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VTOL
PALV hoping to lead personal transportation revolution
By Mike Hanlon
14 October 2004 What happens if you cross a gyrocopter with a car and a motorbike? The PALV is the answer, a personal air and land concept vehicle designed to solve the increasing congestion in our cities and highways. On the ground, the slimline, aerodynamic 3-wheel vehicle is as comfortable as a luxury car, yet has the agility of a motorbike, thanks to its patented cutting-edge 'tilting' system. The single rotor and propeller are folded away until the PALV is ready to fly. Read More
The Airscooter: a helicopter for the home?
By Mike Hanlon
January 21, 2005 The AirScooter II is an ultralight helicopter designed for easy control and manoeuvrability that looks set to take personal recreational airborne vehicles to new heights. Designed by AirScooter Corporation, the AirScooter II is a vehicle that has looked to aviation's past to help develop its future. In building and designing the AirScooter II, inventor and AirScooter Corporation cofounder Woody Norris and his team have successfully adapted a technology that has had a long line of difficulties in getting off the ground. We all recognise the modern helicopter, with its main rotor and tail rotor, but in terms of rotorcraft, the coaxial type had seemed likely to be limited to high-tech military and large transport helicopters. but things are progressing well and the future looks incredibly bright for the innovative and intelligent design of AirScooter II, an ultra-lightweight coaxial rotorcraft helicopter. Read More
The Bell Eagle Eye UTAV ready to fly
By Mike Hanlon
The Eagle Eye UTAV is intelligent, flies like an aircraft and takes off and lands vertically. It will fly into the toughest life-threatening conditions imaginable so human beings don't need to. It's also capable of providing the best recon reports, in the worst dynamic conditions, hour after hover-flight hour, because it uses the same tiltrotor technology as its big brother Osprey to provide a runwayless solution for the ultimate in ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.) Read More
Maiden Flight of the Australian ARH Tiger
By Mike Hanlon
The first Tiger production helicopter ARH (Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter) version, for Australia, performed its maiden flight at Eurocopter's Marignane plant on 20 February 2004. This 50 minute flight gave the flight test pilot, Jacques Larra, and the flight test engineer, Bernard Jansonnie, the opportunity to check that all systems were operating correctly and to check out the complete flight envelope. Read More
CarterCopter: a high-speed, low-cost helicopter
By Mike Hanlon
Mass personal flight will become a reality sometime this century and one of the companies vying for a share of this lucrative market will be Carter Aviation, creator of the CarterCopter - a VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft projected to cruise at 800 kmh (500mph) at 45,000 feet or 300 kmh at sea level. Suitable for designs as small as a two-seater, all the way through to Jumbo size, the CarterCopter's future is very promising. Read More
Yamaha's RMAX - the worlds most advanced non-military UAV
By Mike Hanlon
UPDATED Nov 19, 2004 The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), is a term you'll hear a lot more about over the coming years. In the past it has mainly been mentioned whenever a technologically advanced country (aka the USA) is involved in warfare. The biggest advantage of a UAV is that it can be put 'in harm's way' - it can be put in a dangerous situation where the odds of losing a pilot (the most valuable part of any aircraft) are simply too great. Now Yamaha has unveiled a range of Unmanned Ground, Marine and Air Vehicles that bring autonomous capability to the world around us. Read More
Highlights from a Century of Flight
By Mike Hanlon
On December 17, 1903 Orville Wright became the first human to experience powered flight. Though the brothers Wright had invited folk from far and wide to watch the event at Kittyhawk, it is indicative of the skepticism of the time that just five people journied out that morning to witness this significant feat (three of those from the local 'life-saving station'). Once flight had been achieved, the news sparked an astonishing cavalcade of development which has continued unabated for the last 100 years. Read More
UCAR - the next generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
By Mike Hanlon
Sunday August 17, 2003: The Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) Program aims to take pilot-less aircraft to the next level by creating an intelligent "pack" that can take action individually or in collaboration to locate and destroy targets in the battlefield... Read More
VTOL AirBike Concept
By Mike Hanlon
Saturday July 26, 2003 Swapping internal combustion for turbine power, Allied Aerotechnics is developing a VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Landing) motorcycle concept designed to access areas that are totally out of reach for any other type of vehicle. Read More
Exoskeletons: Wearable Robots
By Mike Hanlon
The human body is unsurpassed in the complexity of its design, performance and efficiency, but there are definite limitations to what we can achieve with a frame that's around 6ft high - we can only carry so much weight, jump so far or run so fast before we reach our physical boundary. Machines that overcome these limitations have been with us for centuries, but we are only beginning to explore the possibilities of augmentation - extending our existing capabilities through wearable robot exoskeletons to create superhuman strength, speed and stamina. Read More
Concept aircraft combines VTOL with fixed wing capabilities
By Mike Hanlon
A small Norwegian company is developing an aircraft that aims to take advantage of the "best of two worlds": the Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) properties of a helicopter and the high-speed potential of a fixed-wing plane. Read More
Remote Controlled Helicopter with on-board Eyecam
By Mike Hanlon
Here's a novel way to make the most of your valuable time on the coach - the Draganflyer III remote controlled helicopter delivers full aerial manoeuvrability and high-speed flying for around five minutes at a time with the option of adding a micro-video Eyecam... Read More
The Next Step: Cars that Fly
By Mike Hanlon
It would look right at home on the set of Bladerunner or the latest Star Wars film, but the Moller M400 Skycar - a versatile, economical, safe, environmentally-responsible Flying Car - is definitely for real.June 3, 2004 It would look right at home on the set of Bladerunner or the latest Star Wars film, but the Moller M400 Skycar - a versatile, economical, safe, environmentally-responsible Flying Car - is definitely for real. Opening up the next frontier in automotive personal transport, the SkyCar is a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) vehicle with a cruising speed of 600kmh, a range of more than 1400km, runs on almost any fuel from diesel to natural gas and achieves better fuel efficiency than many sports cars (15mpg or 19 litres per 100km). Read More
Freedom Glen
- November 25, 2009 @ 02:47 UTC
