Air Taxi In-The-Making Reviving A Century-Old Patent Completes Successful Flight
Image via CycloTech
Many visions of “the future” drawn up in the past involve very cool things like hoverboards and flying cars. 1982 sci-fi hit Blade Runner did say so, after all.
Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet. But if you’re someone who has been sorely disappointed by the lack of cars zipping through the aerospace, there may be some welcome news on the horizon.
And this comes in the form of an eVTOL equipped with CycloRotors. Designed by CycloTech, a startup based in Austria, the prototype vehicle is aiming to become a flying taxi. In August, it successfully completed its first free flight and landing.
“Air taxis will become a daily part of our lives as well as drones, inspecting infrastructure, fulfilling search and rescue missions, or delivering goods directly to the customer’s doors,” the company prophesizes.
To facilitate this is the CycloRotor’s design, which, excitingly, makes the vehicle actually resemble a car. Despite its name, it’s not actually rotors that dictate its movement: it’s Voith-Schneider propellers.
These replace the wheels in a conventional car design, each containing a spinning tube, with walls made from wing blades, to push the vehicle along, somewhat similar to the ATEA.
Image via CycloTech
New Atlas notes that, fascinatingly, this harks back to a prop design which “looks a bit like it belongs on the back of an 1850s paddle steamer.” Although a patent was filed for it almost a century ago, the design hadn’t made an appearance on a production aircraft—until now, that is.
Image via CycloTech
Apart from giving the vehicle a pretty unique look, the CycloRotor’s propulsion system also means that there’s a wider range of movement for the vehicle, since it doesn’t need to do a transition between vertical and normal flight during takeoff and landing, which the firm dubs “a highly unstable and inefficient flight mission phase.”
Instead, it’s capable of rapidly changing and flying at any direction on its rotational axis, promising “superior maneuverability.” It’ll also mean that smaller landing pads are required, taking up less space in an urban environment.
The prototype vehicle the CycloRotor was successfully tested on weighed around 183lbs, and resembles a descaled five-seater air taxi. You can see the test flight here:
CycloTech provides a superior solution to many UAV and UAM applications. CycloRotors impress with precision, controllability, and a stable transition from hover to flight, due to the patented 360° propulsion technology.
— CycloTech GmbH (@CycloTech_AT) June 14, 2021
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[via Interesting Engineering, cover image via CycloTech]
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