found anything at all encouraging as far as significant battery development is concerned. Not saying it won't happen but I've had too many disappointments along the way so far.

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

Amazing looking design, I'll be watching with interest. I can see that having a lot of applications, rapid response aeromedical being just one!