This is totally non-sense : A Coax hellico is something much fragile. Not the kind of thing to venture in rough tracks...

Especialy is army ops.

And to consider that the props will do the gear is also non-productiv at all, especially in rought tracks. What a waste of power!

Ummm...

It's all cool and all, but 'ducted fan propulsion on the ground'?

Dumb. Slow moving from a dead stop, poor acceleration (compared to wheel drive).

In almost any environment that has a bit of dust, that thing is going to be a highly visible target for days!

Still want one.

The ducted fans provide power in the air AND on the ground!!! The plumes of dust and crap blowing about behind it are going to be a bit of a tactical give-away, aren't they? Can't help feeling that selectable hydrostatic drive to the wheels might be a better option for ground operations, specially in off-road conditions where driven wheels are essential to maintain controllable progress. Hmmm!

Looks very fragile at ground level, prone to grenade, explosive, or bullet damage in the engines. Why are the tires not more protected? Also, this looks like an RPG-magnet.

I think the troops are at risk in this.

It may not be the best right now, but it is the best concept by far!

That seems a very expensive and non=protected way to transport 4 soldiers.

As others have commented the lack of direct drive will likely doom this concept to an R&D one off. The design team may correct this although it will increase the weight. The fragility issue of a flight weight vehicle is a more difficult issue so the vehicle will have a limited life. Part of the concept is to fly over and avoid the need for armor rather than being heavy enough to withstand armed assaults. With more and more power available more lightweight armor could be added but testing will show if the concept is viable at all.

AVX,,,,another pie in the sky (joke! )The guys who designed this will never be in one when the RPG start incoming !

Seems like yet another stylists "sky hook".

I'd imagine the maintenance burden would be similar to normal helicopters at around 3 hours per hour of operation, probably more given the ground equipment and the hammering it would get cross country.

The ducted fan propulsion on the ground would be a total disaster as well, with the ducted fans needing to provide MORE than 50% of the vehicles mass in thrust to climb a 50% grade and more like 75% of the vehicles mass in static thrust to be able to match a traditional vehicles off road capability.

Additionally, I'd imagine that over almost any terrain the debris kicked up by using a powerful ducted fan as a primary propulsion system would be seriously dangerous for anyone nearby. I don't imagine it would look too good for the US forces if their vehicles started killing people with rocks kicked up by the ducted fans.

A Concept only close to what should be achieved.

Instead of a complicated helicopter a far simpler gyrocopter is a better solution:

advantage: extremely simple rotor mechanics, also counter clockwise rotors,

electric prerotator in between the rotors, pusher engines for flight like here,

fully automated flight controls, electric wheel hub motors in the rear/all wheels,

later with fuel cell engine instead of jet/combustion engine

jump take off capability (

Interesting concept for civilian application, as flight hardware is above the roadrash level (ducted fan could be mounted higher) a problem which will affect the Terrafuga flying car with its wings begging to be bumped in the carpark.

VTOL attractive as may be, in civvie life is somewhat farfeched as the power required for this requires powerplants and fuel combustion rates outside of most civilian budgets. Autogyro is the way to go.

Well DARPA puts out a call seeking designs for a tactical flying car? If this is what they can actually publish, let's hope the concepts that actually make sense, are being kept under wraps! :)

Unfortunately, the Gizmag report on this concept is incorrect. The vehicle has direct drive on the ground with electric wheel motors.

The driving part of this vehicle would have to be secondary to the flying part. Meaning it would have to be optimized (and used) mainly for flying, then only drive short distances at moderate speed. Or possibly for silently driving into very risky places where it is very likely an/or planned that they will need to fly out quickly, such as covert strike or rescue ops. Current technology limitations combined with frailty of the flying hardware would make it difficult to have a full on up-armored HMMV that flies. It would be similar to how this concept looks: a heli that can drive a little ways on dirt roads.

One would think they would have looked up "Hafner Flying Jeep" or "Rotabuggy," WW2 project for a towable rotary-wing Jeep "glider."

Replace the autogyro system with a real helicopter powered rotor and tail assembly, lose 2/3 the weight of a jeep (by making the road-going portion of lightweight materials). you'd still have a heavy, unwieldly helicopter with limited range and carrying capacity, and an awkward ground vehicle.

Here are the conclusions I reached regarding this scenario about 7 years ago:

Separate the automobile and aircraft functions. Resurrect the Goodyear "Inflato-Plane," so the aircraft is carried in the trunk of the SUV/ambulance, or use a conventional helicopter to carry passengers and trail bikes or a "quad ambulance."

If you want stealth, use electric motorcycles. I'm assuming all military hardware is "disposable," so most of the metal bits of the trail bikes could be made of combustible magnesium so they could be burned up and destroyed at the end of the mission, leaving behind nothing the enemy can use.

go ahead great work but it should come India right

Earnestly, I would prefer to fly in a "mule" like this one

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/02/327279/mule-unmanned-air-vehicle-readied-for-hover-test.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135812

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/14/327887/paris-air-show-urban-displays-mule-vtol-uav.html

Is sounds much more efficient.

If you are aire-born, why bother driving on earth?

The flying car with the coaxial rotors is a stroke of genius, eliminating the need for a tailrotor and making room for twin fans to propel it forward and allow it to turn. Hats off to the engineer who came up with this.