AeroQuad: the foldable, self-stabilizing VTOL personal flying platform

Ummmm... Who the heck wants to stand on top of two rotor blades? Looks like a good way to lose some body parts to me.

Jonathan Hatfield

- March 19, 2009 @ 05:03 pm PDT

Crop spraying? Possibly. But the pilot will need a full filtration suit for most arable chemicals.

Firefighting? Lacks carrying capacity. Possible use as an observational platform, but then a cherry picker can do that too. And doesn't create a draft that fans flames.

As far as anything to do with people or livestock goes, it's a non-starter. No way two counter rotating rotors at knee height is going to be anything other than a Health & Safety disaster. There's also precious little ground clearance for those rotor tips were a gust to catch the craft at the point of landing and tip it.

As for mountain work, they don't tell us what the powerplant is, but from the limited pictures there's no turbocharger and it's a conventional piston engine. So anything above about 6,000 ft and it would struggle to lift its own weight, much less `200kg`

I think it's right to be sceptical. Perhaps they have videos of the craft performing all these claimed functions?

snave

- March 20, 2009 @ 02:03 am PDT